SE Tennessee

Peach2u

Songster
8 Years
Mar 25, 2011
514
14
123
Harrison Bay, TN
I'm just looking for a local thread to share information. Chicken or other wise. I am in Hamilton county. I have a small flock of Americana's, {FS} BCM, Olive eggers and Easter Eggers. I have a few singles that are just yard candy and not in my breeding program. I had a hard winter this year. My flock is down to 17 from 43 in the fall. I had a massacre in my coop one morning. I lost all but 3 of last years hatch all but 1 from the year before, as well as my oldest which was 5 years old and my favorite and only rooster Mr. friendly. All my fault I forgot to close the hatch to the coop that night.

I am now starting over on my Olive Egger goal. Since I lost all but 1 OE hen and 2 OE rooster. I still have most of my 3 and 4 year old Americana's hens and 1 {FS} BCM hen and 1 wellsummer hen. Thankfully I had 3 young roos from last year to survive. They where still under their mom's in a broody box. After the attack to took a few weeks for the chickens to want to sleep in the coop again. For the first few nights I had to do the chicken round up. I had them roosting on my porch, in the dog kennel, on the roof and in the holly trees. Once everyone was caught, I put them on lock down. No free range for about a month. That's about how long it took me to convince my sole OE hen to not roost in the holly bush. Putting on thick gloves every night to grab a chicken and put her up every night got old. But she was safe. She is the only one who can flow over the 20' coop. That too has since been fixed.

Between the trauma of raccoon's and very cold winter, they stopped laying for 3 months. Only one that got frostbite was the rooster. He had a huge spike comb. Now it is a big rounded comb. Had to change his name from Spike to Mr. Cheeks. Three morning in a roll at 0 didn't help ;-) So anyway, I have an extra Olive egger rooster for free. He was hatched in Oct 2013.
I picked up some new genes for next years layers blue and black copper Marans, blue americana's and wheaten Americana's. Also picked up some blue BO's just for yard candy and eggs not for breeding. For most of the winter I kept thinking I didn't want to have chickens any more. I they are my pets and losing them like that was just awful. I now loath raccoon's. Killing for food I get,but killing for sport aghh. At least the hawks take one at a time if given the chance. What I had to clean up was just murder. The war is on!

We also have a pack of coyotes that run across our yard just about every night. They have crossed the line too. They grabbed my puppy off the porch. Thankfully she had the basset baggy skin and wiggled away as I was running and yelling after them. I had to re-home her. She refused to go outside after that. I want a dog but not sure what can stand up to that and be a lap dog too. The country was peaceful till they moved in!
 
Wow, that's some carnage right there! Might be time to set some raccoon traps and feed the 'yotes some lead.

I'm so new to chickens that I haven't even started yet, so I can't offer any advice based on experience. I would suggest that anything that has offered you so much enjoyment in the past shouldn't be avoided. After all, you've got 17 birds depending on you. Your gals have healed and started laying once again so perhaps you can channel your thoughts and energies into rebuilding the flock.

I'm in Bradley County, but live in a built up area so that 'yotes aren't seemingly around. Ditto raccoons, but I imagine they are here, just not seen.

Good luck with rebuilding, I'm sure you'll have more birds that before in short order.
 
I'm just north of Chattanooga. Everything from coyote to bobcat to Fox and hawks - and of course raccoon snakes and opposum.
Best thing we ever did here at Red Ridge Farm is begin using Italian Maremma. I haven't lost a chicken, rabbit, lamb or calf since. I truly couldn't run this place without them.
 
I loaned my small bator and a dozen Rhodebar eggs to my sisters school to hatch. They hatched 5 pullets and 5 cockerels, so anyone wanting easily sexed Rhodebar chicks please let me know... I will not be keeping any of this hatch since I just had knee surgery about 10 hrs ago and will not be able to take care of them.
 

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