Show Off Your American Gamefowl and Chat Thread!!!

[roosterhavoc]

With flypens that are much taller and used for higher value birds, management is very much like with horse stalls although birds are rotated out into pens or tie cords.


Pen movement for me not just about leaving waste behind, it can also be about using birds to manage the plant community. I value greens in the diet as a supplement to grains and other nutrient dense components. Having birds with ability to scratch about helps with moral well.

I manage my plant community with a lawnmower. The birds I have running around the yard hang out alongside the mower running down grasshoppers. That's about the extent of it.

 

[sdm111]

Don't worry me and fly pens is coming in the spring when the warm fronts stop over us and we get the ever so popular training effect we get down here when it rains for a week then a day or two off then another few days rain and like that for a mo or so around aprilish. It stays flooded around my parts.

 

[sdm111]

I manage my plant community with a lawnmower. The birds I have running around the yard hang out alongside the mower running down grasshoppers. That's about the extent of it.

My property is so hilly and about 40% pine trees and dirt so I do more weed eating than mowing.

 

[roosterhavoc]

I'm not sure I fully understand what some of you guys are saying about free ranging gamefowl or any birds for that matter. The ones who make it and are still alive is not just because they were smart enough to get away from predators, hearty enough to avoid disease etc.. Some of it has to be luck. Therefore in the process many great birds may have been lost to that approach. While I don't think one way is better than the next. You will definately have more dead birds. A few may fight off a small hawk or even a fox pup but the determined breeding pair of foxes will kill them all in a few nights if not stopped. I have many birds that are still alive that shouldn't be. I watch them cross the yard to get blackberries on the other side in broad daylight without a care in the world, yet are still kicking. Some have managed to survive no less than 10 fox attacks, a few raccoon and numerous hawks plus the many that I didn't see. Some of these birds are pushing 6-7 yrs old. Some of them don't even go in the coop at night. Sleep right on top of pen attached. Dumber than dumb.

 

[roosterhavoc]

My property is so hilly and about 40% pine trees and dirt so I do more weed eating than mowing.

with all the fencing I have I spend an equal amount of time mowing and weed eating, I prefer mowing

 

[sdm111]

Lol we opposites in that regard. I'll weedeat all day long but don't really care to mow.

 

[roosterhavoc]

Lol we opposites in that regard. I'll weedeat all day long but don't really care to mow.

yeah but I'm sitting on the riding mower with a cup of coffee and a fine cigar lol

 

[maranfarmer563]

Havoc,what was that predator load for shot gun,you told me about?

 

[sdm111]

Ahh I see the difference I'm behind a self propelled with wore out tennis shoes getting hit by sticks. And no I can't pick up the sticks and pine cones beforehand. Ha. Speaking of predators a couple yrs ago I had a miner stag coming up looking good he had a med blue base and penciled dark blue on every feather looked like 3d scales and lost him to a frickin fox it was before the elec fence. Wish I could have seen him grow out

 

[maranfarmer563]

Sdm have your birds started laying?