The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[KF0002]

1,500 pages

Congratulations on a successful thread! It's because we are a chatty bunch. lol

 

[KF0002]

I know that everyone's situations are different. We have hawks, owls, coyotes, and sometimes stay dogs here.

The coyotes stay well away because of our dogs, thankfully. We lose a few birds here and there to possums and racoons. If hawks take some, I don't notice.

 

[KF0002]

Good luck with the eggs.
You should be getting better weather for a few anyways. Today starts 2 days in the lower 60s then 2 right at 70°. Storms and lower 50s for the weekend then a whole string of 50s after that. Think we're headed for the downhill slide here.

Thank you! I hope at least some are fertile, but I won't get my hopes up since the roosters the pullets are with are young. I will candle them this weekend and see if any are beginning to develop.

It was in the 40's here today. I got a call from my husband this afternoon that he had taken down a buck in the woods behind our house so he and my son drug it to the 4-wheeler and brought it to the house. We got it gutted and they took it to the man who processes them for us. I was glad for the cold in that case as it gets the deer cooled down fast after gutting it. Next year, I hope to be able to process our own but where they took the first buck in between my work shifts, I had to sleep. And where I have to work tonight, we found it best to take the buck my husband shot today to the processors also. I have a vacuum sealer and know the anatomy to process them, but it takes time to do it and it is hard because I have had to work both nights they have harvested deer. If I didn't have to work tonight, I would have hung him, processed, and packed the meat myself. Oh the woes of having a job, bills, and responsibilities!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

We have had run-ins with them also. There are a pair at least that live and nest close to our property because we hear them hooting in the night to one another. They likely do pick off a few chickens a year, but not enough that we notice much (I know that sounds horrible!). We raise an overabundance of chickens, so when we lose a few to predators, the surplus numbers softens the blow quite a bit. My husband caught one once on a pole with a steel trap at the top. We had a worse issue with them on the property where we use to live. They don't cause much bother now that we know of. I jokingly say that if predators pick off a few, it saves us the trouble of culling through them so much. lol Nature does the culling for us.

You caught a GHO in a trap?

 

[KF0002]

You caught a GHO in a trap?

I didn’t, my husband did many years ago before we were married. They had a really bad problem with them at the property where he lived before we met. I lived there with him briefly after we met, then we moved to where we live now. If it is illegal, the statute of limitations has long passed.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Wowzers.

 

[McChooky]

I ran outside and got all my dogs back in the house the 1st time I heard a bunch of owls caterwauling.How did I grow up in West Virginia and not know what that was? They sound like monkeys

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Wow! They do sound like monkeys! I would not have known what that was either.

 

[McChooky]

Wow! They do sound like monkeys! I would not have known what that was either.

The loud clicking sound they make when they sound an alert will send a chill up your spine.Barred Owls are territorial and will attack people in the head (they'll yank your hair out with their talons)The defence in a murder trial accused one of attacking a woman and causing her to fall down stairs .Her husband was sentenced to prison for her murder. https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a21343954/the-staircase-netflix-owl-theory-true-crime-doc/

 

[McChooky]

The Federal Government wants to kill 1/2 million barred owls for threatening the spotted owls out west. Their reason is the barred owl is a better hunter therefore its a threat to the spotted owl