The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[delisha]

Go Grandpa!!
That is awesome!!!

 

[aoxa]

Go Grandpa!!
That is awesome!!!

This will help keep the meaties from eating my eggs!

 

[delisha]

Quote: did you catch them breaking the eggs?

Maybe it was susan..or the dog..or the neighbor..blaming the meaties for every thing is so not fare!!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: did you catch them breaking the eggs?

Maybe it was susan..or the dog..or the neighbor..blaming the meaties for every thing is so not fare!!

 

[aoxa]

did you catch them breaking the eggs?

Maybe it was susan..or the dog..or the neighbor..blaming the meaties for every thing is so not fare!!

They are the only ones with yolk all over them

Nope not dogs. They won't go near the fence.

Could be Susan. Maybe you are on to something. I have collected one egg the past three days. I went to make fried eggs last night for dinner and ended up dropping one... I was not impressed!

 

[delisha]

Quote:
see..you and susan are breaking eggs and blaming the poor meaties..they get such a bad rap

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Just had yet another Hawk fly in and land on a tree 20 feet from the girls. This one was different no bright cream chest.... Off to that website to try and ID... Like it makes a difference

I mean a hawks a hawk and they all want a chicken snack no matter what type of hawk it is!

A coworker showed me a video he took last weekend of a hawk dive bombing a blue jay carrying to the neighbors yard and having a nice snack!!!

We had a tiny hawk here the other day. It was very annoying and brave. But not even as big as my almost laying chickens. I'm told it would eat the mice and leave my chickens alone.

The nesting boxes look great. I want someone to come build me a run. Any great ideas for some cheap sturdy fencing / posts? I keep debating on how tall I want the run and what I want to cover it with.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Sally - I got my "run" fence on craigslist. Looked for dog kennels and bought a total of two 6 ft. tall 10x10 kennels over a few months. I started with the one and added another later. I paid about $75 for each kennel which is greatly reduced from purchasing them new.

Sometimes you can find them for even less. One nice thing about that is that you get a panel that has a gate already hung. Since I have 2, I have 2 gates. They're easy to put up and you can just bury some wire under each panel for predator digging protection and then cover the top with hardware cloth, cattle panel, chicken wire or whatever you want to keep them from going over. And..the parts are readily available at Lowes or Menards if anything is missing.

Of course...you might be looking to fence a much larger area than I'm thinking?

Front Gate




Back Gate

 

[aoxa]

see..you and susan are breaking eggs and blaming the poor meaties..they get such a bad rap

The poor things.

I'm just so tired of their aggressive eating at this point now that forage is pretty much nothing. I won't do them in the fall in large numbers again. I like the summer ones better. They have more to hunt for and explore.

The two girls I still have aren't the issue. They are sleeping in a different pen and those eggs aren't breaking that the hens lay in there. But since light is about 9 hours now, I don't get many with the older hens.

I have 50 Pennies gearing up to lay any week now. Those nesting boxes will be really useful!

 

[delisha]

Quote: it will really help with the broken eggs..and yes..they are very food aggressive with lack of foraging material..try sectioning off an area in your yard at about September and plant some greens. Keep it fenced off from the birds and just let the heavies in after they get established later in the year. (spinach, kale, lettuce, cabbage, collards, squash). It will help next year this time of year. I just opened mine up..they have all of the leaves off the peppers and squash and the rest they are working on. I need to get some garlic over there like last week.