Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[FirewifeJess]

Carolyn, Vetericyn VF is readily and easily available on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003OF51D4/?tag=backy-20
That's only ONE of the many options of the VF.

 

[CarolynF]

Carolyn, Vetericyn VF is readily and easily available on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003OF51D4/?tag=backy-20
That's only ONE of the many options of the VF.

Super! That's great. I'm glad to see it's easy to find now. Thank you.

 

[CarolynF]

Time to celebrate! The pen extension is finished!! Yippee, the girls have more room to roam in the predator resistant pen. Now we won't feel quite as guilty when they have to stay penned up when we're away for a while.

Next step is enlarging their coop. One step at a time....

 

[CailetTempest]

Well I've been away from here for awhile: wow over 700 pages on new thread.... lol

Update: we have finished the move into our new house. got the pens all built for the birds. We are down to 3 ducks (hunny swears they are mallards but i think rouens) 1 girl and 2 boys... 3 speckled sussex hens, 4 barred rock hens and 2 soon to be dinner mutt roosters. 1 dog (dolly our red heeler) 2 cats: Felix who is 1/2 scottish fold 1/2 shorthair and his half brother Yoda (same dad different moms) Yoda has a persion for a mom and same dad as felix. Yoda is 7 months old now and is twice the size of Felix.

My kiddos started their new school and love it. Hunny's grown daughter still puts it down because it is 0.5% caucasion. (she's a bit racist i think) and in december we finally got a definate diagnoses of what is going on with my youngest. Autism (high functioning) with overlay of ADHD symptoms. It has been a battle for me for many years to get an answer. So december was a relief of finally having the answer I already knew. Now on to the resources and paperwork to get him what I have known for years that he needed.

In spring we are looking to get more speckled sussex. Both hunny and I love the personality and attitude of them besides the colorful looks of them.

anyways that's my somewhat short update. Hi everyone

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Well- we figured out what killed my layer last weekend. A hawk. And it struck again today, killing 2 of my Bantams who were in a secure cage, with a top, and with my mom and sister home. We drove up the driveway and saw it flying from the scence. We thought they'd be fine as we were home and keeping a close eye on them- but we were wrong.

I'm so sorry that you've lost even more birds.  Might want to consider the 3S rule.

Killing a hawk is against the law.  I don't think it is good advice to suggest to someone that they do something illegal. 

SERIOUSLY illegal (a federal felony), indeed, and, as a complication, very hard to do privately, unless you've got no neighbors within a couple of miles.

Shoot, shovel and shut up works for coyotes, crows, starlings and other people's roving dogs: anything with a controlled hunt (bears, cougars, bobcats...) and hawks, owls, and eagles are more trouble than you want to get into.

And unless you're very sure of both your aim and what's behind your target, the "shoot" part is probably best left out, too.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

LOL - Just went to that website for the first time and just am almost in tears it is so funny.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

If you have a large property, you could try setting up a bird feeder somewhere away from the chickens. Hawks consider bird feeders as buffets.If you're lucky, it will hunt the wild birds there.

Unfortunately for me the rest of my property is forest, that is where the hawks stage the attacks. The only open areas on my property are my 12,000sf front yard and 18,000sf back yard. And I don't want to attract the hawks to the front yard as my neighbors flock is right across the street. I am just gonna take away the food and hope they move on. I really need to kill the 2 coyotes that have set up in the area. They are taking all the rabbits and squirrels away from the hawks, leaving them to hunt for the chickens.

The problem with coyotes is that if you kill off the resident pair (who don't live together, nor do they hunt the same part of the territory, which makes things even trickier) there's always a couple of yearlings to come and take over the territory within a year at most. I'm feeling discouraged about the situation myself because even with the way my neighborhood has been built up, there's sufficient cover in parks, stormwater control areas, the railroad right of way and vacant lots for the coyotes to breed successfully, and the locals have taken to specializing in hunting cats and small dogs, tipping over garbage cans, and taking my cousin's chickens: mine are behind a whole lot of wire.

One thing about hawk and owl predation which I keep forgetting to say: tightly strung, flat, tidy roof wire is more vulnerable than stuff that looks much messier, but ALL of it needs to be doubled or put on with lathe at the edges. Plastic wire will not keep out a GHO or a Cooper's Hawk. Two-inch mesh chicken wire can be put down loose over a layer of plastic over a layer of more structural wire and nothing will land on it because it's insecure and acts as a snare (raccoons hate that lash up, too). It's not pretty, but it works. Overlap edges, over-engineer fasteners (I use drywall screws and fender washers, not staples; easier to reuse when I change my mind) use PVC pipe instead of wood where it works (not as vulnerable to gnawing rodents) or overbuild all the framing: remember, with chickens, you're keeping predators out, not chickens in. OH: which means the wire and fasteners go on the OUTSIDE of the frame, so the predators weight works to make the attachment more secure. (Cows are different, the wire and staples go on the cow side of the fence to keep them in, and even then there's always the possibility they'll just push the posts over.



Go to Woodland Park some day and look closely at the way the pheasant pens are made: to be pretty, rat-proof, and raptor proof, they use wire that none of us could afford, but the important thing is they use more than one layer on the lower walls and roof. 1/2" mesh metal hardware cloth or 1/2" X 1" welded cage wire (which is not mouse proof, BTW, but chickens think mice are treat food) with no gaps nor exposed wood will keep out anything big enough to damage chickens; 1/2" mesh plastic hardware cloth is better for buried dig-proofing because the metal stuff rusts fast in this climate.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Sorry to have been gone so long: last week was a bearcat, and this one's starting out the same. I unhinged my bad (left) ankle, and then the sheep took a whack at my bad (right) knee, and then I was mercilessly attacked by a knife-edged two gallon's worth chunk of ice which had formed on the roof of Malvina's dwelling, which fell five feet onto frozen ground, bounced toward me, and whacked me neatly on both already unhappy bendy bits.

Which has complicated my life no end, since the waterline to the chicken yard wasn't turned off and drained, so I've been having to haul water since Saturday. I am not best pleased.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote: The problem with coyotes is that if you kill off the resident pair (who don't live together, nor do they hunt the same part of the territory, which makes things even trickier) there's always a couple of yearlings to come and take over the territory within a year at most. I'm feeling discouraged about the situation myself because even with the way my neighborhood has been built up, there's sufficient cover in parks, stormwater control areas, the railroad right of way and vacant lots for the coyotes to breed successfully, and the locals have taken to specializing in hunting cats and small dogs, tipping over garbage cans, and taking my cousin's chickens: mine are behind a whole lot of wire.

One thing about hawk and owl predation which I keep forgetting to say: tightly strung, flat, tidy roof wire is more vulnerable than stuff that looks much messier, but ALL of it needs to be doubled or put on with lathe at the edges. Plastic wire will not keep out a GHO or a Cooper's Hawk. Two-inch mesh chicken wire can be put down loose over a layer of plastic over a layer of more structural wire and nothing will land on it because it's insecure and acts as a snare (raccoons hate that lash up, too). It's not pretty, but it works. Overlap edges, over-engineer fasteners (I use drywall screws and fender washers, not staples; easier to reuse when I change my mind) use PVC pipe instead of wood where it works (not as vulnerable to gnawing rodents) or overbuild all the framing: remember, with chickens, you're keeping predators out, not chickens in. OH: which means the wire and fasteners go on the OUTSIDE of the frame, so the predators weight works to make the attachment more secure. (Cows are different, the wire and staples go on the cow side of the fence to keep them in, and even then there's always the possibility they'll just push the posts over.



Go to Woodland Park some day and look closely at the way the pheasant pens are made: to be pretty, rat-proof, and raptor proof, they use wire that none of us could afford, but the important thing is they use more than one layer on the lower walls and roof. 1/2" mesh metal hardware cloth or 1/2" X 1" welded cage wire (which is not mouse proof, BTW, but chickens think mice are treat food) with no gaps nor exposed wood will keep out anything big enough to damage chickens; 1/2" mesh plastic hardware cloth is better for buried dig-proofing because the metal stuff rusts fast in this climate.

The thing with the coyotes around here is we have not had any until this year. We have always had an abundance of rabbits and squirrels. But now they are all gone. And this mating pair hunts together. I have seen them on the neighbors property doing it. They are young, less than 2 years old by size. Now that our refinance has gone through I will have more $$ to put into protection.

 

[BantyChickenLuv]

The hawk came back again today. And guess what? It got in the LF coop with the covered run. They were all locked up and secure, perfectly fine this morning. I did not let them out, and somehow, it got into the coop and attacked the LF in the coop. It definitely killed one. It ended up getting stuck in the coop/run. We were able to get a close look at it. It's a very large Red Tailed Hawk. We are unsure how many it got, as it was totally dark. We did let it out of the run safely for us as we'll as the hawk. But this is bad. Until we figure out how it got in there the girls are staying in the garage. And as soon as I figure out if there are any injuries and how many are left. It's shocking how desperate that thing is for food.