Washingtonians

[ultasol]

If anyone is looking for Lavender silkies I will be sorting through my growouts soon and will have lavenders, not splits, lavenders, available. Some are non-bearded, some are bearded, all have five toes, almost all have big vaults and will have huge crests.

I'm in SE WA.

 

[Chickielady]

And it seems to me that this Spring (is it spring ?) we have had lots and lots of bear real close in towns that usually we do not have that many here in the PNW.
We have had several bedeviling a restaurant down the road for weeks...finally trapped and removed the bear, and a week later a new bear showed up, the dumpster tipped over and the chained lid ripped off !
Scarey !!!

 

[Chickielady]

any sign of Zgoatlady ???

OK she must have really threw her back out this time !

 

[Chickielady]

Congradulations to all you new egg hatchers !!!

 

[Jessica Rabbit]

Woke up to a new total of 14 Pheasant and 3 Ameraucanas! There are 2 Marans that pipped yesterday but are just hanging out! they seem to be doing fine

My BF can't even keep his eyes off my babies!

Oh and so far it looks like 2 blue ameraucanas and on that is yellow and blue......


and no sign of Zgoatlady

sorry

 

[Jessica Rabbit]

Quote:
YAY for you! I hope you wake up to babies!

 

[4cats3kids1hubby2many]

Quote:
We have those. Every now and then one gets hit on the road....smelly. Hubby shot 6 last summer, neighbor shot another 6. I made hubby strip clothese, outside at the back door, before I would let him in the house.

He stunk bad.

They are cute (actually), but carry lots of problems and are troubleseome and destructive. And SMELLY.

 

[ReiMiraa]

my bf is awesome

him and his 2 buddies have built a chicken fence around the coop and area. using that welded dog fence and lining the bottom 1-2feet with chicken wire (on the fence that is jsut deer fencing cos the bantms can fit though the holes.)

i think the space enclosed is like about (dont hold my estimates to me) 50x100ishfeet with the 12x8 coop in the pen. think this is adequate for 60+ chickens?

i plan to go over a 100 chickens someday for more eggs. right now i am getting them to cross breed because i read in a book if you cross dual purpose egg layers you can induce laying vigor in the new breeds.

i still plan to let them free range once a week (i had the run built for the purpose of finding eggs easily and to please the other people who have gardens. they are worried they would eat the gardens. so once a week should keep the chickens happy.)

i am looking for another dog kennel to use as a chicken coop cos when i move the 33 chicks into the pen there won't be enough room in the old coop.

so today is day one of testing out the run. the boys still have some patching to fix and to buy snaps to make opening the fence easier....

 

[monicas]

on the subject of bear and bobcats

first how does one bobcat proof a run? right now I have mine 100% enclosed in hardware cloth but I'm a little bummed that the hens cannot range. For every three days we let them out the bobcat comes for lunch. I have seen him or her snoozing in the sun outside the cage looking in. - plays hell with our egg production for that day and the next

The bear didn't bother the chickens but did steal a garbage can full of layer food and knock over one of the bee hives.

I smelled a skunk last night, didn't see him. will they kill adult birds? our babies are indoors.

 

[jbear]

Quote:
Not really so majestic as it is more CREEPY when you walk into a lake into the mountains, turn around and walk out, and realize that there are CAT tracks INSIDE your tracks, following you in. Talk about make all of the hair on your neck stand up. We didn't have a gun, stick, knife....nuthin'. I have got a bit smarter since then.

OMG I agree there !
That is kind of the way it is here...And I had the exact thing you describe happen to me years ago when I had my property in Idaho, on a dark and frozen winter morning...waiting for the car to thaw out...4 AM, -20 degrees...and there in the darkness out of the car's headlights was a big cat...right next to the carport, saw the tracks when we got home.

When I was a kid (in EW) my girlfriend and I were up on a logging road riding our horses.. a friend drove down the same road about a half hour later and said there were cat tracks inside of the horse tracks, the cat had been following us down the road.. probably more curious than anything, but still really scary.. the horses had no idea, they weren't spooked or anything.... mee-ow.