Nettle Soup posted:There's a ton of good coop builds on byc, https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/categories/chicken-coops.12/ Thank you. Signal / noise ratio is high looking for this kind of stuff initially.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:37
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Ghostnuke posted:Use the "mama heating pad" instead of a light. I found a ceramic heat emitter that had been buried in a box from a few moves. It is doing the trick admirably. Plus these chicks are so people-oriented that my sons are interacting with them a lot and it's tuckering them out for the night just fine.
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Mar 29, 2020 23:47
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i keep finding chickens out the front of my house. they're not my chickens. i live in a city
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Mar 31, 2020 11:52
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what do they want from me
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Mar 31, 2020 11:52
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Lost my favorite girl to a hawk attack last night. She survived one last fall but she didn't get away this time  We've had 3 hawk attacks in 3 years of living here. The crows usually do a great job keeping them away, and I've gotten lax with free ranging lately. Gonna miss my little girlie. She was a constant companion, much more independent than the rest of the flock, and followed me like a puppy dog everywhere.
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Mar 31, 2020 12:31
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That really sucks. We've had our share of hawk/fox/raccoon kills, keeping the birds cooped up is the only thing that helps. But that sucks too.
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Mar 31, 2020 12:37
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hope and vaseline posted:Lost my favorite girl to a hawk attack last night. She survived one last fall but she didn't get away this time Oh, sorry for your loss.
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Mar 31, 2020 12:39
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hallelujah posted:i keep finding chickens out the front of my house. they're not my chickens. i live in a city They've got wandering goats in Llandudno: https://twitter.com/AndrewStuart/status/1243329253288169473
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Mar 31, 2020 12:40
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Lawson posted:That really sucks. We've had our share of hawk/fox/raccoon kills, keeping the birds cooped up is the only thing that helps. But that sucks too. I'm really grateful for all the dogs in my suburb. There's always a dog barking somewhere at any point during the night, as nearly everybody has easy outdoor access set up for em. I think it keeps bullshit boredom killers like raccoons out. I know they're around, as I see roadkilled raccoons once a month or so on roads about 2 miles away from my neighborhood. Regardless, I never forget to lock up the coop every night. The coop isn't skirted against burrowers and I'm not taking risks. We've got one hawk that I think claims our neighborhood as territory. It made one play at the chickens when we were first letting them claim the back yard once they got old enough, but all the hawk did was hit bare ground and look around in confusion, as the chickens had bolted in all directions. My wife was in the back yard for it and was a bit stunned too. At this point though the birds all are bigger than the hawk, and I think the ameracaunas look a bit like predatory birds themselves, and the hawk hasn't been back.
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Mar 31, 2020 14:15
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hope and vaseline posted:
 rest in peck, snowy queen
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Mar 31, 2020 14:46
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5er posted:I'm really grateful for all the dogs in my suburb. There's always a dog barking somewhere at any point during the night, as nearly everybody has easy outdoor access set up for em. I think it keeps bullshit boredom killers like raccoons out. I know they're around, as I see roadkilled raccoons once a month or so on roads about 2 miles away from my neighborhood. I'm kinda curious about something: are feral/outdoor cats a big problem for chicken owners?
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Mar 31, 2020 14:52
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Newbie question about a coop: Looking at getting 3-4 chickens from one of my wife's co-workers who is heavily into them and has volunteered to raise them from chicks until they can take care of themselves for us. Wife grew up rural and had chickens around, but they just kind of free-ranged and lived in a barn with laying boxes, not in a dedicated coop. I grew up suburban and know nothing. We now live in a semi-rural area in the Great Lakes so will have to contend with cold(ish) winters, and some predators. All of that is a very long way of asking: Is this a good first-timer backyard coop? https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/producers-pride-mini-defender-coop-mdc001?cm_vc=-10005 We're planning to let them free range, so I don't think we need a ton of enclosed space. Edit: Am also looking at this one, but don't love that it's raw wood that has to be painted/polyed: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/petmate-superior-construction-chicken-coop-70401d?cm_vc=-10005 stealie72 fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Mar 31, 2020 |
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Mar 31, 2020 16:23
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I got a slightly larger, very similar coop from Tractor Supply. My only recommendation is that you 1) get a couple latches from the hardware store and install an extra latch on each door. Keeps raccoons out. 2) dig a deep, narrow trench all the way around it, tack chicken wire all along the bottom, and bury it. 6-12 inches of buried wire has done a great job of keeping predators from digging into my coop. Edit: The second one looks a little small if you're going to put their food and water in there. I've set things up so that I have their water bucket hanging from a hook inside the coop, and an extension cord running from the house so that I can put a bucket warming gadget through a hole in the wire and into their bucket. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Mar 31, 2020 |
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Mar 31, 2020 16:27
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Welp, I candled our eggs last night...out of the 36 eggs I set, only 10 have embryos, with another 6 possibles (their shells were too dark to tell, I left them in the incubator just in case). I did a breakout on the ones with no embryos, and just because it's a weird year in every other damned way, we had a really low embryo development ratio--13 eggs never developed, though they were fertile. 5 more had broken yolks, only two eggs out of the original 36 we set were infertile. Oh, and six of the eggs that developed were eggs from our neighbors--the eggs they had washed and refrigerated.  I give up on this year, everything is upside down. On April 11th I fully expect turtles or some such thing to hatch from these eggs at this point.
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Apr 1, 2020 06:36
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Velvet Sparrow posted:I give up on this year, everything is upside down. On April 11th I fully expect turtles or some such thing to hatch from these eggs at this point. praying you get at least a reptile, rather than some kind of invertebrate
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Apr 1, 2020 07:33
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hallelujah posted:lmao do you want an elder god? because i'm pretty sure that's how you get elder gods.
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Apr 1, 2020 07:43
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 she's not sure about it
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Apr 1, 2020 07:49
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Oooof
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Apr 1, 2020 08:51
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Fox ate my girl's heads last night. Pickle, Rhubarb, Hilde - I am so, so sorry. 
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Apr 1, 2020 09:09
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ynohtna posted:Fox ate my girl's heads last night. Pickle, Rhubarb, Hilde - I am so, so sorry. Oh no
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Apr 1, 2020 10:12
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ynohtna posted:Fox ate my girl's heads last night. Pickle, Rhubarb, Hilde - I am so, so sorry. Oh poo poo, that's such sad news. RIP ladies.
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Apr 1, 2020 11:56
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ynohtna posted:Fox ate my girl's heads last night. Pickle, Rhubarb, Hilde - I am so, so sorry. In my experience a fox will eat/carry off the whole bird. Just the head is more of a raccoon thing.
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Apr 1, 2020 13:21
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Cythereal posted:I'm kinda curious about something: are feral/outdoor cats a big problem for chicken owners? They haven't been for me -- I let my cats out occasionally, and there's at least 3 or 4 other cats who roam the neighborhood. They were curious about the chickens when they were tiny, but now that the chickens are full-grown the cats fear and avoid them, and refuse to go outside if the chickens are too close to the back door.
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Apr 1, 2020 13:34
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Lawson posted:In my experience a fox will eat/carry off the whole bird. Just the head is more of a raccoon thing. Yeah, and raccoons will also eat the back out of a chicken and then leave them. NOT a fan of raccoons for this reason. Ynohtna, so sad this happened.
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Apr 1, 2020 17:45
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Thanks for the kind words, friends. It's a freaking me out just how impactful it is not to have the hens' various voices softly going off in the background. Also, just how often I look out and expect to see their fluffy butts and judgemental stares.  Lawson posted:In my experience a fox will eat/carry off the whole bird. Just the head is more of a raccoon thing. We're in Brighton, on the south coast of the UK and I don't think we have any raccoons around here! We definitely have a few urban foxes in the area, though. The corona lockdown has closed all the fast food joints and the town is deserted from the lack of tourists, students & AirBnB-ers so there's zero street scraps and bin spillage to fill a hungry fox belly. I figure they've been pushed to explore deeper and thus forced an opportunity and gap in our defences. My partner heard some noise last night and went to the window but didn't see anything. Maybe that scared off the culprit. Of course, the lockdown means it could be some time until we can get some replacements (to love and protect even more dearly). drat it.
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Apr 1, 2020 18:35
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ynohtna posted:Fox ate my girl's heads last night. Pickle, Rhubarb, Hilde - I am so, so sorry. Sorry to hear this. Happened to us a couple of months ago. Heads off all three after the bastard dug into the run. You'll probably spend a month or two seeing their place and going "Oh. Poor chickens."
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Apr 1, 2020 19:01
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MrUnderbridge posted:Sorry to hear this. Happened to us a couple of months ago. Heads off all three after the bastard dug into the run. Oh god, yeah. Even the seagulls who nest in the chimney opposite us were all confused today: as if to ask "where are our trash-duck comrades?" And we're still reflexively saving kitchen scraps... The worse is that Rhubarb and Hilde were both still under a year old. They were lovely, sweet, personable girls who deserved many long summers and graceful elder years.
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Apr 1, 2020 20:30
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I'm so sorry to hear about the chicken losses. They lived happy lives under your stewardship.
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Apr 1, 2020 22:23
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oh no  i'm so sorry for your loss! these sweet, hopeless little things
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Apr 2, 2020 00:06
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In Oz, foxes carry off chickens whole, usually one by one after killings them Cats will eat just the head Possums will take quails and chickens eggs And dogs / dingoes will go nuts and it will looks like a grenade went off
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Apr 2, 2020 16:15
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Cythereal posted:I'm kinda curious about something: are feral/outdoor cats a big problem for chicken owners? There's a few in my neighborhood who have never been a problem. Adult chickens are out of the weight class of a cat's typical prey I think. Lawson posted:In my experience a fox will eat/carry off the whole bird. Just the head is more of a raccoon thing. In Division 2, I will blast raccoons on sight when I see em. Don't really have to, they're for the most part environmental cosmetics, but I feel it's an important principle for us backyard pastoralists. 5er fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 20:37
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The best description of raccoons I've ever heard is, "They are like feral cats with thumbs."
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Apr 2, 2020 21:57
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Well, unhappy news. 12_String accidentally turned off the ReptiPro while I was napping. It was off for 4 hours, egg temp got down to 77 degrees. It may have killed the embryos. I'll candle the eggs in 24 hours to see if the embryos are viable, if I'm not sure I'll check again a few days later to see if they are still developing. But I have to tell you--even if the embryos are viable, it *could* mean defective chicks. There's just no way to tell. If the embryos are dead, we start over from go. Very sorry, this has never happened before. Moral: Don't sleep
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Apr 4, 2020 06:55
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drat a time of misfortune seems to have fallen upon the thread, i'm so sorry that happened! rip mystery lizard babies
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Apr 4, 2020 07:31
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drat you 2020
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Apr 4, 2020 10:56
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Okay this virus poo poo sucks but loving with Chickam is just cruel. gently caress off, 2020!
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Apr 4, 2020 12:57
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On top of everything else I can not handle my loathing for Norway rats. I am so irritated.
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Apr 4, 2020 18:52
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To add to the shitstorm that is 2020, and despite the wonderful, warm spring day here, it's begining to look like Pip* is winding down... *Queen Pip the Glorious
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Apr 5, 2020 10:06
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spookygonk posted:To add to the shitstorm that is 2020, and despite the wonderful, warm spring day here, it's begining to look like Pip* is winding down...
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Apr 5, 2020 10:16
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Oh, goddammit 2020. e: minor uplift: our neighbouring seagull pair are definitely nesting.
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Apr 5, 2020 12:39
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