We are in a drought and everyone is hungry, just lost four chickens to a hawk.
Trying a new defense, fishing line strung through out our orchard. It is about eight feet high and about twenty five feet apart. So far so good, we were losing one every other day, it has been up about a week. I guess the theory is they are afraid to get tangled in it, haven’t even had a crow come in for spare chicken food.
Rob
Thanks Hohot, the hot wire is our next project for the chicken pen. I had considered putting old tin or wire on the inside perimeters to keep predators from digging under but the hot wire sounds like a better option. I recently fenced my garden with the 6’ red brand deer and wildlife fence. Put barbed wire above it to keep the deer from jumping over. Last year it was container/fabric pot gardening. Thanks to the inspiration of folks here, I have a 60x85 plot already planted.
FYI for folks doing fencing, Dewalt makes a handheld 20V fence staple gun that makes fencing quick and clean. No pounding of staples to loosen posts and wham on thumbs. They are pricey but some rental businesses may have these. For folks doing fencing, this is a game changer. Might be worth sharing the cost with a neighbor or friend if you have a lot of fencing to do. With this tool my wife and I were able to complete our garden fence in just a couple hours. Fortunately, I had a friend who loaned me his tool. 
Most chicken coops are Death Traps - By Design.
The birds’ Best Weapon against predators - their ability to fly into the night.
Denied, of course, by the walls of the coop.
I have used a coop without walls for 3 years, with the roosts about 10 feet off the ground.
Lost 1 bird in that time, an old & favorite Rooster, a Dutiful Bantam - who charged a Falcom. The fight didn’t last long, the Falcon crushed the Rooster’s skull with its jaws. Like a nut-cracker.
I live on the edge of the forest that runs from Grants Pass Oregon to Wimer, a patch of raw forest that is about 8 miles by 15 miles. All the predators - Raccoons, skunks, possums, Foxes, coyotes, mountain lions. Not sure about bobcats.
In that incident with the falcon, about 15 other birds were witnesses. The old rooster’s bravery bought them the time to hide. It took a while to “inventory” them, some of them hid for a full day after the attack.
The previous #2 rooster, who was elevated to #1 by the death of his buddy (they got along very well), has been very upset. He started doing what roosters do - flying and kicking - my shins. That lasted about 3 weeks, and now he is mellowing out a little.
I can’t tell you how often I see chicken coops with cute little ramps so the birds can easily walk up to their nesting. Ha! I tell people to remove those rat ramps and raise the nesting up to at least 5 feet or more. I can’t count the number of different predators hitting the chickens but rats are the worst. Hard to trap them because they are clever. Can’t poison them. They are not easily discouraged, only seems to last a week or so.
I buried heavy galv hardware cloth down 18 to 20 inches all around the chicken run and they still tunnel in.
Also the bluejays will come in and eat the eggs. They are highly intelligent and crafty buggers that will go wherever the chickens can.
I start off with 50 or so knowing I’m going to lose a few no matter what I do.
When people hear that I farm they ask what do I farm? I tell them I raise voles, moles, gophers, and rats.
Then the Birds become Pets, and that can temporarily disrupt cost-benefit calcs.
I will be spending some time in a part of the forest where I want them to spend more time, using a leaf-blower to make a big pile of leaves. Simply because that attracts them.
In the mean-time, I keep them close to home using shredded cheese, and other treats.
They are also crazy for Styrofoam.
We lost one to a hawk yesterday. Aerial predation is so hard to control when you free range your birds. We lose one to a hawk occasionally. Our dogs do help out some because the hawks don’t like the running around and barking that they do. Our Great Pyrenees flushed a baby Bald Eagle out of a tree last year. By baby I mean a juvenile that already had a 5 ft wingspan. Drought definitely makes predation more of an issue no matter where you are.
Jt, what are feeding your Kunes? When we had pigs it was hard to keep them economically fed. We used to go the outlet grocery and buy cheap bread, old cheese, squash, etc.
>>> We lost one to a hawk yesterday. Aerial predation is so hard to control when you free range your birds.
I understand how that feels.
That’s one of the reasons I’m doing my corn a certain way this year.
Basically 3 rows wide - planted, not sprouted - a few hundred yards long, like a yellow brick road connecting all the fruit trees.
I finally learned that you have to get the corn wet with soil on top if you want it to sprout. Now just waiting for temperatures to cooperate.
The rooster-falcon fight that occurred 4 weeks ago, was near one of their favorite dust bath spots. I thought I would tie a tarp hanging in the air, so that they are in the shade & hidden from hawks & falcons when they’re dust-bathing.
We are feeding them about 2 cups(ish) each of hog grower feed daily, they have access to hay and once the weather breaks and conditions warrant they’ll be on pasture daily. They also occasionally get a blend of Timothy/Orchard grass pellets/sunflower seeds/scratch grains but they are primarily a grazing/foraging breed which is a big reason I was attracted to them.
>>> We are feeding them about 2 cups(ish) each of hog grower feed daily,
Assuming you’re talking about pigs - I was amazed at what a neighbor’s pigs eat. A little food, but they free-range. They eat roots and other things they snuffle out of the ground and that’s a major part of their diet - on just 2 acres.
I have about 13 acres of forest and the soil is full of things the pigs would like.
But I’ve already got my hands full with birds. I’m on the way to being one of those old people with the mobile home full of animals you read about in the paper.
I wonder if pigs have a hawk-deterrent effect. So that they are sort of like watch pigs. Do they act protective like a dog or a rooster ?
List away. This should be interesting.
The US spends over $2 TRILLION dollars a year on health care procedures to repair damage due to eating meat, dairy and highly processed foods.
If you are planning to list animal protein, calcium or B12, you might want learn more about nutrition. I’ve spent a couple of years studying the subject.
I wish you were right, I really do. I thoroughly enjoy what I’m eating now, but occasionally indulging in a grass feed porterhouse would be enjoyable.
Unfortunately, a recent study shows that even one meat meal a week impacts health and longevity.
There really is an overwhelming body of one sided evidence on this subject. It would be common knowledge but for one fact. People don’t want to give up meat and dairy.
People commonly say that they love it too much. Does that sound like addiction to you?
I’m not ready for small livestock yet as there are too many other unfinished projects on my tiny homestead. Plus my full time work means the animals would not get adequate care. But I’m going to work in whatever livestock can fit on my place when the work slows down. This information about predators from all of you is gold. It will go into my files for when I’m ready.
Questions:
- LBL, What does a coop without walls look like? Can it work in zone 5, where we have months of cold (-15 C is common)?
- Netlej, can all chickens easily fly up to a coop with no ramp? How do you clean and remove eggs from such a coop?
- VTGothic, love the tip of burying a wire “skirt” around the coop. Do you think a foot is enough, or would a wider one be even better?
- Does anyone have input on the minimum space needed for the tiny milk cow breeds or hogs?
Thanks!
Susan, sighing for 10 acres…
My husband and I have been vegetarian for almost 35 years, now, and I’m still waiting to find out what kind of problems I’m going to have from a lack of meat in our diets. We’ve had nothing but excellent health and the blessing of looking younger than we chronological age as side effects. We do eat dairy, though it’s not necessary, but we don’t get processed, conventional factory farmed garbage. We do raw, especially if it’s also grass fed, as much as possible both for the health benefits and humane reasons. I stopped eating eggs for over five years in protest of the rotten egg farming system, and suffered no ill effects. Now we have our own organic pampered pastured back yard hens and the eggs are fabulous. We cook mostly from scratch feature a very wide variety of low sugar, primarily whole, unprocessed organic foods, augmented with plenty of spices. My husband is a family doctor and remarks every so often how he looks and feels better than most of his younger patients. I grew up a staunch meat and 'taters gal, but honestly, since making the switch, I really don’t get why anybody would keep eating meat when going veg is now so easy as well as a delicious and very healthy choice. My motto: being a vegetarian means never having to say I’m sorry (to myself for abusing my health, and to all our fellow living beings for cutting their lives short just so I can taste their bodies).
''I don’t eat meat", said the Vegetarian.
“Me neither”, answered the Proletarian.
@herewego wrote
VTGothic, love the tip of burying a wire "skirt" around the coop. Do you think a foot is enough, or would a wider one be even better?Slight misunderstanding. I use the 1-foot skirt around the 4 sides of my mobile chicken tractors in which I field graze my meat birds. It lays flat on the ground outside the tractor. 1 foot is plenty, in my experience; it completely stopped the ditch-digging under the edges by predators. Also, keeping it to 1 foot makes it much easier to move the tractor daily: I tack the leading edge up onto the sidewall as I move the tractor forward, otherwise it curls under the leading edge of the tractor, and can foul up the chickens' legs (chickens tend to race to the front of the moving tractor to get first dibs on the new, fresh grass). I also staple a 1"x1" or 1"x2" strip of wood along the outside edges of the skirts; that helps keep the skirts flat and unwrinkled over time. Otherwise it becomes unruly. On uneven ground, I can then use garden staples (or wire folded into a U shape) to tack the skirt's trim strips to the ground. My egg layers' permanent, stationary chicken run has hardware cloth completely under it, then attached via staples to the inside edges of the side walls. I have found that many critters will dig under the sidewalls of permanent chicken runs; they have lots of time to work at it. Over that hardware cloth base I pour 9-12 inches of rough wood chips. Onto that I toss all the spent garden and yard greens for them to eat, along with kitchen waste. (They're my compost bin.) Annually I clean it out by sifting the chips through a 1/4" screen. Whatever won't go through remains in the run, and I refill with new chips. The material that does screen gets composted or aged and then goes into the garden or around trees. When I reposition my chicken run and hen house, I'll create some attached summer paddocks, too. That paddock fencing will have skirts, probably buried into the earth about 18" deep at a 45 degree angle. (I'm debating doing the same thing around my garden plots as I start fencing them late this summer.)
@Hohhot,
I’ve been told the peanut butter trick works on bears, too. The version I’ve heard is to smear peanut butter on strips of aluminum foil hung between hot wires. The bear’s got to lick it for it to have any effect. (Heard of a bear that got up on hind legs, turned around, and fell backwards onto a hot fence, flattening it. Then tackled the enclosed bee hives.)
>>> - LBL, What does a coop without walls look like? Can it work in zone 5, where we have months of cold (-15 C is common)?
OK got a picture of one of the coops. The blue arrow is where a miniature sort of chicken, the Belgian D’Uccle, tried to roost after sunset about 5 years ago. They can mate with chickens but their character is the opposite of “chicken”.
Extremely brave, with a tendency to charge much larger predators. And the speed to survive what would be an unwise move for most birds - running right at what was probably a mountain lion. Whatever it was it de-feathered her, but she escaped and emerged one week later with 2 chicks in tow.
-15 C is 5 degrees F. That seems too cold for the sitting in mid-air on a branch approach.
I would give birds the option of having some straw & enclosure near them, even if some of them choose to “go sit on the branch” (where there is no insulation). An old Brahma, recently deceased at the hands of a Falcon, almost always sat on the branch on the far left, even in 20 degree weather and sometimes in the rain.
Because they are 10 feet in the air at the end of the house, they have some protection from the wind etc. And a roof over their head.
I tried a few times to load it up with straw but they just knocked that off. The structure is built on 2 “stretch” Metro shelves.
It’s far from perfect. They need a more enclosed space where they are comfortable sitting and laying eggs.
My garage ALSO became a coop with walls. 11 birds were hatched there this winter, 9 survived. Now they roost on the beams that are about 10 feet off the ground … and crap on all my tools.
The 3 birds in the picture I brought inside for the D’Uccle to babysit. Her eggs have been turning out to be not fertile, so I sort of tricked her by giving her 3 chicks from an Americauna who is very prolific. Those 3 have stayed together even 6 months later. There turned out to be one rooster & 2 hens in that group.
In the pic I have interrupted their free-ranging to hand out some shredded cheese. A great tool for a Chicken Shepherd.
I was trying to get a pic showing the differences in feathering between all the orange birds.
I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions and more, plus even some photos! It seems like there’s no space in my life to take on critters but - maybe I can share with a neighbor who has chickens and ducks and build some of these contraptions to help her out, and learn a bit in the process. Anyway - thanks a bunch!
Susan
We feed our chickens pellets and they free range in a small area. This area contains our compost heap which they forage through. All garden plants that are being pulled out or cut off, including thinnings (microgreens!) and weeds get thrown over the fence ‘toward’ the compost heap. The chickens have the chance to eat anything that takes their fancy before it is raked onto the heap every couple of days. We also grow extra Kale, and silverbeet in the veggie patch especially for them, and I’ve experimented growing flax plants and seed for them. I chose flax only because it was in a packet of rancid breakfast mix I could scatter around to try growing. It has worked and I’m growing from second generation seed. Not a substantial amount, but a special treat. They love the dried seed heads. We also hand remove caterpillars from our brassicas and throw to them for a treat, as well as throwing in leaves of anything with aphids or other yummy pests. I seed save, and they also like radishes, celery, brassica and silverbeet plants that they can pick seed from. We have also pulled grassy weeds from the neighbours unkempt garden (win:win) for them when greenery was tight. The chicken area is under the fruit trees so they also access seasonal windfall fruit. They seem quite skilled at avoiding anything toxic, though I do google some things before throwing them in. Large annual flower plants such as cosmos have gone to them, and my hubby who is a dedicated grass person empties the lawn catcher to them. They recieve anything that goes into our kitchen compost bucket, including meat scraps, prawn shells and tea bags (with the strings removed). And when we go fishing they get any unwanted fish carcasses (there’s only so much fish stock you can keep in the freezer). When it’s cold we cook them up everything from old oats to pasta to rice and add in anything else we have on hand. Their pellets are really a back up for whenever they don’t get enough of all these other things. There are probably lots of other things they could have but we are still learning and have had them just over a year.