Recent content by Vicker

I don't think the chick has parasites on it, so the DE probably wouldn't help, but I've used DE for 20 years on my animals, in their food and in the coop without any problems.

My gardens are protected like Fort Knox from the feathered excavators.

I choose based on the crow and the temperment. Recently, I had to narrow it down from 5. I didn't keep the prettiest because his crow was too much. I wouldn't keep a Brahma rooster with smaller breeds of hens. I had a nice one but he was too hard on the ladies.

Lol. I read this and came home to find a second hen sitting on a clutch with one who's been there for a week. I can't tell them apart. Neither would budge. I have a second coop occupied with a hen and week old chicks. Black Australorps are the broodiest!

My current flock of goofballs rarely ever use their nice raised laying boxes. They choose to make a pile on the ground underneath. I had to go to great measures to stop them from laying in the poop under the roost.

It works if you have crows in your area AND they are aggressive to other birds. In my case, yes, I've watched crows chase away hawks. And yes, ever since I put out crow decoys and got black chickens years ago, I haven't lost a single chicken to a hawk. Prior to this, we had multiple hawk encounters.

Possums absolutely kill chickens. I've had 2 attacks where they stripped the necks and removed a head. I saw them in action.

No matter which breed you choose, the less you try to tame them, the better. My friendliest, most tame individuals are the ones that get picked off first. If you need to catch them, you can always get them off the roost in low light.

It's not feasible for me to feed and house spent layers while adding new generations for egg production. I butcher some and may keep an odd few. If you've made pets of them and can't rehome them, I suppose you'll need to wait until they shuffle off this mortal coil before getting chicks again.

I had 2 pairs of hens to co-raise 2 separate clutches this spring. I made sure food and water were accessible to the chicks and let the free-ranging mothers do the rest. They were wild little suckers, but are getting better with time. If I wanted them more tame, I would have kept them enclosed...

Crows chase hawks in my area, so I put out 2 crow decoys. I also got some black chickens. I haven't had a hawk attack since.

I had 2 pairs of Black Australorps to co-raise 2 separate clutches at the same time. My Blk Australorps are perpetually broody, but this was the first time I let them hatch eggs. The new birds, now 15 wks old are more afraid of me than any chickens I've ever had. That's understandable, since...

Go ahead with the fruit trees. You keep fruit trees pruned for best production and ease of harvesting, so they don't get that large to offer the most attractive resting spot for hawks. The only issue would be your fungus and pest control method. You'd need to be careful about what chemicals you...

I'm not good at using the wing feather method. It takes me a little longer to start see sex differences. Tail development, leg size and how upright they hold themselves are my tells.

Every time I think about getting one, I remember the night a possum was hiding in the coop when I closed the door myself. The chickens had no way to escape when he started slicing and dicing. It taught me to make sure there are no monsters under the bed before tucking them in. I don't think I...