Recent content by GCrumb

Buteo, like a red-tail: Sits on a high spot or soars about, drops on prey from above. Don't use fishing line, she might not see it and get tangled, but the party-flags and reflective tape over the run may help. Once on the ground she is relatively slow to get airborne again and takes off from...

I have used sheets of corrugated plastic. It's easy to cut, you can punch holes through it for ventilation where you want and to wire it to the cage mesh. It's not transparent but the white lets in lots of light for the birds.

Attach hardware cloth sheets to each other with J-clips. Attach them to other meshes the same way. Stronger and requires no/little overlap waste. I have two of those cheap-o metal runs. Along the bottom I have put cage-mesh. Some of it is 1"x1" and some is 1/2" x 1". Above that I used the...

You may find that used shipping crates are cheap and easy to find where you are, especially since you're in a coast state. Add legs, put a hinge and latch on one side for access, a ramp and pop-door, some vents, paint the outside and clad the roof. The crates that motorcycles come in seem like a...

With no stands, the plastic snap-lock coops get mouse nests under them and must be moved every week or two. The chickens enjoy attacking the mice when the nests are exposed, but it's still not desirable... @JustLook I figure it's elevated if a chicken can walk under it and you can rake out...

I suggest that with the help of Karen Pryor, a clicker, and @Shadrach's instructions about how to hand-feed a rooster you train your cockerel to do a trick, like sit on a swing or stool. Train muliple cues for the behavior. Use things that happen that make you want him out of the way for the...

That's a great idea. It's too windy here to work well. I've been thinking of getting one of those tiny kit greenhouse (second-hand after a couple of the polycarbonate panels have broken so it's cheap) and attaching it to the side of the run with little chicken-gate so they can have a 'sun...

What's the program?

My experience doesn't seem to be in the literature. But from what I remember, old hens who don't lay any more often like to set, and will go and look for a cache of eggs to take over.

Our plastic Snap-Lock coops have no floorspace that isn't under roosting bars. If weather is really bad the birds will sit on the roost bars during the day, but they need to get out into the run to eat and drink. The run needs to have sheltered areas, both shade and windbreak, as they want to...

You might look at some of @Shadrach's ones https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/shadrach%E2%80%99s-multi-coops.74344/ I'm pretty happy with having multiple tiny coops and adding more as needed. I haven't had trouble with our current arrangement of two small coops in one big run.

The idea is that the airflow should not create a breeze that moves over the chickens where they are roosting, but there should be airflow to vent ammonia. So vents under the roof overhang but above the roosting space.

Yes, really. The toxicity of various substances to rats is pretty well researched and you'd need to get a rat to eat a couple of grams of baking soda, about half a teaspoon, more or less in one go.

Eight. I'll get more, I'm sure. The coops have roosting and nest-box space for twelve in each, but no real inside floor space. We just let them out early in the morning and close the doors at night. Having a bunch of little coops that only sleep a few birds so the flock splits up at night...

Mine have a pretty big run and two of those snap-lock plastic coops. They don't all sleep in the same coop every night. No problem with flock integration. They're never locked up in the tiny coops during the day, though.