Maine

[suzMEchicks]

Hi. Enjoying reading all the different threads. I too spent some time out in the coop today. I had taken the big screen door off the chicken run last week. Since it was full of 5 feet of snow, I squeezed the snow blower in that doorway and snowblowed the whole thing. I could never have shoveled it. Then did the regular maintenance stuff. I noticed one of the RIR's legs/feet are kinda pink. Oh I hope that means nothing!
I'm wondering about getting a few more chickens in the spring and maybe letting a couple who don't produce and continually eat eggs go to the slow cooker in the sky...is it hard to integrate new babies in with 2 year olds? I'm not going to try to hatch my own. The only thing I am sure of is I will keep my 2 white Leghorns. I love those 2. I guess the first thing to do is to research what I want to get.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

How big are these rats? I deal with mice no problem now, but I think I might freak out a bit with a rat!

So true about chicken keeping and fashion... good thing fashion was never my thing to begin with!

They come in all sizes from catch them in a giant sized have a heart:



to cute little babies



To middle of the line sized



I'm like ratilocks.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hi. Enjoying reading all the different threads. I too spent some time out in the coop today. I had taken the big screen door off the chicken run last week. Since it was full of 5 feet of snow, I squeezed the snow blower in that doorway and snowblowed the whole thing. I could never have shoveled it. Then did the regular maintenance stuff. I noticed one of the RIR's legs/feet are kinda pink. Oh I hope that means nothing!
I'm wondering about getting a few more chickens in the spring and maybe letting a couple who don't produce and continually eat eggs go to the slow cooker in the sky...is it hard to integrate new babies in with 2 year olds? I'm not going to try to hatch my own. The only thing I am sure of is I will keep my 2 white Leghorns. I love those 2. I guess the first thing to do is to research what I want to get.

Check out Henderson's chicken breeds chart. My girls get pink feet. I'm thinking that it's just extra pigment being stored up. I'm toying with the idea of going to Trader Joe's and getting some of their fertile leghorn eggs. I so much DON'T need leghorns! Any one live near there, and know if they still carry fertile eggs?

They come in all sizes from catch them in a giant sized have a heart:



to cute little babies



To middle of the line sized



I'm like ratilocks.

Well, ratilocks... tell me, how well does your bucket trap work?

 

[CoopChick719]

They come in all sizes from catch them in a giant sized have a heart:



to cute little babies



To middle of the line sized



I'm like ratilocks.

Ratilocks!!

The one I saw last night was a little one but the 2 a few summers ago were more like the middle size.

No luck with the new rat trap. I admit the bait wasn't really tempting (chunk of FF). Tonight it's peanut butter & birdseed. I'm afraid a bucket trap would just freeze at night then they'd be ice skating on it!!

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Check out Henderson's chicken breeds chart. My girls get pink feet. I'm thinking that it's just extra pigment being stored up. I'm toying with the idea of going to Trader Joe's and getting some of their fertile leghorn eggs. I so much DON'T need leghorns! Any one live near there, and know if they still carry fertile eggs?

Well, ratilocks... tell me, how well does your bucket trap work?

Ratilocks!!

The one I saw last night was a little one but the 2 a few summers ago were more like the middle size.

No luck with the new rat trap. I admit the bait wasn't really tempting (chunk of FF). Tonight it's peanut butter & birdseed. I'm afraid a bucket trap would just freeze at night then they'd be ice skating on it!!

Yeah the bucket would likely freeze this time of year... unleeeesss you put a lot of rock salt in it to reduce the freezing point. You'd have to make sure nothing could drink out of it.

The bucket trap is a diet pepsi bottle with holes drilled into the top and bottom and a piece of wire fitted through. Each end is then attached to the bucket (we removed the handle). You'll need to play with it a bit to ensure the bottle rotates very freely. I tried a few different types - peanut butter smeared all over the outside with some sunflower seeds put in the butter. That only worked on the small ones. The larger ones were able to reach across where the ends were and eat that way without falling in. The one pictured above has a hole cut out into the bottle so I could fill that with ratty snacks. That required the rats to reach from the edge of the bucket to the middle of the bottle, where they'd be more likely to lose balance and fall in the bucket and drown. You'll also need some kind of ratty transportation device to the top of the bucket. I used a 2x4 I think, let me see if I can find a picture. I also ended up putting it behind the duck fence because non-target species were visiting it.

 

[buckabucka]

Quote:
Originally posted by lazygardener
Check out Henderson's chicken breeds chart. My girls get pink feet. I'm thinking that it's just extra pigment being stored up. I'm toying with the idea of going to Trader Joe's and getting some of their fertile leghorn eggs. I so much DON'T need leghorns! Any one live near there, and know if they still carry fertile eggs?

I don't know if they have fertile eggs or not, since I've never bought eggs there. If you're going to travel all the way to Portland anyway, you could order a few leghorns from Longhorn. Or if it is hatching you crave, I could give you some fertile eggs, (but not leghorns, unfortunately).

 

[lazy gardener]

Now, here's the little bit of information that will tell you that I really should be visited by the nice looking fellows in the white jackets. I'm not really fond of white leg horns. I have LOTS of hatching eggs right here. But, it's the challenge involved: Walk into a store, haul a dozen eggs out of the dairy case... (Would someone please explain why eggs are kept in the dairy case? It's not like Bessie has any thing to do with egg production!) Take those eggs home, and eat a few, hatch a few... Just to say I did it!

 

[mlowen]

superchemicalgirl--what does the quote in your signature come from? It's intriguing.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

It's a line from my favorite song - In Praise of Bacchus from Type O Negative.

 

[suzMEchicks]

It's funny but I love my little white leghorns. They are so personable and reliable with the huge white eggs. But anyway I met a friend whom I haven't seen for a while today . Her husband has chickens and I'm going to get his ideas on new chicken breeds. I guess they have had golden comets for one. Should be interesting.
About rats. I remember when I first moved to Waterboro. Something was digging under my back porch. We didn't know any better so we put out some DCon. A couple days later there was a rat dead about 25feet from the porch.I remember it being about 8 inches long and the tail was just as long. Horrifying. I was a city girl and it was the first time I ever saw a rat!