BDutch's bantam flock & natural breeding projects #5 🪺 🪺 and #6

[Molpet]

I have 2 solar lights near the coop/run that goes after dark with a motion sensor.

I have motion lights on the house. They go on and off all night. The racoons, opossum and coyotes leave tracks in the winter... right under the lights.

 

[Perris]

Fox deterrence here works with the habituation factor. I regularly move the coops, the trampoline, sometimes leave something opaque and bigger than a fox on the lawn etc.

 

[BDutch]

I have motion lights on the house. They go on and off all night. The racoons, opossum and coyotes leave tracks in the winter... right under the lights.

The predator load is way less where I live. We don’t have racoons, opossum and coyotes here. But I know there are foxes, polecats and stone martens around here.
I installed the lights about a month ago. So far I have only seen a cat who started the light to shine.

sometimes leave something opaque and bigger than a fox on the lawn etc.

Never heard of such a trick before. Do you really think that helps?

 

[Perris]

Never heard of such a trick before. Do you really think that helps?

Foxes are very cautious and suspicious, and don't take unnecessary risks. I once saw a TV show where they put food in a large perspex trap in a garden where they knew there was a fox to try to catch it live, with cameras running all night, night after night. The fox could see the food, spent days gradually coming closer, but never actually went into the trap to get it and just avoided it thereafter.

As with all preventative measures, it's hard to know when they work, by definition, because they have prevented the thing that they were intended to prevent. But we definitely know when they don't work. And what I know is that a near neighbour has a fixed coop and a pen and loses chickens to foxes every year (during the day), and I have mobile coops and no pen and I shuffle stuff around on the lawn and don't.

 

[BDutch]

As with all preventative measures, it's hard to know when they work, by definition, because they have prevented the thing that they were intended to prevent. But we definitely know when they don't work.

Good thinking.

And what I know is that a near neighbour has a fixed coop and a pen and loses chickens to foxes every year (during the day),

An open pen less than 2 meters high and without an electric fence or an outwardly curved piece of fencing, is only to keep chickens in. Because the chickens can’t flee to a safe hiding place in such a poor pen I assume it’s like a snack bar without a proper door for foxes.
I have my chickens in a net covered run when they don’t free range. The strong netting helps against birds of pray too.

So far I only had a problem with a rat 9.5 years ago when I had chicks, and a fox who found a way to get in, after biting through a thick nylon cable.
With free ranging I had more casualties.

 

[Perris]

With free ranging I had more casualties

I did too initially. But the survivors teach the next generation and they get so much better at evading predators it's unbelievable. Having roos on guard helps a great deal too, I believe; at least, works for me.

 

[BDutch]

I did too initially. But the survivors teach the next generation and they get so much better at evading predators it's unbelievable. Having roos on guard helps a great deal too, I believe; at least, works for me.

Unfortunately the roosters I had couldn’t stay because a few neighbours complained about the noise.

Whisky is a quiet cockerel and so far it works nicely to let him sleep in the new playhouse coop. If he wasn’t so big compared to the Dutch bantams I would seriously try to keep him. But Im afraid he is going to hurt the little ladies if his hormones are taking over his good manners. Besides it’s uncertain that he will be quiet in spring until 7.30 am even if the playhouse is almost completely dark until the pop door opens.

 

[Perris]

Unfortunately the roosters I had couldn’t stay because a few neighbours complained about the noise.

Yes, I think they're probably only an option for rural keepers.

On the other hand, urban keepers have to and do put up with a lot of other sorts of noise at unsociable hours - sirens, alarms, boy racers, late loud drunks, early delivery lorries, neighbours' music/ parties/ rows/ barking dogs/ screaming kids etc.etc. come to mind from my years in purgatory against which a crowing cock (or two/ three/ four ) is just part of the dawn chorus - which we are all supposed to like, are we not?

 

[BDutch]

Yes, I think they're probably only an option for rural keepers.

On the other hand, urban keepers have to and do put up with a lot of other sorts of noise at unsociable hours - sirens, alarms, boy racers, late loud drunks, early delivery lorries, neighbours' music/ parties/ rows/ barking dogs/ screaming kids etc.etc. come to mind from my years in purgatory against which a crowing cock (or two/ three/ four ) is just part of the dawn chorus - which we are all supposed to like, are we not?

I suppose I am very lucky to live in a suburb with detached houses with large gardens. On top of that is our house situated at the end of a dead end street, with only one neighbour with a sweet dog that only barks if a trespasser arrives.

So far the good news. Now some sad news:
The pollution of air, water and soil (NOx, PFAS and other poisons) in my country is becoming hazardous in more and more places, for human and animal health.
And with the government we have today things only get worse.
+ Yesterday we got the expected sad news about the return of bird flu. An organic (free range) chicken farm was infected. So all commercial chickens in the Netherlands, have to be kept inside again. Probably until April.

 

[Perris]

+ Yesterday we got the expected sad news about the return of bird flu.

It's here again too, H5N1 and H5N5 this time, one in Yorkshire and one in Cornwall, so from top to bottom of the country, both commercial outfits, and all birds on affected sites culled. But we only have 3km confinement and 10km surveillance zones around each outbreak thankfully, not the blanket over-reaction that accompanies it in some places.