Developing My Own Breed Of Large Gamefowl For Free Range Survival (Junglefowl x Liege)

[NagemTX]

Yeah…my neighbor has a bunch of dogs that don’t bother his chickens and he never loses any chickens to predators (not close enough that his dogs would affect the predators at my place). I don’t have a job that would let me have a dog as my wife and I both travel for a living (both flight attendants). We are gone 3 days a week almost every week. I’m much more of a cat person anyway. Cats might miss you a bit when you are gone but dogs are pack animals and YOU are part of their pack so when you are gone they really get traumatized. Anyway, for the most part I only lose the extra roosters. The free-range hens and dominant rooster sleep in the barn and have to fly over the stall door to get in. Perches are decently off the ground. I actually am surprised that I’ve never had a predator get in there and wipe them out but the donkey must be a bit of a deterrent. All the birds in my breeding project are penned up and after trial and error most of the spots where a raccoon paw could reach through have been patched in a way to prevent losses. Strangely the birds in pens in the woods seem to attract the owls the most and it seems like I’ll catch owls trying in vain to get the penned up birds in the woods while they’d maybe have a chance of getting the free-range birds if they didn’t mind venturing out of the woods a bit. I have hawks fly over all the time but the chickens seem really good at hiding in the brush and the hawks just keep on going.

I have a cat that actively works on keep hawks away from my chickens during the day. She also won't let squirrels in the yard. She lays in the middle of the ranging flock and if a hawk comes around she perks up. She's tried to catch one recently. She is such a weird kitty.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I have a cat that actively works on keep hawks away from my chickens during the day. She also won't let squirrels in the yard. She lays in the middle of the ranging flock and if a hawk comes around she perks up. She's tried to catch one recently. She is such a weird kitty.

Both of our cats just lay around…mostly in the house. But we do now have a barn cat that is completely wild that has really put a dent in the mouse population which has been great.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

In my experience cats spend the majority of their energy decimating and torturing all wildlife except for rats. The cats I used to have here liked to target songbirds and squirrels in particular

Pretty sure they've done many studies on the subject and cats don't impact rat populations at all

 

[NagemTX]

In my experience cats spend the majority of their energy decimating and torturing all wildlife except for rats. The cats I used to have here liked to target songbirds and squirrels in particular

Pretty sure they've done many studies on the subject and cats don't impact rat populations at all

The one that stays with the chickens actually eats the squirrels she catches. What ever is left over the coons take.

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

In my experience cats spend the majority of their energy decimating and torturing all wildlife except for rats. The cats I used to have here liked to target songbirds and squirrels in particular

Pretty sure they've done many studies on the subject and cats don't impact rat populations at all

Maybe not rats but cats are fantastic at catching mice. I would think any cat that would take in a squirrel would take a rat too but the only time I had rats I used heavy-duty poison because their population exploded and they were much worse than mice would ever be.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

My dogs rarely mess with mice, but won’t tolerate a rat. I don’t ever have rodent issues in my breeding coops. Which out here in the woods, domestic mice and rats don’t take hold easily. The mice around my place are usually deer mice, and the rats are usually Florida wood rats. I’ve only seen the dogs catch a deer mouse once, but they’ll stay on a wood rat until they catch it. They also like to kill musk rats and moles.

 

[Turkey chicken]

View attachment 3992279

I’m going to try for some high-grade terrofowl pics soon. They’re filling out nicely.

Hey sorry it took me so long to respond but we got rid of

View attachment 3992279

I’m going to try for some high-grade terrofowl pics soon. They’re filling out nicely.

We had to get rid of our gamefowl but were getting some old english bantams chicks in the spring were getting one bull stag or rooster and about 7 hens I don't know if old english go by bullstag but were getting some in the spring also are they a gamey bird

 

[Az OEGB]

Hey sorry it took me so long to respond but we got rid of

We had to get rid of our gamefowl but were getting some old english bantams chicks in the spring were getting one bull stag or rooster and about 7 hens I don't know if old english go by bullstag but were getting some in the spring also are they a gamey bird

OEGBs in my experience are tough free rangers Their only issue for me was that they were so small that hawks won't consider them to big when they reach full size, but they still did fairly well most of the time of not getting killed, producing chicks and staying fed and if you are in a spot like me which I doubt you are but if you don't have an extreme amount of food to forage smaller birds are perfect. so they should work pretty good for you

 

[Turkey chicken]

OEGBs in my experience are tough free rangers Their only issue for me was that they were so small that hawks won't consider them to big when they reach full size, but they still did fairly well most of the time of not getting killed, producing chicks and staying fed and if you are in a spot like me which I doubt you are but if you don't have an extreme amount of food to forage smaller birds are perfect. so they should work pretty good for you

We have one acrea of feild with our chicken and turkey but rest is all 4 acreas of woods