Chicken catalog

Hi!

I have poultry...have you ever owned poultry before?

There is an awesome website which you might want to check out....http://www.homesteadingtoday.com

They have a poultry forum which is really very helpful....I was on that forum often with my questions.

If you are looking for a heavy breed, I would suggest black giants and black astrolorphs.

I have both and they are just the sweetest birds! If you have hawks, you might want to find a dark colored chicken which will blend in. White chickens will attract attention.

I have, at this point, a mixed bunch of chickens. We have some Easter eggers (yup, we get blue and green eggs), buff rocks (really beautiful birds, heavy breed as well), white orphingtons, black giants, black astrolorphs, barred rocks and silkies.

You will actually want to avoid bantams. They are very small, and can easily be carried off by a hawk. Bantam roosters are quite obnoxious...they REALLY crow, and their crow is more like a squeaky door!

You will want to provide a covered run for your chickens, if hawks frequent your yard. It might be that you won't be able to free range them.

Your coop will have to be very secure. Chickens have any number of natural predators....weasels, foxes, bears, hawks/owls, neighborhood dogs and cats, coyotes, wolves, raccoons and skunks.

We have a large coop and a covered run. This spring, I am hoping to put up a stockade fence as well, so the chickens have a larger area to roam. We invested in a livestock guardian dog, a Great Pyrenese. If we put up a stockade fencing I'll be putting the dog out there during the day to discourage hawk attacks.

If you order chickens, you might want to order only pullets. A straight run order will give you roosters as well. It stresses the hens out too much to have too many roosters.

I heard a funny story about peacocks, LOL...they have a tendency to take up with the wild turkeys!

 

I'm sorry you have had such trouble!

You might want to look into chicken tractors! We constructed a few of them so the chickens can be protected while we rotate them around the yard.

Let me tell you this story....two summers ago, late summer, I was starting supper. I looked outside to see my three kids jumping and waving their hands. This is the universal sign in our household that there are haws around!

To make a long story short, this coopers hawk was swooping BETWEEN my children and myself trying to catch one of our panicked chickens. This hawk was SOOO BOLD! It was really quite unnerving!!! Since that time, we haven't been able to free range them.....no chicken can fight off a hawk. :tear:

 

What in the world is a Chicken Tractor???

And Blackbird has somethng in his gun cabinet that can take care of any Hawk----a la Remington 12 gauge(its against the Law to kill a Hawk or Owl or any of those other Predator birds, ain't it????)

This is my first visit to this Chicken site----I am in the process of building a house for my wife and I in the very BACK of a 40 acre piece of family property----and plan on constructing some sort of chicken coop--etc.----I'll be back here to see what I can learn

 

chicken tractors

Here is a good website with pics of chicken tractors. Ours are more on the lines of large rectangular boxes...frames of wood with chicken wire stapled to the sides and top. An opening in the top to take the chickens in and out.

http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html

Yup, can't shoot any hawks. They are still federally protected. Nasty things, VERY bold, as Sopranette said, they will swoop a chicken at your feet. "Chicken hawks" are really Cooper hawks. Very bold. We don't find the red tails to be quite as bold.

In New Hampshire, we are in the migration path for Canada, Vermont and Maine. In October, we will see lots of birds of prey flying south. The only times hawks will flock together is for migration. Well, one afternoon, I am outside doing some late gardening...must have been around five in the afternoon, when at least thirty hawks circled and circled my backyard! They kept coming back and circling my coop...I wish I had my camera, it was an amazing sight!

I would get on the Homesteading forum...in the chicken forum, there is a thread in which posters have put up their coops. You can see some amazing designs!

Again, that forum is http://www.homesteadingtoday.com

Here is one thread with tons of pics of coops, tractors, etc.

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=182113&highlight=chicken+coops

I would consider getting a livestock guardian dog, if you are going to settle in the back of a forty acre property. LGDs can keep the other predators at bay!

Your sis in Christ,
Beth

 

A local wildlife guy gave some good advice to a person raising quail recently. He told him to string a grid of very fine high tensile wire above his quail pens. The hawks can't see it and when they dive to catch a bird they cut a wing off or sometimes even their heads.

While you can't shoot a bird of prey legally - you can't be held responsible if they commit suicide over your bird yard. :thumbs:

 

Lololol

Yup, OR, say, perfectly hypothetical that you happen to be practicing your baseball SWING with your BAT in your pen while there might be a hawk munching away on, say, a CHICKEN!!! :saint:

Seriously, I heard also saving your old cds and tying them also up so they swing above your enclosure...anything shiny like that throws off the hawk.

 

If you hatch your own chickens, they become so petted that they will climb all over you. They will sit on your head, climb your arms and you become so attached, you can never harm them.

But, if one of them gets a bad place on their body, the others will kill it by pecking it to death.

BBob,

 

oooh yes

We have hatched a few dozen chickens, and you are so right! They can get extremely friendly.

Once, when watching our neighbor's chickens, I discovered a chicken which was pecked nearly to death. She had gotten snagged on some wire....her flapping around attracted attention, with the end result being pecked terribly.

We tried to save her, but, with the family's permission, put her down quickly when her wounds were causing her suffering.

This is the same neighbor who practices with a baseball bat. :saint:

 

I take it you had fried chicken that night.

 

I had a church member who kept complaining about a rooster from the neighbor's land that would roost in a tree by her bedroom window and crow all night. She called the police but they wouldn't do anything. I told her that I know what I would do. I'd be having fried chicken. Sometimes it's not the hawk that is the problem. It's the chicken.