Any chicken experts on here?

StinkerBell · April 08, 2008, 08:38:11 PM

I really think your kids will enjoy these pets. Mine did!

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 08, 2008, 10:53:51 PM

ditto on what Stink said... ever since we moved back, my kids won't stop bugging me about when we're going to get chickens. They've been so anxious to get back in their 'chicken business', and the older one even has a "business plan" about how she's going to sell eggs and chicks and full grown birds.

April 09, 2008, 01:30:51 AM

A brochure I got from fish and game said to put your chicken wire in a trench about a foot or so underground to keep the coyotes from digging under -- sounds like a good idea to me.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 09, 2008, 10:06:26 AM

We did that... probably not quite that deep though because the water table was so high you'd hit water at our old place if you dug a whole foot down.

We only buried it about 7-8", but it seemed enough to discourage the varmits from trying. Something did dig down several inches one time but eventually gave up. We only put the birds in at night and they were pretty much free to roam during the day, but if we had to go out of town, I felt better knowing that they could deal with being in their pen for a few days. We'd always load them up on kitchen/garden scraps if we were going out of town so they wouldn't have to eat only boring old chicken feed... perhaps they were a bit spoiled. We also ran a 1 by 4" "baseboard" around the outside of the pen area along the ground because we figured it would help to discourage the digging animals from pulling the flimsy chicken wire up out of the ground. It did seem to work, and it made the pen look nicer. We had trouble for a little while with snakes eating the eggs, so I got some wooden and chalk eggs and put them in the nests and cured us of our snake trouble... only problem was that they looked so realistic, my husband would bring them into the house with the real eggs if he went out to get them! Gave me a good laugh, anyway. He honestly could not tell the difference, and the funniest thing was the day he was going to make an omelette out of them.

MountainDon · April 09, 2008, 01:36:25 PM

Better than a simple trench with the wire in it is to dig a wider trench outwards from the fence line. The wire fence is then curved down and out. More work, but discourages more digging when they find they then can't go down either.

April 09, 2008, 02:04:03 PM

As I recall my hubby did not like our chickens when we first got them. Who can hate a cute little chick? Well, I figured it out. The chickens saw my hubby and called him what he is......cheap cheap cheap........lol

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 09, 2008, 04:18:30 PM

sometimes the truth is hard to take!

NetHog · April 10, 2008, 09:39:35 PM

Did Stink show the chicken coop I made her?

Sorry, I mean I made for our chicks.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 10, 2008, 10:18:48 PM

Pretty sharp looking! Lot fancier than our first one... It was just a moveable pen that was 4' by 8' and made of 1by2s" covered in chicken wire. We put some nesting buckets in it until we could get our permanent coop built. I think I have a picture somewhere.

April 11, 2008, 09:48:12 AM

I have had chickens twice, fist batch each night one would come up missing wehad a new dog so every day he got a beating about the dead chicken. Then whent here was no more chickens left the bear started to get inthe dog food pan well then we knew it was a bear eating the chickens and I felt bad for beating the dog. The second batch of chickens did fine, until the goat broke inthe house one day while I was at work. Well betweent he goat and the chickesn I cane home to a big mess, and they ate all my houseplants too. New rule was established at that point in time, NO CHICKENS, NO GOATS.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 11, 2008, 10:44:35 AM

Tanya, my husband would agree with you about the goats, though I kind of like them in spite of themselves...I think his bias is just because he got so burned out on goat meat while he was in graduate school... my dad would butcher and give us half a goat, and that was all the red meat we had until it ran out. He got sick of goat loaf, and goatsketti, and goat-lash, and goat burgers, and even goat sausage. I met a lady through my mom who made homemade goat cheeses, and I thought they were great, but DH said they tasted "goaty" and would have nothing to with them... city boy! Wouldn't trade the chickens, though. Never had any real trouble with ours. About the worst they ever did was start a nest in our next door neighbor's hollyhocks, but the neighbor appreciated the egg donation and the bug control.

StinkerBell · April 11, 2008, 11:56:11 AM

I've been reading up on goats. Also been reading up on making goat cheese. Hopefully I can talk NetHog into my idea of having a goat.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 11, 2008, 12:52:01 PM

Hope you've got really good fences!!!

glenn kangiser · April 12, 2008, 02:05:56 AM

I don't recall seeing any pix of Stink in her new chicken pen.

Our little goat was impossible to keep fenced, then she showed the sheep how to get out of the fence and he was impossible too.

Not enough time anymore -- too much trouble.

April 12, 2008, 08:54:04 AM

Get her to send you one... it was pretty cool... but she had obviously figured out how to escape by the time the picture was taken.

glenn kangiser · April 12, 2008, 10:09:20 AM

Some animals are smarter than others.

Sassy · April 12, 2008, 12:46:19 PM

Stinkerbell, post the picture please

Glenn hatched a couple roosters - one a buff orpington rooster - he loved to try & attack Glenn

Glenn would just scoop him up on the top of his boot & send him flying - actually, the rooster chased everyone around... our other rooster was real nice. We let our chickens & ducks free range until we started missing one or 2 every morning....

Then Glenn had to build a pen for them - we still had bears, coyotes, skunks, possums, raccoons get in there...

Goats are fun, really characters, but you have to have the time for them & any plants, gardens need to be totally sealed off from them or they will eat them right up. Poor little "Cupcake", otherwise known as the "Inspector" lost her life to a mountain lion, we think...

glenn kangiser · April 12, 2008, 12:58:14 PM

Before you get started-- I didn't actually hatch the roosters. I used an incubator. I couldn't sit still for that long.

NetHog · April 13, 2008, 01:20:37 AM

Here's some coop pictures:

No, we didn't leave the coop in the front yard, I just built it there. We had lots of neighbors checking in and making comments. The white hatch you can see to the right gives access to the nesting box without having to go inside.

Inside doors closed.

Inside doors open.

Another view.

glenn kangiser · April 13, 2008, 01:23:21 AM

Very classy chicken pen, Hog. i'm sure your chickens are proud to call it home. Good Job.

April 13, 2008, 12:49:10 PM

We wanted something that would make the neighbors go "that's cool" rather than "ewww, why do we have to put up with that"

glenn kangiser · April 13, 2008, 01:00:58 PM

Do you have a problem with roosters in town or just eliminate them? In the cities in Mexico you can hear them just before daylight, but they don't go over so well up here it seems.

Homegrown Tomatoes · April 13, 2008, 09:55:52 PM

We were in a town of 400 before when we had chickens (and roosters)... the only comments we ever heard about them were from an elderly neighbor across the street who said she just loved to hear them crow because it reminded her of when her husband was still alive and they lived on their farm. Our other neighbors never complained if they had a problem with them, but then most of the town was comprised of retired farmers and county workers who got up early anyway. We thought about trying to have chickens in Wisconsin, and I know some neighbors less than a mile from us did have them, but our immediate neighbors were grossed out at the thought of us eating eggs from chickens! (I don't know where they think grocery store eggs come from!) And they also insinuated that there would be trouble with the neighborhood association that we never asked to join but received and annual bill from none the less.

Sassy · April 13, 2008, 10:21:40 PM

My brother had chickens for awhile - he lives out in the country on an almond farm... anyway, he got tired of the roosters crowing, so he used them for target practice from the balcony off their bedroom $:-\$

One of the nurses I worked with had chickens in their backyard in Fresno - no one complained that I know of. One day we had a promotion for our Fitness program at the hospital. He brought in the chicken wearing a diaper & we took it around to the different departments in the hospital (the infection control nurse was with us

) encouraging them "not to be chicken, take the 'Director's' challenge." The director of the hospital is a fitness nut - anyway, we would measure how fit he was on cardio, grip strength, flexibility & one other thing (can't remember

)... then staff would compete & could win movie tickets if they beat him in anything... BTW, Glenn had the strongest grip at the hospital... We went into the director's office & took a picture of the chicken standing on his desk with the sign "Director" in front of it...

the director wasn't there that day (he did see the pictures later, though).

Another time we had a going away party for one of the staff - he brought one of his chickens (with the diaper on) into the restaurant. The chicken kept crowing - the restaurant was noisy, so it was difficult to really separate it from all the cackling by the people - but it was funny - the waitress finally caught on but didn't say anything...

glenn kangiser · April 13, 2008, 11:19:26 PM

QuoteAnd they also insinuated that there would be trouble with the neighborhood association that we never asked to join but received and annual bill from none the less.

I hate it when groups of snotty people get together and form little mobs.

I have to stay away from groups like that as I would be inclined to get even.