I’ve relegated them to being out when we are out with them or the dogs are roaming the back yard. Occasionally we will lose one to a hawk in those situations but the foxes steer clear. Foxes get greedy and go on a murder spree before dragging the corpses back to their stash. That I can’t allow anymore.
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I don’t think we have foxes here, but we do have raccoons and maybe weasels, so we’re going to have to be careful about free-ranging the birds. We do have hawks also, but they aren’t as frequent. But I’m sure once we get the birds, that’ll bring the predators soon enough. We have a hyper border collie mix dog, so that should help with some protection, once we teach him not to go after the chickens.
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my neighbor up the street gave up on chickens and ducks. they would come out right in front of him and grab a bird in broad daylight. he shot plenty but he’s up against a large, forested property obviously with a large fox population.
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@subdood_ky_z6b One of my dogs is a border collie (Moxie). She’s a psycho but has never shown any aggression toward the birds. Her constant roaming is probably what puts off most of the predators. My other is an old herding breed mutt (Rags). Awesome dog but he’d rather lay by my side than roam around. Weasels seem like they’d be a real pain.
@steveb4 I’ve worked/lived in one of the shore towns for a few years of my life. No forests to be found but there were so many foxes. They adapt well to what is available to them. I guess that is where they get the “sly” image. In my area the deer are the wildlife. They rove in gangs tearing up any unprotected plant that is even a bit edible. I’ll take the foxes over those four legged nuisances.
Moxie:
Rags:
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Nice looking dogs. Yeah your border collie looks like she’s really to spring into action at any time. Mine is a BC/red heeler mix, so he’s not quite as agressive. We’ve tried to train him, and he’s getting better, but he’s also older so maybe he’s maturing. He was bad to jump on people, but we’ve just about broke him of that. I’ve seen him take off after deer, he’s like a furry guided missile…
Baxter:
We have more coyotes here than foxes, altho I’ve only seen one in the yard once many years ago. But, sometimes you can hear them in nearby fields howling, kinda disconcerting. I don’t think they’d be a concern during the day. We also have possums, but I don’t think they’ll be a problem.
My wife has said that back when her family had chickens, that minks would be an issue, but I’ve not seen any. We do have snakes, like racers, king and rat snakes, so that’ll be something we’ll need to watch for.
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Nothing fancy but I’m in a residential area with a small yard but I let them out when I’m home and just keep them from eating the whole garden haha
Plus the dog protects them pretty well from neighborhood cats
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@subdood_ky_z6b cute doggo. As a TMNT fan I hear Baxter and immediately think of the fly villain. Maybe one day he will be ready to protect the flock. Or maybe he will fight mutant turtles.
@Gkight No need to be fancy. We all work with what we have. Australorps are great birds. (assuming that is what they are)
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Yeah that’s them, they are quiet and young (got them in March) and we get 3 a day every day so we have one freeloader. Two of them are really cool but the other two pretty standoffish. So far they have been really smooth sailing and a lot of fun to watch. We are restricted to maximum of 6 hens, no roosters here but no one would bother us unless we got them unruly. Prolly add a couple Buff Orpingtons in a couple years, but only because we eat a lot of eggs so the 4 can’t maintain us haha
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Buffs are great birds for us. It’s between them and New Hampshire Reds for the most likely to interact with people in my experience. Our Australorp (roo) was a great bird but she was happy enough to be left alone. This may have been because the kids liked to pick her up. Unfortunately they are all gone.
I’m hatching out a few orphington eggs, an austra, along with some mutts from our bielefelder rooster (Heinrich aka “Heiney”) at the moment. We are not huge egg eaters but two hens and one duck don’t produce enough.
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@busch83 two of my australorps enjoy being handled and all of them enjoy being handled once you get your hands on them but the other two run like their life depends on it once they realize you intend to touch them and not feed them. Chickens are odd haha but a lot of fun. Yeah I think about 8 hens would be perfect for us so maybe I’ll push the limits of the town code one day since it’s a dumb rule (I get the no rooster thing tho I’d have one if I could) I think my coop would be ok for 2 more but 8 would be too cramped so I’d have to upgrade to house twice as many happily.
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Was curious as to how many eggs everyone’s flock is producing now. Is your production dropping some with the days getting gradually shorter?
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Yes starting to slow down.
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same here but not as much as my younger birds have started to lay last month.
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Hard for me to gauge since we had a five bird loss fairly recently but short days were always fairly sparse. I was supposed to start water glassing but well, murders. ATM it’s between 0-2 eggs a day.
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I had plans to water glass too. I processed and froze probably 30 dozen but just didn’t get to glassing in time. Too much going on.
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Sorry but I’m not familiar with that, could you elaborate?
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its storing eggs long term in hydrated lime and water. some claim the eggs are still good 2 years later. lots of vids on it on YouTube.
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Just regular raw in the shell eggs, or hard boiled eggs? Stored in something like jars?
My wife has mentioned you could freeze them, but not sure if she was talking about raw or cooked.
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As @steveb4 said, storing them in a solution of hydrated lime - raw, unwashed, need to be day old fresh (ideally) and clean.
Old time was of preserving eggs for up to 2 years. The yolk texture changes with time i understand but taste fine.
Eggs can be frozen raw or cooked.
They can be cooked, scrambled with some salt added, and frozen. I put ours in sandwich bags pressed flat in ‘egg sandwich’ shape and portions.
They can also be scrambled and frozen raw. Salt them a bit.
They can be separated too, raw, some ppl use ice trays and freeze the yolks and whites separately and then place in bags. You can pull whites and yolks as needed.
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