Pets chickens

[Kram]

Do you mind if I ask what the title of that book is? One of our Cats posters has just lost their cat of 15 years and their little kids are devastated.

Good luck with your remaining two ducklings!!

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/abbey.asp

 

[Mattrox]

Do you mind if I ask what the title of that book is? One of our Cats posters has just lost their cat of 15 years and their little kids are devastated.

 

[Teriyakicat]

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/abbey.asp

Isn't that just beautiful???

 

[estibador]

My egg drought is still continuing.

When I opened their pen this morning one of them stayed in her laying box for an extra couple of hours, but she's out now and still no egg. Is that a worry that she might be trying to lay but nothing is coming out?

 

[Teriyakicat]

Thanks Mattrox- I'll pass that on as well. That's a lovely book. Hopefully the two ideas (yours and Kram81 's) will help this poster's family.
Much appreciated!!

 

[Teriyakicat]

My egg drought is still continuing.

When I opened their pen this morning one of them stayed in her laying box for an extra couple of hours, but she's out now and still no egg. Is that a worry that she might be trying to lay but nothing is coming out?

I think it would be unusual that, if she's egg bound, that both chooks would have the same problem at the same time.
Have the chooks had a fright? eg had a dog bark at them or something?
Or have you changed their feed?
Your hen might be getting back into the rhythm

 

[estibador]

Have the chooks had a fright? eg had a dog bark at them or something?

Ah shit, now I remember...

Last Friday a friend who lives down the road rang me from work and asked if I could go grab her escaped dog from a neighbour's yard. I briefly brought it back to my place to look for some rope to tie it up in her backyard and it was trying to bash down my side fence to get at the chooks. It's a bloody big dog too and the chooks were flapping around sounding a bit distressed.

You might have cracked the case! Does that mean normal service will resume once they get over it?

 

[Teriyakicat]

Ah shit, now I remember...

Last Friday a friend who lives down the road rang me from work and asked if I could go grab her escaped dog from a neighbour's yard. I briefly brought it back to my place to look for some rope to tie it up in her backyard and it was trying to bash down my side fence to get at the chooks. It's a bloody big dog too and the chooks were flapping around sounding a bit distressed.

You might have cracked the case! Does that mean normal service will resume once they get over it?

Yeah- the way I understand it, the hen has eggs formed inside her already, at various stages from shelled to very tiny unshelled unrecognisable things. If there is a disruption to production because of something like a thunderstorm- or dog attack or whatever- I think the hen can still pop a few eggs out before production ceases. The fact that she lays for a while afterward sometimes puts you off the scent because you're thinking of what happened that day, to have stopped her laying.
It could be a protective mechanism- why lay there if her eggs (and young) will be in danger?

I suspect that the hen that sat on her nest today was almost ready to lay and was testing the area to make sure it's safe again. Hopefully normal production is just around the corner

 

[Teriyakicat]

lol some of these chicken palace pictures posted put bush type pens to shame, although a lot of mine would just casually fly over the top of those fences.

This little thing is pretty funny, it was supposed to be a pure buff Pekin but has a fair bit of black on its back and wing tips, must have got mixed in with a black Pekin, I did notice that he had one running around when I got the eggs.

That little chick is very cute, Kram (sorry- didn't notice your post this morning when I was reading the thread). Good to see you've got it eating the calcium already, to prepare for those strong-shelled eggs!

 

[Kram]

Starting to get a bit bigger now.. Very, very early but 2 or 3 of the Sussex chicks have a very rooster like 'gait' for mine, also seen a couple sparring with each other the other day which I've never seen chicks ever do at that age.

Hopefully get 2 hens. 3 hens and 2 roosters would be ideal though. Probably bloody end up with just one or something though...

 

[Kram]

ALL F UCKING DEAD apart from 2 little ones it looks like. Some piece of shit's dog or a fox somehow got in through the gates and they are all gone apart from the old mum with its head ripped off.

Beyond pissed off, if it's someone's dog I'm going to bash its head in with a cricket bat if it comes near my house again.

 

[Teriyakicat]

ALL F UCKING DEAD apart from 2 little ones it looks like. Some piece of shit's dog or a fox somehow got in through the gates and they are all gone apart from the old mum with its head ripped off.

Beyond pissed off, if it's someone's dog I'm going to bash its head in with a cricket bat if it comes near my house again.

OH NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Oh Kram!!!! That is SO sad
The poor wee things!!
And poor you and your family!
I am so upset for you all! Are your kids OK? Are YOU OK, for that matter?

Plan A. Find out who it was.
Plan B. Kill it!!!

Foxes often just leave bodies as they kill for sport. Any fox or dog fur near the fence or gate? Feral cat, maybe?

Our local council used to offer fox traps to people if they saw a fox or suspected they had a fox. They might still have the traps. Give yours a buzz- nobody likes foxes, I'm sure they'll help.

Bait it up tonight and kill whatever you catch!!!!

GOOD LUCK!!

 

[Kram]

Nah just me Teriyakicat, don't have any kids.

Found the other mother dead and my friendly ISA brown dead in its back ben but the rest of the adults up there alive. Calming down a little bit it would 90% be a fox, both side gates were shut and foxes are actually capable of scaling the 1.7m backyard fence, plus biting off a the head of one is what they do. I was up around daybreak to and didn't hear any commotion whatsoever, and there a feathers everywhere only a few metres from my bedroom window..

A slim chance some other little ones could be in hiding around in bushes somewhere still in shock I guess..

So ****ing upset and pissed off, after all the effort to run around to get the eggs, and I'd grown rather attached to the little Pekins in particular, plus losing your favourite older pet ones.

Will have to lock everything in the side pen which is the most secure, the cunning ****s always come back, will now be always worrying about it happening again and can't bloody relax anymore. Amazing how far they come in to town, bush is over a kilometre away. Same thing happened to an old bloke I know on the other side that wiped most of his out, think he said he caught it in a trap and killed it himself.

 

[Teriyakicat]

Nah just me Teriyakicat, don't have any kids.

Found the other mother dead and my friendly ISA brown dead in its back ben but the rest of the adults up there alive. Calming down a little bit it would 90% be a fox, both side gates were shut and foxes are actually capable of scaling the 1.7m backyard fence, plus biting off a the head of one is what they do. I was up around daybreak to and didn't hear any commotion whatsoever, and there a feathers everywhere only a few metres from my bedroom window..

A slim chance some other little ones could be in hiding around in bushes somewhere still in shock I guess..

So ****ing upset and pissed off, after all the effort to run around to get the eggs, and I'd grown rather attached to the little Pekins in particular, plus losing your favourite older pet ones.

Will have to lock everything in the side pen which is the most secure, the cunning ****s always come back, will now be always worrying about it happening again and can't bloody relax anymore. Amazing how far they come in to town, bush is over a kilometre away. Same thing happened to an old bloke I know on the other side that wiped most of his out, think he said he caught it in a trap and killed it himself.

Oops! Don't know why I thought you had kids. My bad...

Yeah, sounds very much like a fox. I hope that you can find a couple of little chicks around the place- they should come back for food because they're old enough to know where it is, though they'd be terrified of coming back. Yeah, I know you went to lots of trouble to get those eggs because you said it was a long trip. And then the 3 weeks of waiting for them to hatch... Bloody hell!!! Makes you so mad!!

Did you try calling your council to see if they have a trap you can borrow? I know they don't want foxes around any more than you do- and you don't have to tell them you've caught a fox and killed it- they would probably put it to sleep humanely for you but that won't satisfy you anywhere near as much as killing it yourself (though they are very very vicious when cornered and it might even escape, should you be lucky enough to catch one).

I had 6 old-ish Isa Browns on one side of my chook pen- not so good layers- and 6 new ones- all really good layers. (They roosted on opposite sides.) I went out and took my kids to school one morning, came home and stuffed around a bit then went out to check food and water before I left to pick my nephew up at the airport. I found 3 new chooks dead, and saw that one had been dragged under the fence of the chook pen and through the neighbour's fence behind. I quickly buried the 3 dead hens and went off to the airport. When I got home, I was showing my nephew and found that two hens (also from the young batch), which I'd previously thought were just scared, actually had broken necks and they were hiding under shelter because they couldn't move! I went to pick one up and its neck just lolled about, so I ended up having to chop their heads off which I hated to do but wish I'd done hours earlier. While hunting around, I sliced open the back of my hand on a piece of fencing, so that was 6 stitches and made me that frigging fox even more!!
There were feathers everywhere but the dog hadn't barked at all during the night- he sleeps at the front of the house and you'd think he'd heard something. The only thing I could think of was that maybe the fox had come early in the morning when I was doing the school run. Maybe.... but the fact that he'd taken only those 6 newer pullets from the same roost- and the fact that no other chook roosted there for over 12 months- makes me think he took them while they were asleep and the dog was just useless (or maybe I just didn't hear him from that far away)

My friend constantly loses her chickens- her daughter forgets to lock them away at night in their secure area. That would be bloody annoying.

 

[Kram]

You have to wonder how it even knew they were there without a rooster, that's one of the disadvantages of having them can attract predators to your flock. Might have been just bad luck as it was passing by and heard them all chirping as they got up in the morning, they slept in pretty hidden away places in the yard.. There is no holes where it could have gotten into the backyard, where I suspect it got in was the smallest gate/fence section that is 1.5m tall so it can't exactly stroll in but they are capable of getting over it. When I last had a fox knock off my Orpingtons about 20 years ago when I was a kid I know a neighbour that actually seen it get over the taller side fence they were up in the middle of the night.

 

[Teriyakicat]

You have to wonder how it even knew they were there without a rooster, that's one of the disadvantages of having them can attract predators to your flock. Might have been just bad luck as it was passing by and heard them all chirping as they got up in the morning, they slept in pretty hidden away places in the yard.. There is no holes where it could have gotten into the backyard, where I suspect it got in was the smallest gate/fence section that is 1.5m tall so it can't exactly stroll in but they are capable of getting over it. When I last had a fox knock off my Orpingtons about 20 years ago when I was a kid I know a neighbour that actually seen it get over the taller side fence they were up in the middle of the night.

Yeah - might've just smelled them out, too.
I heard a commotion in the pen nearest to my bedroom late one evening a few years ago. Went out to see what was going on - making lots of noise- and heard something scrambling over my 6' cyclone wire fence. Thought it was one of my cats at first- but realised later that it sounded much heavier, plus the cat would've leaped silently right onto the top bar of the fence.

Couldn't find two of my hens after a head count so hunted around, thinking a bloody fox had grabbed one and gone over the top of the fence with it

Eventually found the two red hens- one was hiding in a corner of the pen near the nesting boxes, bum up, head down up against the fence, and one had stuck her head into a small weedy-looking patch, with her bum and body sticking out

I thought it was hilarious until I figured what a great defence that was against Mr Fox. He goes to grab a bite, gets a mouthful of feathers, and she runs off while he's choking on feathers. It's just a delaying tactic but, as it happens, it worked that night. The "hen in the bush" hen was covered in slobber all over her back. They had a very lucky escape- or should that be "licky escape"?

 

[Kram]

My friend constantly loses her chickens- her daughter forgets to lock them away at night in their secure area. That would be bloody annoying.

Where they sleep as well as the pen? That's what I'm doing at the moment, shutting the old bird cage they sleep in at night to make 100% sure that nothing can get in. Doing it all the time is a massive pain in the backside though, the pen is likely secure enough now but when I improve it a bit more I'll go back to leaving the sleeping cage open.

Put the 2 little ones left in this small cage thing for the moment inside the pen, it's not ideal but they are happy enough and I can take them into the laundry to sleep at night.

 

[Teriyakicat]

Where they sleep as well as the pen? That's what I'm doing at the moment, shutting the old bird cage they sleep in at night to make 100% sure that nothing can get in. Doing it all the time is a massive pain in the backside though, the pen is likely secure enough now but when I improve it a bit more I'll go back to leaving the sleeping cage open.

Put the 2 little ones left in this small cage thing for the moment inside the pen, it's not ideal but they are happy enough and I can take them into the laundry to sleep at night.

I don't know what my friend's set up is- haven't been into her back yard for years. She lives on a 10 acre block.
Your set up looks fine- and, as you said, the chickens will be happy in a small area. Did you find any others?

It's bloody hard to round up all my hens because they don't usually sleep in a lockable area. After one of our fox attacks at the front pen, I remember digging around the 'secure area', putting corrugated iron deeper into the soil, filling in all the gaps with sticks and rocks and covering them with soil. We only had one lockable area- and that was in the front chook pens. Down the back, it's just a huge 10' cyclone fence surrounding fruit trees and two nesting areas but the bottom wire comes out in a curve, which means the fox would have to dig about 1/2 a metre back from the fence to get under that. And it's all covered by left-over tennis net and sticks and shrubs, now. A fox only needs a few inches, though- they don't get called 'cunning' for nothing!

 

[Kram]

Nah no trace at all of their bodies or anything, just the 3 dead adults. What mum said they do is kill a whole heap and carry just one away with them and then come back for another body the next night. She was surprised as they would have scattered that a couple more little ones didn't manage to find a spot to hide away, reckons they usually target adults.

The chook I call the 'Runt' or 'Barlow' (it ran like the footy player when it was little) is trying to sit on the nest for the first time. If it continues and I can be bothered I might look at coming up to Perth and get some eggs for it to sit on next week. Problem is it can't stay there really because there's lots of others and it need a suitable safe spot elsewhere that is also coolish now that the weather is heating up, we'll see..

 

[Teriyakicat]

Nah no trace at all of their bodies or anything, just the 3 dead adults. What mum said they do is kill a whole heap and carry just one away with them and then come back for another body the next night. She was surprised as they would have scattered that a couple more little ones didn't manage to find a spot to hide away, reckons they usually target adults.

The chook I call the 'Runt' or 'Barlow' (it ran like the footy player when it was little) is trying to sit on the nest for the first time. If it continues and I can be bothered I might look at coming up to Perth and get some eggs for it to sit on next week. Problem is it can't stay there really because there's lots of others and it need a suitable safe spot elsewhere that is also coolish now that the weather is heating up, we'll see..

Damn!! I was hoping you'd find some littlies around- maybe leave some bowls of water around, just in case any of them have found their way under the house - if they could've got there.

I loved your name of "Barlow" for your chicken. My daughter named one of our red hens "Langer" because, when we were all out playing cricket one night, this particular hen would race after the ball as if it was fielding for us I asked my son who he thought was the best fielder in the Aussie team at that time and he said Langer. And we had another one called "Dobber Doodle" because it would always run up to us and cluck, as if it was telling us something. My daughter, who was only about 7 or 8 at the time, recognised all 12 individual red hens. I didn't have a hope!!

Good luck with your newly nesting chicken- hope you can manage to find her a safe nesting place and some eggs for her to sit on.

 

[Papa Juggs]

Horrible news.

Predators suck.

It's best that you have an enclosed run. Wire about a foot into the ground on the sides with a full wire roof. Still just because that's best doesn't mean you always need it as we don't have racoons in Australia. Perhaps the foxes are bad enough that the security is required.

Stressful experiences, heat and the length of day changing can put chickens off the lay.

Dark cool nest boxes are the best. That's where they feel the most comfortable if they do feel like laying. It's best just to try to make them happy and let them get on with it at their own pace. Once they have gotten used to the summer and get some cooler days they should start laying every other day before picking up again in autumn when it cools down.

 

[Teriyakicat]

Horrible news.

Predators suck.

It's best that you have an enclosed run. Wire about a foot into the ground on the sides with a full wire roof. Still just because that's best doesn't mean you always need it as we don't have racoons in Australia. Perhaps the foxes are bad enough that the security is required.

Stressful experiences, heat and the length of day changing can put chickens off the lay.

Dark cool nest boxes are the best. That's where they feel the most comfortable if they do feel like laying. It's best just to try to make them happy and let them get on with it at their own pace. Once they have gotten used to the summer and get some cooler days they should start laying every other day before picking up again in autumn when it cools down.

Yeah- foxes can scale high wire fences (mine's 6' high and one has been over it) and they will also tunnel underneath, hence digging wire into the ground. I've been told to dig corrugated iron 2' deep or so into the ground as a base to the wire fencing. Might be a bit OTT but it's better to be cautious than lose your whole flock.
My red hens are currently laying every day in Perth's cool weather. They might slow down laying soon, as you've said, when the summer heat hits us.

 

[Teriyakicat]

I'm wondering how estibador is going with his hens- are they laying again yet??

 

[estibador]

I'm wondering how estibador is going with his hens- are they laying again yet??

Nope, still nothing from those two.

My uncle was trying to thin out his flock and gave me two of his on Sunday though, and those two have already given me 3 eggs in two days. I know it's from the newbies because they have to lay in a different area because my original two have been bullying them something horrible and won't even let them into the laying box yet.

 

[Kram]

Yeah- foxes can scale high wire fences (mine's 6' high and one has been over it) and they will also tunnel underneath, hence digging wire into the ground. I've been told to dig corrugated iron 2' deep or so into the ground as a base to the wire fencing. Might be a bit OTT but it's better to be cautious than lose your whole flock.

That's what I've done in the pen in the above picture with leftover corrugated from the old carport, but I was little lazy (and not having a fox in the yard for 20 years wasn't in my thoughts..) it only goes about 100-150mm underground. Think it would be alright though as the ground out here is very hard and it would take a big effort for something to dig underneath and get through.

Only potential way in now is via the neighbours yard and over the 1.7m fence to the right, might get some lattice or something to extend it a bit higher and should be right then hopefully.