Comments on: Chicken Lickens

By: hales

hales — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:49:18 +0000

i just started raising chickens this year for eggs. we got three different kinds of chicks at one week of age. i’m excited watching them grow and taking care of them daily is quite relaxing. sometimes i just go out to watch them scratch in the dirt, dust bath themselves, or even handle them. i have three lady birds, which is the maximum allotment allowed in city limits. i couldn’t imagine having 100! but then again, i don’t have a farm (someday!). it’s amazing what they can do to a patch of grass, isn’t it? happy chickens!

By: Hayley

Hayley — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:33:32 +0000

Hey Ashley! Glad all is well on the farming front. Keep up the outstanding work!! Me and my brood will be in Southampton during the last week of July. Would you care to pop by our cottage for a visit? You could take in Lake Huron from a Southampton perspective…………

By: Diane Higgins

Diane Higgins — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:12:34 +0000

Puppers got p’owned by a mouse?
Would love to see a pictorial of that one!

By: Twwly

Twwly — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:42:59 +0000

…And in addition to attacking the children, the rooster attacked our dog, badly. He was afraid to go outside, and would not go out the front door by fall. He would only go out the laundry room door on the side, scuttle around back and then rush back in.

This is the same dog who got attacked by a mouse last week, alas he is not hardy farm stock! Haha.

By: Twwly

Twwly — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:40:35 +0000

Priscilla, how many chickens did you have free ranging at once? Were they layers or meat birds? If they were meat birds, what age did you raise them to and how much did you have to compensate for caloric burn?

Yes, eating each other can be crowd pressure, but any stress will set them off. Ours went barmy on each other this year when they were moved from the brooder to the pens. Also one year I mistakenly put in strawberries as scraps and anywhere there was pink or red on a white chicken, well they ate it…. bird included. That has nothing to do with crowd pressure and everything to do with a chickens natural lust for protein.

I’m in no way interested in keeping several dogs to keep all of the predators at bay, which are regularly spotted on our property. I think the height of concern for us would be the wandering dogs, (neighbours, not ours – have enough concern about dog fights as it is with our lap dogs).

We grow chickens in one burst over the summer, and there’s no way the investment in canine cost (guardian training, basic health care and feed for 12 months) would be justified by the 8-12 weeks of the year we have them.

And over my frankly dead and rotting corpse would I allow 100+ roosters to roam about the lawn!! We had one rooster last year we allowed to free range with our pleasant hens and he did nothing but attack our children, as they are prone to doing. My friends son could have lost his eyeball last year to one of their roosters, who was allowed to free range.

Not happening, though I am very glad to hear that worked for you. I am sure it works for some. Certainly something to be said for the raging popularity of electro poultry netting, we would consider that absolutely when the children are older, but for now we stick to the Salatin style tractors which offer the protection they need, while keeping them on fresh grass.

By: Priscilla

Priscilla — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:34:56 +0000

To be fair, when they are free-range, they don’t try to eat each other. That’s a crowd pressure thing.

Also, free-ranging them doesn’t make them prey, if you have a good farm dog around. When I was a girl on a Louisiana farm, our chickens roamed the yard and roosted in the trees or on fences at night. We had a few dogs on the place and never a problem with losing chickens. On the downside, my great-grandmother had to put a high fence around the vegetable garden.

By: Twwly

Twwly — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:26:48 +0000

Momx3: Friendly egg layer who you’ll love: Buff Orphington. Talk to Cheryl Murray at the Fettle, she’s got an incubator of those guys!

By: Diane Higgins

Diane Higgins — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:27:35 +0000

you totally nailed what I heard ALL DAY

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:36:13 +0000

My wife and I would love to have chickens some day, but unfortunately, I don’t think they would fit on our apartment balcony.

By: momx3

momx3 — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:33:04 +0000

We are thinking of getting a couple of chickens—-just merely for the eggs is what we are wanting and a new novelty in the backyard at the same time! We are not familiar with having chickens at all—–what do you suggest a person gets if this is what they are looking for?