Quite Simply, Chook Chat

[Feral007]

Got up this morning to find the horse in eating the Green Manure crop. Put him out and the electric fence back on (and zapped the other horse who had his butt touching it - oops) came home to find the chooks happily excavating again. Frank took his well trained girls home to bed this evening and let the mad batties stuck behind the wire. Off out to fix the fence tomorrow!

[elizajay]

Sounds all go Feral! Good luck with mending fences.

[Glutton4...]

I came home to yet another escapee - this is getting ridiculous! Roxy (new dog) lay on her belly, watching it, until Oscar saw it, then they both gave chase. I yelled (like a banshee, as you do) and they both came back! Gobsmacked, I was, gobsmacked!

Trouble was the Chook was now stressed and difficult to catch. I only managed it as Oscar barked (to protect me lol) and Chook tried to run through the leccy fence, making her easier to grab. Never a dull moment with animals, is there?

[Feral007]

Well! Proud mummy moment. One of our batties is consistently roosting now! How exciting! Frank and Shirl are roosting on one end of the pole, half way to the front of the chook house (since I put a cover on the front so they weren't freezing. And Tac is roosting up the back on her own (since the fox ate Tic) and one of the battie sis smack bang in the middle! Not sure if it's Hotlips or Stacey, but it's def not Feral Beryl.

[Scarlet]

Love those names Feral!

[Feral007]

It's Hotlips. She is so funny trying to rev herself up to jump/fly down in the mornings. Frank is a good guy tho, and waits for her to get down before he goes up the hill to the hayshed with the rest of the girls. Well I hope they are all girls, Tac is getting a good looking tail....

[Glutton4...]

One of my Horsey chums has Chooks (actually, a lot of them do), and her Bantam Cock escapes every morning through the smallest hole (where she has to put her hand through to open the coop), and does a 'Roadrunner' impression across the lawn to next-door, where they have a good sized flock of Batties. He stays there all day 'doing what Cocks do' and comes back home for his tea!

I tell her she should give the neighbour a bill for stud services!

[elizajay]

The errant Victoria Plum who is still roosting in a tree has started laying in the nest box in the last few days under a broody. I was asked the question: how does she lay eggs under the broody. The answer is she gets into the nest box and burrows under the broody before she lays her egg.

[Glutton4...]

I didn't realise the was still loose, EJ! Funny fings, Chooks!

[Glutton4...]

Well, I have just completely lost it - the plot, that is! New length of electric mesh arrived the other day, as one of my two sections has seen better days. I tried 'sorting' the best of the rest, this evening, to make a pen for the remaining few Chooks I have left after Mr. Fox's visit, and it decided to fall, trip me, and get tangled again. I'm usually very good at untangling things; wire, string, zips and such, but this evening I just lobbed it across the garden.

Thankfully the seller has much more on the 'Bay, so another section has been ordered.

Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

Tomorrow, I will remove all the posts, so I can keep 'em...

[Feral007]

On the bright side G4 - least the leccy fence wasn't on when it tripped you ops:

BTW this electric netting - unlike the tape I use for the horses, I hear a lot about it but I still can't see how it could work for us.

Surely, if it touches the grass then it will short the fence and flatten the battery pretty smartly?

I like my chooks free ranging, and I would be wary of using the net with the horses sharing a paddock (they are such sticky beaks) but I'm beginning to worry a little about other people's dogs.
Next door, across the road, neighbour has a bulldog type animal, which normally stays home, but was lost last month for a while which means it would have likely gone through our property. And there is my own dogs if they did get out.

So question is - would I have to mow the paddock to put the leccy net up? and every time I moved it? because I've enough mowing in my life in summer without any more!

[jessmorris]

..or use weedkileer. Yes, it is a pain.
Some friends have put up 6 foot stock fencing around their hen patch as an alternative. They can partition this off with electric netting for newbies etc and take the leccy fence away when harmony reigns. I would do this is my patch was my own. I offered it to the lady I have my patch from but she preferred to keep her 3 foot palisade fence as it looks nicer. I've used Heras in the end. Fairly hideous but keeps dogs out.

[Glutton4...]

I have a 'Heras' enclosure, with the coop in, and a net roof, to keep the pigeons, maggies and jays out, as they eat far too much chook food. This is inside the main grass area. I have two lengths of electrified poultry netting joined together as a boundary. I close mow, then put down a strip of membrane, and push the spikes through the membrane. This reduces the amount of time I have to move and mow the fence strip. I also have extra, taller (horse fence) stakes periodically, with a 'trip-wire' at the top, about 15/20 cm above the netting, just incase 'someone' tries to jump it. (New dog just pops over the 1.2m high netting like it isn't there! )

Incidentally, Feral, the bottom horizontal is not electrified, but the rest are. I now have an additional length of sheep netting (lower and cheaper than the poultry netting, but with bigger holes), around the outside of the 'heras' area, as Foxy can dig under it, but won't try if he gets his nose zapped!

All this fencing has cost me a ruddy fortune, but if I'm to keep chooks it's the only sane way of doing it. The alternative is regular carnage and restocking.

[chris]

It's always the favourites eh?

Have a hen who's not eating (am hand feeding her corn, fruit etc as she won't eat otherwise- sort or last supper I suppose).

Totally out of character- used to attach shoes which was amusing but now she just stands in the same spot all day.

No sign of lice, mites or other pests (though a couple of the others have had feathers plucked again...) crop is empty, eyes clear, no fluid comes out, beak/throat area is clear. No signs of her being egg boud either - though she is off lay now.

One of my blue egg layers too - boo! One of those things I suppose. She seems happy enough with the others so am just letting her get on with things... Hopefully she'll pop off overnight - dont want have to do the deed with this one!!

[elizajay]

Sad when you see a good chook go downhill. Hope she doesn't hang about too long if she is to go.