Anyone here farm chickens?

[davitk]

davitk, Do animals not get into where your chickens are? or is you fence dug into the ground about a foot?

So far so good, Wilie Coyote is still 0 for 25 . The fence is four feet high and we close them in the shed at night, and no, the fence is not dug in. We have a border collie who patrols with us, the combination of our presence and scent seems to keep the fox, coons and coyotes away. Hawks are another potential problem - the chicks did not go into this set-up until they were fairly large, and the roosters were mature enough (a good rooster doubles as a watch dog, during the day; worthless at night). The shed is up off the ground so that we can see who's under there, and there's chicken wire covering the windows in place of insect screen.......

 

[Luremaker]

[QUOTE='Bota Fan]... Tell me what you mean about a quota? ...[/QUOTE]

Canada has a number of quota systems and marketing boards in place in agriculture for such things as chickens, milk production, pork etc. I believe this along with little competition in the processing business Canadians over pay for almost all poultry, dairy, beef and pork products at the retail level.

As a non quota chicken farmer I can raise a total of 300 chickens in one year and must deal with the cfo ans cfia inspectors should they decide to pay a visit to my property.

FYI - From the chicken farmers of Ontario web site.
Chicken Farmers of Ontario

What is Quota?

Quota can best be described as a license granted by CFO that allows the person to whom the license is registered to produce and market chicken in Ontario. CFO does not buy, sell or issue any new quota. It only grants licenses to recognize ownership transfers once transactions have occurred between buyers and sellers.

How Much Does Quota Cost?

Because CFO does not buy or sell quota or become involved in the financial transactions between sellers and buyers, cost is determined by these sellers and buyers and can change over time. We have heard that a unit of quota sells at about $57-58 at this time (March 2006).

 

[Timber]

It has been a long time since I was involved with hens but we had about 200 laying hens Sex-links and Road-island reds mostly. We had Bantam's too but that's another story. The hen house was 30 by 200 feet long divided into 3 sections with laying boxes on 3 walls of each section. we had 2 smaller buildings for chicks about 50 every spring with heat lamps to replenish the older hens. The you have to have a quarantine building for sick or injured birds, they can do a number on each other. Dogs a Coyotes are bad enough but the biggest problem is Racoon's. They have hands like people and can work most catches. They are difficult to keep out of a hen house.

 

[WTA]

We have about a hundred chickens right now. They are all free ranging. Most roost in the trees at night and some go in the coop. We still have a few hens that hid nests and hatched out chicks late last month so they all go in near the heat lamps at night.
No problems with predators here and we do have a lot of them. The chicken coop is on the side of one of my horse paddocks and the horses and the dogs control the predators pretty well. I found a dead possum out there a couple days ago that looks like a horse got it. The dogs took a little encouragement to protect the chicks but they are great now. I love being in a place where everybody gets along.