Next chicken question - winter lighting?

[patrickg]

How tall are those fences and is there some kind of wire across the top to discourage varmits from dropping in for a chicken dinner? Hope to have something nice as yours someday where someday will probably be next year at the earliest. Might try to come up with a wheeled unit to allow moving around instead of previous thought of using fixed fence. Would save going into the enclosure to clean out manure. Will probably build some rabit hutches as well.

I recall being almost school age before I understood how it was that we raised rabits but ate chicken and there were always plenty of thighs and legs but no wings.

Patrick

 

[jimmoore]

Pat, 12 to 18 inches should be far enough. Critters are not very smart. They will always try to dig under right against the fence. They are not smart enough to back off from the fence and dig.My fixed fences are only 4 feet high. On the west side I clip the wings to keep the chickens in and I fasten them in the henhouse at night. The east side has cross braces and I attached 2x4 dog wire across the top of it, but that was mainly to keep the chuckers in. I have lost one hen to a redtailed hawk and one to a big yellow tom cat in the 7 years that I have been here.There is deep woods all around and they are full of ground hogs, hoot owls, foxes and raccoons.

jim

 

[jimmoore]

Oh, by the way the cost of building the 12 foot a frame was about $70.00

jim

 

[patrickg]

Thanks Jim,
We have the full gamut of indigenous freeloaders. Something has been at my pears. Of course some always fall off but the ground is littered with half eaten hard green pears about 1 1/2 times the size of a golf ball (get fist sized by September). Pretty good statistics on your losses. My sister-in-law raises fancy chickens and doves on her residential lot (1/2 - 3/4 acre) in addition to the goats to keep the horse company. She loses a chicken now and then to a bobcat that goes over the 6 ft cedar fence like a ladder. One evening she was admiring her caged doves (she has some in cages and the overflow from rampant overbreeding hang out around the place). She selected one of the caged birds to watch go for a twilight flight. As she tossed it into the air a Horned Owl took it less than 2 feet from her hands without breaking stride in his wingbeats.

All this talk about chickens has me anxious to get started raisin' the lil bugers. I can hear them all day at a distance as a neighbor about a half mile away keeps several fighting cocks. Just far enough away to add rural color but not loud enough to annoy.

Patrick

 

[jimmoore]

check this web site and click online catalog. These are good folks and ship good birds. click the brown layers. I have had both GOLDEN COMETS and CHERRY EGGERS. They both are good layers Their prices are better than mcmurray hatcheries also. http://www.klpoultryfarm.com

jim