Black Locust are starting to bloom. 450 Growing Degree Days, base 50.
Chickens
Chickens are magnets for predators. Southern Belle lost a few pullets last night. I volunteered to set some traps.
I put out four bucket sets with 160 body-grip traps and two dog-proof raccoon sets. I bought a rotisserie chicken...after all, I already know they like chicken. I pulled off the wings and the bones out of the legs and thighs to use as bait.
A tip of the hat to my reader in Southern New Hampshire who tipped me off on using chicken bones for bait!
One big advantage that a newbie has when they have a mentor in the neighborhood is that the mentor is likely to have $90 worth of traps sitting around and setting them for a few weeks to put a dent* in the local varmint population doesn't cause them to depreciate much.
Most newbies start out on a shoe-string and losing critters and/or having to purchase traps can be a hard-ship. That goes for all kinds of other odd-ball tools like peavey logging tools, chains, tow-straps, tillers, shovels, hoes, bang-sticks, rakes and so on.
*The current thinking is that you cannot depend solely on suppressing varmint populations to protect your livestock. Critters flow in from the surround area. Visualize sticking a straw into a milk-shake and sucking. The shape of the surface becomes somewhat "whirl-pool" in shape. That is what the population density looks like if only one small-holder is knocking back varmints.
However....if the population is locally lower, then that reduces the chances of a system failure like the electric fence going in-op or somebody leaving a gate open resulting in the flock/herd being mowed down. Part of that is that by knocking back the number of predators, it brings it more in-line with local resources so they are not as-pressured by hunger.
---added later based on a comment asking for pictures---
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| Dog-proof raccoon traps. I have one of these tied to a wooden structural element of the chicken run. The other is on a drag. |
Not feral cat or squirrel-proof.
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| A "bucket set". Stakes securing body-grip trap in an "A" configuration. Bail of bucket slid over stakes and tied in upright position. Square or rectangular bucket preferred. Varmint pushes through trigger-wires to get to bait in the bucket and trips the trap. Dried dog-food works almost as well as anything and keeps well. |
Marshmallows, over-ripe bananas, Concord grapes, hotdogs, frozen sweet corn, canned mackeral, bluegills, chunks of carp...raccoons and possum are not fussy eaters. Protein in the spring and fruit in the fall.
Locust barely leafed out here. Can you elucidate more on those types of traps? Pics maybe?
ReplyDeleteDoes that help any? I took a couple of pictures so Southern Belle can reinforce with Quicksilver to stay away from the body-grip traps.
DeleteQuicksilver is very familiar with road-killed animals and "dead animal" is a hard NOGO for her.
Thank you. Not familiar with these.
DeleteThe only predators I have lost chickens to are the flying kind and one got stressed to death by a black bear! My chicken yard is completely surrounded by wire on a six foot board fence with orange snow fencing as a roof! When I used old trampoline netting for the roof there were holes big enough for some of the pullets to fly out and they got eaten in the garden by the hawk. This year the bear broke the chip board hen house door and cleaned out the hanging feeder. One hen died the next day without a mark on her. We built a sturdier door and parked the tractor bucket against it for a couple nights. The dry storage building where we store feed has an outer door made of 3/4 plywood with screws pointed out on three inch centers because years ago a bear broke in twice, the third time he actually bit down over a screw on the edge and I have tooth marks to prove it!
ReplyDeleteWe have a coop/building that is secure and an attached run fenced in on all sides and the top. We free range in the afternoon. We used to lose 2 or 3 birds a year running things this way, but that all stopped when we got a rooster. Little bantam guy the 4H kids were giving away at the co-op. Was a damn good roo!
ReplyDeleteA good rooster will do much to defend his girls. I've a friend that free ranges her chickens and she has a guard goose that thinks the chickens are her kids. So far, our abundant hawks and random dogs have NOT liked that.
ReplyDeleteChicken tractors work very well IF you do your part. You have to move it sometimes more than once daily to the new chicken party zone. Helps to pull it so you don't stomp through the old party zone. Chicken tractors WILL Destroy stubborn weed clusters, even thistle dies under sustained chicken attacks. Just provide water and extra food there.
The farmers eye and foot steps are often the cure for problems. My little garden gun has been useful with CCI Quiet ammo.
We’ve never kept chickens, mostly because of the predator problems. Many of our friends have the same issue. Short of a fortress and having a rifle ready, not much else seems to work.
ReplyDeleteOne person I knew said she found a weasel in the henhouse. She said it killed 4 or 5 birds but didn’t eat them. Weasels here are small, 6 or 8 inches long, and eat a lot of mice. Didn’t know they would take chickens too.
BTW, it must have been another NH reader that suggested the bones.
Southern NH
Our commonest local pests are foxes and muntjac deer. But the most feared are badgers: they are seriously destructive yet protected by law.
ReplyDeleteYou may know this, but a short piece of 1" pvc pipe, inserted in the mouth of those dogproof traps, once you've depressed the spring enough to insert it, will hold it nicely to allow you to set/engage the trigger latch.
ReplyDeleteI don't let my chickens out until about 9am after the dog and I are out and run them back in at 4:30 when I gather the eggs. Works out well. And I keep a gun handy by the side door and another out in the barn. They come in handy a few times a year.---ken
ReplyDeleteThose will work for everything but snakes. And a .22 is kept handy too!
ReplyDelete