Some sad news. For the first time almost since we’ve been here, we have no chickens on our property.
We had a pen and coop that we closed them into at night, but they free-ranged during the day. And something took advantage of that. The first time three disappeared, then one by one the rest. We’re not too sure what took them (hopefully not the pigs!), but something that evaded the dogs’ scrutiny, which is actually pretty good.
We will be getting more at some point, but we will probably stop free-ranging them. We have lost too many over the years here. In Terlingua we never lost chickens to predators, but here there is a lot of cover for the predators, just looking for a snack. It's really a shame, as free range chickens seem healthier, get a wider diet and help keep flies down. But if we want to keep chickens, we’ll have to find an alternative.
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Thursday, August 4, 2011
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We recently lost our whole flock (about 20 chickens) to foxes, and are also rethinking the pen designs and free-ranging arrangements. It's great to give them freedom and all, but at the end of the day they need to survive!
ReplyDeleteI'll be making sure they have nice deep litter in the pen, with lots of fresh greens from the yard and garden to pick at.