Ranching
Chickens
Goodwench had wanted to have some
chickens for a long time. It turned out that one of the women she works
with had chickens that she was ready to give up to a good home.
Originally they were to be a wedding present for us, but with all the
chaos of putting the wedding together, some things got put on the back
burner. There was also a chicken house that we were to have as well.
Finally, on about 11/28/98, I decided to see if I could take Tanya the trailer
and go pick up the chicken house. I took my main farm hand, Micah along
to help. The house was just supposed to be 6' x 8' so I really thought
we could just load the whole thing on the trailer. Upon arriving at the
amazingly suburban location, I quickly realized that size was not the
problem. The house appeared as if it had been built by an eighth grader
about 12 years ago, and in fact that was the case. Not only had the
years of use led to a fair amount of rot, the framing was not quite
what we'd call conventional to begin with. On top of all this, the roof
was made of 5 different size pieces of 1/2" plywood, resting on 1" x 4"
's and covered with very heavy asphalt shingling material. As soon as
we attempted to lift the house, all thoughts of simply setting it on
the trailer vanished. Checking in the truck's tool box, I could find a
couple of heavy hammers, though they did happen to be ball peen. I had
no wrecking bar. A few well placed knocks brought the chicken house
down to 5 main pieces.
These were loaded on the trailer and brought home to the
bottom of the pen. This pen has wire mesh fencing six foot high, and we
call it the emu pen, because that's what the prior owners had built it
for. We really need to come up with a better name, but I'm afraid that
one may have stuck.
On December 5, 1998 our chickens arrived:
This picture is of the
longhorns arriving, cause the chickens only came in cardboard boxes in
the back of the Grand Cherokee, and I didn't think that would be an
exciting picture at all. Besides, it was too dark to take any pictures
anyway. They have a better chance of learning to roost in the house if
they are first released after dark.
12/13/98 The house has been up,
roofed and painted for a while now. We went to Tractor Supply on our
lunch hour last week to buy heat lamps because the nights had been
getting very cold for here. It was down into the 30's.
3/31/99 The house and enclosure have
been complete for some time now. The eggs had been appearing regularly
and in decent quantities. When Buffy began to sit on a nest of a few
eggs, Goodwench decided to let her roost. Since then, Margarite has
also "gone broody". She and Buffy have actually switched off on the
nests a couple of times. We may have allowed too many eggs to build up
in the right nest, which had originally been Buffy's. There are
so many that it looks like it might be hard for one hen to cover them
all well enough. We're still hopeful and have bought Purina chick
starter food.
Here's a shot of the finished chicken house and Henry
4/16/99 Reality has hit the chicken operation. Last Monday
evening I got home to take care of the animals. As I was feeding the
chickens, I noticed I didn't see BlackWing, Margarite's little chick,
anywhere. When I went out into the yard part to spread the corn
scratch, I found a horrifying sight. There was a pile of feathers, a
breast bone and two chicken feet. This was all that remained of
Margarite and her new baby. I borrowed the only leg trap the guy
visiting Slick my neighbor could find. Slick was in the hospital for
his shoulder surgery. That night something sprung the trap, but I
didn't catch anything. The next day I got out of work as early as I
could and rushed home, only to find another half eaten carcass dragged
out of the pen this time. I realized that there were places where
something might have been able to get under the wire fence, so I had
put fence rails on the ground up against it a number of places.
Goodwench was sick on Wednesday, so I took a "Family Leave Day" to stay
home from work with her. I went to the USDA office in Marlin, but they
had no information on dealing with chicken predators. They recommended
the County Ag Extension agent who wouldn't be in until 1:00 PM.
Meanwhile I checked everywhere in Marlin for traps, but no one had any
to sell. About two weeks before this, I had found a skunk in one of the
box stalls of our barn when I went into it to get some lumber to
improve the chicken roost. I don't know if he or I was more scared, but
I got out of the stall after dancing around him without being sprayed.
About a week after that I went at night out to the feed shed to get
some feed for Buffy's baby who was staying in the extra bathroom
because the others had been pecking her while she roosted. Because of
having seen the skunk, I took my trusty little Ruger stainless steel
.22 pistol. When I opened the door and shined my light in, I found
myself staring right into the masked face of a raccoon. This is a
mammal I've always respected, so I didn't take a shot at it. When our
third chicken was killed and not even eaten, I really regretted not
dealing with the raccoon. By Wednesday evening I had gathered up a
number of traps, including box traps and snares and set them up all
around the chicken pen and the pen we use for baby cattle that
surrounds the chicken area. Goodwench had me move the cattle back into
the surrounding pen in hopes they might help scare off any predators.
We found out that another set of neighbors who keep a couple of dogs
out with their chickens had also been loosing one chicken each night. I
used a can of sardines for bait and felt like I'd set as many traps as
a "Home Alone" movie. When I checked the traps right before bed
Wednesday night, nothing was caught and none were sprung. Thursday
morning I rushed out to check the traps before daylight. I had two
possums and a raccoon that I am fairly certain was the same one I saw
in the feed shed. I got them all appropriately removed from our
immediate area in time to get to work, and we lost no chickens that
night. One of the possums was caught in a box trap baited with the
barely eaten carcass of the third chicken that was killed. No more
chickens were lost last night or during the day today, so I am hoping
that our chicken predation problem is solved. Goodwench has always been
opposed to most hunting and all trapping, but after the grief and
horror of having BlackWing and the three adult hens violently killed,
this problem was addressed with her approval. This really was not at
all a pleasant thing to have to deal with, but nature is not all cute
and beautiful. If one is going to keep animals, we owe them the best
protection we are able to give them. I will still keep some traps set
for the next night or two and check with neighbor who was also loosing
chickens before I really believe the problem is solved. Meanwhile, the
two outside cats will just have to continue to share the house with our
house cats.
In Memoriam: Margarite and BlackWing
4/19/99 Last night about 10:30 Goodwench asked if maybe we
should the box traps baited with sardines, just in case we didn't get
our only predator. The way I looked at it, we had nothing to loose by
continuing to bait the box traps. If one of our cats finds its way in,
he can be just released. If another chicken were to be killed, we would
wish we had kept trying to trap predators. We got flashlights and a can
of sardines. We baited the first two traps that are located right
around the chicken pen. Goodwench hadn't remembered the third box trap,
which is a home-made one on loan from our neighbor Slick. Using the
flashlight we made our way to far end of the field. In the trap was a
raccoon, a bit smaller than the first. It was kinda cute looking, so we
figured we'd just haul it out about ten miles and release it in the
morning. We still had a few sardines left, so Goodwench dropped one
through the cage into the far end. The coon didn't go after it, he just
stood there staring up at us. Goodwench started to slip another sardine
through the cage right above the coon. Suddenly, out of nowhere, we
wittnessed the full savage fury of a coon attack. It just threw itself
at Goodwench's hand with teeth and claws flying. It was really every
bit as scary as the first time an alien baby tore out of a human host
in the first Alien movie. Nature sure can be viscious. Goodwench thinks
this one may have had rabies or something wrong with it. She has seen
and dealt with raccoons all her life and has never seen anything like
this. She's seen them hiss like a cat, but all the while backing up a
bit. This one just threw itself at Goodwench's hand with absolutely
nothing held back. I don't even want to imagine what the injuries from
such an attack would like. We both felt a new horror at what the
chickens that were killed had gone through.
Email me at goodwrench@cyberranch.org
Email me.
Y'all please come back soon.
created 12/13/98
updated 4/19/99