The Chicken Dilemma

Unfortunately I don't have any photos today, but I wanted to at least post an update.

We have been hard at work with some big changes and laying the foundations for autumn plans.

Our egg chickens were attacked over a couple weeks by hawks which dined very well those weeks and knocked out all but 16 chickens. Our dear chicken Henny Penny, the oldest and favorite chicken, was the first to be eaten. We tried the plastic owl, visual diversions, moving the coop, brush shelters. The poor chickens would be found dead underneath the coop, or under brush. Obviously nothing was working. Finally I switched our turkeys, who were getting a little large for their broiler coop anyway, to our old "Hell-on-Little-Wheels" coop and moved the poor chickens to the broiler coop which is very protected and has a solar-electric charger with electrified wires on the outside, just in case the raccoons or coyotes get any ideas.

I was initially against this move at all costs because the chickens are now confined, which means less grazing, less freedom, and I was worried the quality of our eggs would go down and the chickens would be stressed. But now that we have been using this production model rather than the "Chickshaw" coop, I see the many benefits, some of which are a great relief to our sore backs. I think we are going to continue to keep our chickens this way and even build some more.

The benefits are:

1. We only drive out once a day and so save time, money and fuel. We are able to stay out longer because I don't have to run back to town to put the baby down for a nap or start dinner, and as a result have been getting a lot done.

2. No more worrying about the Learning Disabled chickens that couldn't remember how to get in the coop and became raccoon and owl bait.

3. No more struggling with the useless ElectroNet that sags and doesn't work. Seriously, there was a photo in Mother Earth News showing an idyllic little homestead with a moveable chicken coop surrounded by ElectroNet--we counted only 11 chickens inside the fence and 8 running around outside, which is about how well it worked for us, too. At the end there they found they could pile up on a corner to ground it out and just walk over (they all had clipped wings--a big pain).

4. Chickens get moved DAILY rather than weekly. This means they get fresh grass every morning and this helps to spread out their manure better and lets them really work the soil. The old coop could only be moved with great effort or by both of us, but this coop is a breeze to move. I can move it while nursing Rosie in the backpack. As far as diet, I think they are getting more bugs and green grass this way.

5. They were far more stressed out as total wild-free range birds because of the enormous number of hawks here with voracious chicken-eating habits. To daily see one or more of your coop mates messily devoured before your eyes each morning is not the idyllic free-range chicken scene we normally picture. I am less stressed because they are safe, and they seem much more relaxed.

So we are back to moving the strongest-man contest coop over tall grass and cactus with the bizarre poultry menagerie inside (ducks, chicken, turkeys), but at least our chickens are safe.