enthralled by chickens

I had a bunch of yard birds too, until I got tired of them going everywhere. Had a real blast taking them out for dinner with blow guns, bows, rifles, shotguns, throwing knives, bb guns, bricks, and bare hands. Cannabis growers love chickens because they eat some of the evidence.

I had to put 6 foot + tall fences around my garden to keep the birds out, they still graze pretty heavily along the fence line and the ducks and turkeys can stick their necks pretty far into my hugelculture garden bed fencing on the bottom.




My gardens do pretty good with the chickens though.

I have 3 plants that were extra and are doing the 'chicken food' rotation.

I let the chickens eat all they want, then put the plants out of reach for a few weeks so they can re-grow.

2 Roosters co-existing.

The bird with the yellow speckling is a Bantam. He is the Dominant male, and chases the young Barred Rock away from the flock.





So the Barred Rock spends a lot of his time alone, or hanging out with the Silkies, who are pretty independent.

The Barred Rock is going to be a lot bigger. The Bantam has big spikes on his ankle, the Barred Rock has 2 little nubs about 1/4 inch long.

Since they have a form of Detente worked out, where they all have sleeping places high off the ground, as a chicken keeper my main concern is about fighting at sunset that causes the flock to break up and sleep in dangerous places, close to the ground.

Anyone ever have any of their free range birds fly the coop, so to speak?
We had a large Plymouth Rock disappear and figured a varmint had gotten him.
About three weeks later Mrs. Ahab and I were driving down the road about five miles away from the house and saw it running down the side of the road.

Capt.Ahab said:

Anyone ever have any of their free range birds fly the coop, so to speak?
We had a large Plymouth Rock disappear and figured a varmint had gotten him.
About three weeks later Mrs. Ahab and I were driving down the road about five miles away from the house and saw it running down the side of the road.

Click to expand...

My Plymouth Rock stayed close to home as far as I could tell.

He disappeared 2 Tuesdays ago when we were having Mountain Lion visits. He was a friendly bird.

These are the birds that are left. They are about the size of small pigeons.



They are real good at flying & they roost high off the ground.

I also have 3 normal size chickens left. They are roosting on the top shelf in the dining room, temporarily, and raising an unholy mess.