Homesteading Chicken Coop Build, Chickens, Pond, Garden & Projects

I hate rats with a passion. Every year I get one or two in our rock wall. They are attracted by the spilled bird feed at the feeders. My neighbor has a bunch of scrap metal and junk lying everywhere. Not sure if they're moving in from there or not, but doesn't help situation.

I use the black heavy plastic rat traps that you bait from the bottom. Learned I needed to tie them down. Seem to work well. I'll have to remember the nail method.

 

Yesterday I sealed all the cracks around the roof of the run with expanding spray foam, and reset my traps. I checked the traps again this morning and no surprise, the rats are on to my games. One trap had a large dead adult; the other two had been robbed but didn't spring shut. They figured out how to lick them clean without disturbing the trigger. At least I was able to nab one. Tonight I'll find out if the water bucket method works on rats and not just mice and chipmunks. I've got a plastic pail that's about 8" taller than a standard 5 gallon bucket. I figure I'll add a few inches of water, cover that with sunflower seeds, make a ramp going to the top, baited with some seeds, and hopefully the rats fall for it. I'm sure they'll eventually wise up to that and I'll have to resort to trapping them in a PVC pipe. I also have a couple glue traps I can deploy but I'm not entirely sold on the one time use thing considering I'm dealing with a large pack of rodents.

 

Been dealing with a chicken with wry neck..........Anyone ever deal with?

Noticed one evening while letting them out to free range her head was crooked. Thought maybe she just injured it or something. Then I noticed she wasn't perching in the coop at night but sleeping on the floor in the pine shavings. Next she wasn't leaving the coop in the morning or going up the ramp to the coop in the evenings. Did some digging and been giving her Vit E each day, it's been about a week. Main thing is she's still able to drink and eat but sometimes she really looks helpless and just disoriented. Either myself or kids been putting her in coop at night so she's not a meal for some predators around.

 

I got broken in real quick with Chicken illnesses. Impacted crop, sour crop, now this wry neck.........certainly getting an education.

 

Put a couple of leaves on the water and put the seeds on the leaves. That's worked for some I know.

 

Here's my little chicken coop. I've had these guys for 2 years now I think. Got them as chicks. They are molting now so feathers are everywhere.

 

Did you build the coop?
Oh yeah, Welcome to the club. Good to have another representative from PA on board. Many good people here and lots of knowledge. Also a bunch of enablers. Where are you in PA?

 

We are new this year to chickens, our son and his wife and grandkids rent part of our house from us. during the winter we talked about getting chickens, spring came and everything came together and now we have 5 chickens, all good. a few weeks ago my wife sent me a message telling me that our feed supplier told all her customers she was closing and asking if anyone would like to that over her business as they were moving out of province. We now own Chicken $hit and Feed, Ownership will change to us on December 4. A new Adventure for us.

 

Best of luck with the new business opportunity!

 

Just finding this thread and wanted to share a picture of our night time coop visitor from a month ago. Lost two of my Dominiqs and had a bunch of traumatized red sexlinks. Turns out bears don’t like drumsticks. That hasp you see sits at chest height so that’s probably a 200 lbs. bear.

 

Well that nighttime visitor would get your attention when you round the corner and encounter it!!!! Would a couple electric wires around the perimeter of the building set out about a foot keep it at bay?

 

It sure did catch my attention, my wife told me the coop door was open so I went out thinking it was the small door for the birds. I was about ten feet from him when he started up the Ash next to the coop

 

I believe I would have needed a clean pair of underwear! Common problem? Is electrified wire a good deterrent?

 

For the black bears around here, electric fencing usually keeps them away.