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

Are your roosters fighting? I had three roosters in about 30-35 hens and still had one rooster kill another. It snowy and looked like the woodchipper scene from Fargo.

 

so far no fighting…lucky I guess. The 26 hens were two separate cohorts. The first 8 hens have “their” rooster who was a chick with them. The other 18 hens were chicks with the other 3 roosters and it seems like they have worked things out. The three new younger roosters leave the older cohort of hens alone and “share” the others.

 

Got nervous I woke up about 4AM to use the bathroom on Sat night and heard a ruckus outside. If I had to put $$ I'd say it was coons mixing it up with each other or with something else. Def wasn't cats, odd noises I couldn't pinpoint, maybe possums?

It wasn't near the coop but I checked on them 1st thing and found a pile of feathers all over the run. But turns out one of my other hens is molting now too. Just like my easter egger she stopped laying. Might be done for the season? Think we might need to buy some eggs......

My son, 3yr old daughter and I went out looking for tracks and checked in on this den which looked like it had some recent activity. Coon den? Fox? I wasn't getting too close to shine a light down there..........One of those tracks looks like a deer? Gonna try and grab trail cam. Been saying that forever now just haven't gotten around to it, my son keeps reminding me!!!

 

I would think fox but may be bobcat? Do coons den in the ground? I just assumed they don't, but have no idea.

 

Looks like a deer hole to me. They lay their eggs in a big mound and then the baby deer dig out when they hatch.

 

Looks like a fox hole to me, unless the Vietcong have infiltrated New Jersey

 

That's what I thought and I've seen a fox! It was only once but I saw him clear as day. Beautiful red fox just trotting through my wood stacks around dusk! That was about a year ago!

 

Don't think we have bobcats in this area, at least I am praying we don't. Did have a bear once but he was passing through!

I didn't think they coons did either but I did some reading and they will use ground dens vacated by other animals.

 

We don't have many but bobcats can be found in south Jersey

 

I really thought I had the rat problem licked between all the ones I shot with the pellet gun, and simply doing a better job at rat proofing the coop/run by eliminating small entry points. I’ve been seeing them sporadically around my woodpiles going after all the hickory nuts on the ground, but figured once the nuts were gone they’d move out. Wrong... I woke up this morning to find all the food and water in the run gone once again, and a pile of dirt where they tunneled under the run and came through the small holes in the chicken wire lining the floor. I mixed up a small batch of concrete and plugged their entryway. I’m FINALLY setting traps since it’s ludicrous to stay perched on my deck all night standing watch with my pellet gun. I’ve got these 3 traps screwed down to a scrap piece of lumber, and added roofing nails through the bottom (I was reading that sometimes they can wiggle their way out of a sprung trap, and that adding nails to impale them eliminates that possibility) I’ll set the triple trap tonight and give an update on how it works out. I have other ideas to trap them but I’m hoping this will do the trick for now.

 

Ever try the 5 gallon bucket trap. I have had good luck with it for mice, I would think it would work for rats.

 

That was my next move if they become too smart for the spring traps. I also have vague plans for a baited PVC pipe and a one way flap door to capture them.

 

Oh yeah and a trick I learned from brenndatomu use tootsie roll to bait the snap trap. My success rate almost doubled with it.

 

Get them vermin. Get em all!!

 

Seriously
I was talking to my neighbor behind me a couple weeks ago and he was telling me that the rats have been invading his yard too. He’s been plinking them as well but there’s just so many around. There are 2 other houses close by that also have several chickens so I imagine we’re all contributing to the problem. It’s even drawing in the fox from the woods, but I’m hoping the fox will actually help with the rodent problem.

 

I set the traps out at 5, and just checked on them now at 7. One dead rat pinched, with a roofing nail through his noggin Only problem is when the one trap went off, the shock tripped the other two to go off. I reset them and will check in the morning. FWIW I used peanut butter for bait.

 

Maybe a few bricks on the board, between the traps, will help keep all traps from snapping.

 

2 dispatched overnight, and on the middle trap that was sprung I see blood. (I reset that trap before taking the picture) The one that got away probably wishes he didn’t.