Rural Gardening: Beating the heat..., 0 by kmom246

kmom246 wrote:
Thanks, everyone, for your tips and concerns! This chicken adventure sure has been - adventuresome!

Our 5 acre lot here is completely fenced by 6 ft chainlink - which seems to keep out everything except ground squirrels and cotton tales. The chicken coop is 2 ft off the ground with 8 foot walls (no roof, still) and a door that locks. They are currently in the coop in two dog crates (ones designed for 100+ lbs dogs) with 4 inches of pine bedding. There are 14 in one and 13 in the other. This is their first night not in my laundry room, and I am trying to resist checking on them every 30 seconds! Supposed to get down to near 50* tonight. They have nearly all their feathers and fly pretty well.

I can hear the coyotes a mile or so away from us down at lake Lahontan. I haven't seen them actually "in the neighborhood," but it wouldn't be difficult to wander up our way as our dirt road heads straight into the State Park and down to one of the little riverletts that feed the lake. Occationally I have smelled skunk in the fenced garden area, and something once dug up my compost pile really well (saved me from turning it). But recently, I haven't had any visitors. The dogs go out at night from time to time to "patrol," so I'm hoping that, as long as the DOGs don't become the problem, they should scare away most preditors? The neighborhood used to be plagued by ferel cats until my weimaraner came to live with us - he is a known cat, rabbit and bird killer. Fortunately for chickens, unfortunately for him, he escaped during a high speed rabbit chase one day, and never came back. We looked all over, but he's been gone a month now, so I don't think he's coming back. I don't have the heart to remove the "lost dog" picture at the post office, yet.

Days staying around 95*F during the heat of the day. Taking longer to warm up, though (not going from 55 to 80 at sunrise any more - hangs out in the mid 70s for a few hours first. The chickens seem to really like this and are eating more in the mornings now. So far, destroying my patch of corn in the garden seem to be their favorite "heat of the day" occupation - the corn is well watered and about 4 ft tall, so there's lots of cool ground and shad - and they can pick at corn leaves, too. I am definately going to grow them some corn patches in their run next year. Of course, I'll have to create some sort of protection for it until it gets big enough to provide more than 30 seconds of chicken entertainment.

Thanks again, everyone!