I opened the gate and let my girls out to see the world. They are having a ball free ranging and are exploring the new found world. I am happy to see them out.
Their first day free ranging.
Oh so pretty pretty!!!! They like playing Peek -a-boo too , Huh?!
Very nice birdies! How'd they enjoy their day on the town?
They came home to roost and were quite talkative about the excitement. Now to worry about raptors. We shall see. This is the doorway to heaven.
LOL What a riot! What a knockout view of never never land too!
I am anxious to see if they stop and look at the columbines on their pecking tour of the garden. LOL
Oh what a beautiful "Heaven" they have! Im quite sure they will enjoy all the adventures they can have in your Peaceful landscape. Im not so sure your beautiful Columbines will survive though!
They are so good about coming home every night. Chickens are so practical! I just let mine roam around the yard when I am home. I think that helps.
My pens were muddy because we had sooooo much rain over such a short time. I thought I would let ours out to free range a little and give the pens a chance to dry up. They
were out about 45 minutes before they got into trouble. They figured out that the bright red petunias in my flower beds looked appetizing. I could almost hear Matilda telling the other girls......... " C'mon gals, lets go out for a Saturday Buffet".
Needless to say................... back to the pens ! Naughty girls !
Mine went out once and are not going out the last few days. Something scared them. Yes they kind of scratched up a hosta but what the heck.
I used to have several hens that I let free range ,"Three French Hens" (Rohdies that I got for christmas) and "The Bandits" (two aricunnas). Every day was like an Easter Egg hunt. I swear that they took absolute delight in hiding their eggs in diffrent places. Every night, they would be in their coop looking innocent and eggless. There was a period of about five weeks that I thought one of the Bandits must have stopped laying. Then one day I looked behind the snow blower for something in the shed. There was a huge stack of eggs! She must have balanced on the top of the pile every day to lay the newest. She had dug under the door to get in there and certainly could keep a secret. She seemed dissapointed when I took them all away.
The hens all finially ended up in a pen. I liked my flowers whole and my mulch where I put it... I do miss the daily egg hunts though.
I may let mine free range after my flowers are done in the fall.
I have way too much money invested in the flower beds this year.
I had major words with my next door neighbor about keeping her dogs penned or tied up. She didn't like it, but so far is compliant.
That's the reason I didn't let them free range last fall and winter. Maybe this year will be different............. we'll see.
Yikes PeggieK! Good thing to nip that in the bud now. There's no excuse for allowing dogs to roam other people's property or kill their chicken. After hearing what happened to Tracey (nicksmom30), I hope this is the end of the problem for you.
Soferdig, you have a beautiful place! Your chickens are lucky to live in paradise!! I'm sure they'll graciously pay you back with nice eggs. ;)
~~ Glenda
Thank you Glenda. I hope they just have a nice life pecking the world around. We have 3 acres fenced in so all should be well. Though I have to keep my dogs away it is their nature to kill a feathered friend. They can share the garden dogs out in morning and chickens out in the afternoon.
Okay, I love the teaser picture from the inside of the chicken house, but what does the outside look like?!?!?!
This is some of the garden. http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/Soferdig/1717/
Very nice pictures, but I didn't see any of the outside of the chicken enclosure. The partial view of it from the inside is very interesting. :-) Looks like it must be a decorative structure rather than the usual dry, birdy-messy area that many are.
I shall have to photo them away but they are hanging out next to the hen house and don't need to go far to enjoy life. Lots of scratching in the wood pile next to the hen house and plenty of bugs. They told me all is well.
Steve, You have one Barred Rock pullet there and I'd say the other 2 are 50% Ameraucana & I don't know what the other half is. When it comes to eggs .... who really cares if the chicken is a purebred. I'll bet they'll be giving you 2 eggs a day (at least) for a long while. Expect little eggs in maybe August. Kelly
Yes I have 1 barredrock and 4 ameraucanas. I think Aug 22 will be the first eggs. My DW and I have a bet.
Steve, You have an extremely beautiful Iris color variety in the photo above. I am sooooooooo jealous. I am a big fan of Irises due to their actually surviving here in my area. I have 18 different colors of the tall bearded German Iris and plus a white Belgian Iris and a blue Siberian Iris. Can hardly have enough of a good thing. I hope your chickens give you lots of enjoyment. I'm trying to humanely eliminate my stock. They eat $3 a day and at this point I sell only half their production.......so its time to scale back. I'll eventually replace my flock with the Pit Game chickens. They require little to no feed and are close to being wild but hang around like Guinea fowl. They are beautiful, fly really well and evade predators. In this area it makes for a great match. They are miserable egg layers 7-8 months of the year but in the spring and summer they do terrifically. The one thing I love most about chickens is having them wandering about the property within sight. They provide a "pastoral effect". Kelly
I just fenced in a large 30X20 area for my young chickens and turkeys. As soon as I put them in there, they started chasing bugs and scratching around in the mulch under the fruit trees. Not an hour later, the peacock flew over the fence to join them and has been in there ever since. By tonight, the lame wild turkey I am rehabilitating thought it looked so good, that he wanted in too. So I let him. Now there are 18, 2 month old chickens, 4 turkeys of various ages and a peacock, all happily pecking around and roosting together. I don't now how they all get along, but they do. It's pretty funny with the turkeys and peacock all displaying for each other. It seems to confuse the chickeds a bit, but then it does the neighbours too!
I'll have to ask the ducks if they would like to join in on the party. My Aconna just hatched out 7 ducklings and is showing them off in the yard.
Boy both of you keep busy with the birds. I just like to watch the joy they have picking things out of the soil every day. They seem happy but not too brave. I would like them to head out to my veggie garden but I guess the raptors are too busy out there. Maybe later they will get brave.
You may want to think twice about the veggie garden. I try to keep mine out till everything is done in the fall. Not only did they scratch big holes in the dirt, but boy, do they love tomatoes! Last year, they got in and there was nothing left but tomato worms! I guess they were full from all my brandywines.
I put two big fake owls on the arbor and fence post in the back yard. I haven't had many problems with raptors since. They don't like to go anywhere that there is competition, and frankly, I don't think my chickens have even noticed the decoys. Another trick we use is to tie some Mylar ribbons to trees or bamboo poles. It sparkles and streams in the wind and raptors avoid it. I've only lost one bird to a raptor in 4 years.
The owls are decent for scaring off small birds. I wouldn't be too concerned about raptors. We have never had an attack on our chickens. In general large fowl chickens are too large for raptors.
You make me feel better. I don't know what the raptors get but they feed well here. Lots of Red Tail Hawks, and Bald Eagles. My little puppy dog was not allowed out until she was over 8# just in case. She has an attitude so even if they got her she would be a poor catch. LOL
does anyone have sabel poots? i have them and i have heard that they are very rare. if you have anyinfo on them plz comment. also is sand harmful to chickens. my chickens ate sand and i would like to know if they will get sick. thank you!!
heres a better picture of them
thats better!
This message was edited Jun 11, 2007 7:56 PM
Eating sand is a natural thing for all Poultry! They need it to help the food in their Crop to be ground up for digestion, since they have no teeth!
I have never heard of this breed of Chicken!!! They are so interesting looking , I love their stance! Where did you get them???
The Sablepoot is quite rare. It is a surprise to me that you or anyone in the US has them. It takes some very creative efforts to bring in a rare chicken breed. Most of these rare breeds are rare due to lack of interest. Interest in obscure chicken breeds (obscure evereything) has exploded in the last several years due to the internet. The number of species of rare chicken or other breeds has been reduced due to the internet.