There is a Coopers Hawk murdering my juvinile girls. One mottled cochin and one light brahman. So sad. This hawk is huge. Stands about 18 inches tall. Why is there always something to battle. If not sickness in the flock, preditors? Why can't we all just have some peace?
Murder @ the Inn
I'm so sorry about this Inn we have hawks real bad here too.
It's okay according to this site people are putting chickens in the house and makeing them diapers it's just a matter of time all the house chicken folks will be saying we are cruel to our chickens because they are outside. So don't worry we will all be out of business because chickens will be selling for 100s of dollars and the craze will continue until a out break of something and the govenment will shut us all down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm_-glNJlns
oh my lord. I have never seen anything like that. My husband would have me committed. He already thinks I am chicken crazy.
Yes i flipped when i saw it too what people do! i wonder if their is going to be chicken daycare and chicken play dates LOL
Inn,
Sorry to hear about the predator and loss!
Harm,
Don't worry too much. A few crazy chicken-diapering people will not likely put you out of biz. I'm sure most are with us and think they're nuts nor would they be spending hundreds on papered chickens anytime soon. ha!
So terribly sad. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I know the feeling all too well. But you have to try to stay positive and think about the good life you were able to give them. I know your trying hard.. I hope you get a break soon.. so you can have some good quality chicken time!
thanks for the kind words. and Harmony thanks for the much needed levity! I needed a laugh.
It was hard enough to convince DH to get chickens in the first place...keeping them in house no! They stayed in his study in a box for a couple weeks when we got them until they moved into their coop --- he didnt talk to me for a week. Said he couldnt concentrate with all the chirping. Poor guy - Im always bringing home something he has to deal with! LOOK DEAR CHICKENS---no I SWEAR, you'll LOVE them.
Sigh...those chickens are probably planning a prison break as we speak...I wish the rooster would peck her face or something...
hahahaha
listen to her :
"Oh what are you eating there oh geez stop eating that.."
Yeah they are really listening
And Im really sorry about your chickens InnBtwn. Do they free range and thats when they get 'um? Anyway you could build an enclosed yard...Ive seen those some places
What bothered me was at the begining when she just took the first one and kind of tossed it on the table behind her.
LOL about the face pecking and who ever thought a chicken would want a diaper what these yuppys as my DH calls them need is a reality check or Peck LOL
Went back and watched the crazy diaper lady and she said phillip had to have the flaps cause he picked himself and then said he had mental problems "hello" it's because of you.
Poor chicken she has done drove him crazy.
DH says, "Poor Phillip. He just wants to be outside. Lady, get a cat er' sumthin"
My DH said the same thing.
yes, we have about 3 acres that they range on during the day and then they go in the hen house at night for safety and warmth.
I am so sorry about the hawk murders! I have the same problem. Took me a while to figure out what was killing them. Every day feathers everywhere. They would perch on the telephone pole 1/4 mile away (I could see them) and then at night get the chickens. But one day I let my Mama Dachshund out with her 3 puppies and guess what? I walked outside and this HUGE hawk was perched right outside the front door and in the tree...waiting. I chased it off and it sat on the pole again...waiting. I can't let the dog out unsupervised now. Stupid hawks. I know they need to eat but not my pets! And there is no way to get rid of them. It is illegal.
I put a really good scare crow with a flag on a stick that looks like it's being held by the scare crow and no murders today! Praise God.
I guess I need to keep moving it around. Now. Anyone got a remidy for a gator? My crazy red neck neighbor put a baby gator in her pond ( 2 ponds over from ours) and now the thing is 6 ft long and in my pond. I am afraid for my french bulldogs. Red necks from hell! (with money) put the thing in their pond then fed it frozen chickens and jet skied around it. The woman is a local DJ and bragged about it on the radio. Some people's children.
Holy crock! That is scary. What are people thinking when they do crap like that? Can you call animal control or is it considered a native creature???
It is illegal to keep a gator as a pet and also to feed it. Here you can have it removed as a nusense(?) gator.
That's what I was thinking, too. I knew FL's regulations, but was unsure about AL's.
You have got to be kidding, a gator??????????? OMG I would go postal. Get that thing gone call the animal control.
If a gator has not been feed they are fine to have around, (except for dogs they love to eat dogs).
It is when you start feeding them that you have big problems.
Heres a frightening story but it is true...........My dad use to fish for logger head turtles and not the indangered ones.
He would go to any lake and catch out the turtles as they can just clean out a lake of fish and ducks when they get over populated.
Well he recieved a urgent call from a man who said he had huge turtles in his pond and they were eating his baby sheep! My Dad thought yea it was probably a dog or something and told the guy he would be out to look the next day and the guy said can you come tonight and my Dad went.
I went with him and this is what i saw the guy had a fenced in area with a small barn and had put the fence all the way to the edge of the water so the sheep had full excess to drinking in the lake.
With flash lights we went in the pen and the sheep were so cute and there were alot of babys under the shelter of the barn laying in the straw i was only about 13 at the time and this was exciteing.
So the man kept saying and they been eatin my babys and tried to get one of the big ones and hurt it's leg.
So flashlights in hand he said just come look at this and if i hadn't seen this with my own eyes i wouldn't have believed it.
He was showing us where the huge turtles were comeing out of the lake and you could see their foot prints in the mud it was amazing to see this the drag marks of their shells in the mud then he showed us the blood on the ground where it was at the barn and there was a trail to the water.
Daddy said Wow them thangs must weigh a 100 to do that and drag it to the water and drown it.
The man said thats the 4th baby sheep i've lost and i'm not loseing anymore i'm moveing them tonight.
Daddy said i will be here first thing in the morning and will see what i can do.
We went back the next day and caught some that weighed about 50lbs each and the man had someone shot some of them as they came out of the water at night.
This story is true logger heads get huge and are responsable for most ducks and geese going missing they will just reach up and pull them under and drown them.
I can believe it.
Is the logger heads the same thing as Alligator snapping turtles? I know that those things get huge.
we called them alligator snappers too. They do get huge if unchecked. My grandmother used to make turtle soup out of them when my dad would kill one out of the pond.
Yeah, the people are crazy down the street. They run up and down the dirt road in front of the house on a 4 wheeler probably 45 mile per hour with little kids on it. An adult drives and 3 or 4 little kids from 3-7yrs old or so with no helments sitting on the fenders. I tell you these people don't have too many active brain cells.
Our good neighbor has 2 boys who have a row boat in our pond and they can't even go down and fish now. I think I will see if animal control will come. Remember, this is Alabama. Animal control is not the same here as in a city. People are not really animal concerned here. We have a shelter for dogs and cats, but that's it.
I will give it a go, but the gator needs to leave. don't want to loose my babies.
not to mention the neighbor kids. there has to be something that can be done
Is it illegal to shoot it?
I know in LA it is.
yes, we can't shoot it. Like the hawk, it is free to kill as it pleases. Don't you just love the government. They interfer with ever part of your life. We don't have to worry about becoming socialists, we are already well on our way.
My story is from the early 70s and we lived in a very rural area.
good news, NO murders today. My scare crow must be working. and I am watching the hawk like a hawk.
Good and i hope theres never anymore.
Harmony you turtle story really upsets me. I've had some experience and heard tales about those monsters.
One day I went to visit my daughter. She lived in a trailer park, in town, and when I pulled up there was a cop and a crowd of people gathered. It was on a Sunday so the cop didn't try to call animal control. They were trying to get a huge gator turtle into a large plastic trash can. They finally succeeded and he was so big that the trash can was really bent out of shape. The cop and my son in law used my truck to take the thing to a marshy area and freedom. I would rather he shot it and let me have it for the shell which would make a nice garden decoration.
On another occasion, we had gone night fishing and found a man with some kids camping at the boat launch. We got to talking and I found out he was from my hometown. We were discussing fishing holes. He told me about an incident that still gives me bad dreams. He said two men in a boat were checking their trot lines. The one in the bow went to pull one up and it wouldn't come so he figured it was tangled in tree roots. When he reached in the water to try to loosen it, he went over the side without a trace although he was a good swimmer. They found his body a couple days later with huge bites missing and attributed it to a turtle.
When I think about all the times as a kid going swimming in creeks and ponds, it just gives me the creeps.
Sorry my story upset you twiggy i have never heard of a turtle killing a human before.
I was raised around fishing holes and i have no fear of turtles or snakes.
We would go fishing on saturday and come home clean the fish and turtles and have them for dinner on sunday.
Turtles can get big and you have to know how to handle them i have stopped and got many out of the road and put them on the other side so they won't get ran over.
Did they ever catch the turtle that killed the man?
I doubt they caught it. It's a hundred miles N of me and the creeks are all dark water from the tannin in the leaves that fall from the trees and thick brush along the banks. It's also hard to see even in the shallows due to deep shade.
I have also heard tales that people used to catch them in the river here and that they were so big they couldn't lie flat in a full sized pickup truck bed. I always thought it was an exaggeration but I don't know. I did see that one big one with my own eyes and that was enough. I do know that the small ones are fearless and extremely bold. Many times when I was a kid, I'd have my fish on a stringer and there would be one in plain sight right in front of me eating my fish. They're living dinosaurs with pea brains.
Amazing. I had never even heard of these things until this thread started. I searched online and saw the biggest in the world is on record as being about 250 lb! Holy cow!
You know how little kids are so easily spooked by thinking a monster is hiding under the bed.....well that about describes my situation with the turtles. I never dreamed they could really get that big.
I don't know if they still are but at one time the Alligator Snapper was on the endangered species list. It's much easier to get bit by a "regular" snapper because they can get their heads so far out of their shells. The Alligator Snappers don't have that ability. You can grab them by the shell directly behind the head and your hand is safe. Try it with one of the "little" guys and you could lose a finger or two. And you have to be even more careful with a soft shelled turtle. They can stretch their necks until their heads come completly over their shells to their tails. But they all taste good in a soup or a sauce picante.
Oh cajun i just love the soft shell they are so unusual and seems to be rare when my daddy caught one i always begged him to put it back sometimes he did and sometimes he didn't.
I wasn't refering to we caught alligater snappers it's illegal to catch those and they live more in the swamps we caught plain old fresh water logger heads.
We use to get them by the tail and tote them that way but you had to watch and not let them get close to your leg.
They also won't let go once they clamp down you have to pry them off and the head will bite even after it has been cut off.
I had a dog come up and smell of a head daddy had cut off and it clamped down and wouldn't let go and that dog ran and screamed daddy caught him and had to take a hatchet and pry it off his tongue.
They mean even when they heads is cut off.