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It’s been a while since we have been on here. On one hand it seems like nothing has changed, yet on the other it seems like everything has changed.
We started the spring with 3 dogs out in the field and did not have any losses to predators. Eventually, we had to find new homes for the two pups, leaving only the mom. Since then we have lost a few birds. Part of it can be blamed on some of the birds that refused to come into coop at night, and instead roosted in the trees. Possums got a couple chickens.
We put the geese in the pen with the peacocks a while back, and it has worked well. We had been letting everyone out to run during the day and then putting the away when we got home in the evenings. But with the days getting shorter, we had extra difficulty at night getting them in the coops. So during the week, the peacocks stay in their pen all day and night, and the geese stay in the main coop with the chickens and turkeys.
With the end of the season here, I’ve let the birds all into the garden during the day. They have gone over it really well, scratching things up and cleaning up most of the growth. Pulled up all the dead corn stalks today, so I’m sure they will love that tomorrow. Still need to dig up the potatoes, and there are a few herbs still growing. The mint seems to have survived the frost last night.
I moved one of the baby pens into the garden to protect the winter crops from the birds. I had a couple of cabbages that I moved under it, and planted a few seeds. Only 2 appear to have grown, and hoping they survive these cold nights enough to keep growing. I have a tray of plants in the house I started that I’ll put out after this cold snap passes. Think I waited too long to start them. Again. So maybe one year I‘ll get that figured out.
We put in a lot of cedar posts and some fencing, so the field is enclosed well. Next year I’ll need to teach the birds to stay out there and eat it more, instead of looking for coming up and looking for feed. Think it will make for better birds and will lower food costs for sure. There are still more fences I need to get up, and more area I need to enclose, but that will come. I also have plans for building a new field coop that will house the turkeys next year. This year, we put the chicks out in the PVC pens as soon as they were big enough to go out. When they got too big for those, we moved them to the field during the day and locked them a small container at night. It was when they got too big for that container that we ran into problems. We tried putting them in the PVC pen at night, and that worked for a while, but they got more and more difficult to put in at night. Moving them to the main coop proved too difficult and complicated, besides, by this time the birds had developed a tendency to roost in the trees. Perhaps developing a routine early next year will help to get them behave better.
We have been watching the wild life out the back window in the woods behind the house. There has been a doe and her fawn all summer long. She had two, but one got hit by a car. This fall there was another doe came along this fall. Today we saw a buck. And there was a group of about 5 wild turkeys come thru twice. Haven’t seen them for a while, but nice to know the are still around.
here to edit.
We started the spring with 3 dogs out in the field and did not have any losses to predators. Eventually, we had to find new homes for the two pups, leaving only the mom. Since then we have lost a few birds. Part of it can be blamed on some of the birds that refused to come into coop at night, and instead roosted in the trees. Possums got a couple chickens.
We put the geese in the pen with the peacocks a while back, and it has worked well. We had been letting everyone out to run during the day and then putting the away when we got home in the evenings. But with the days getting shorter, we had extra difficulty at night getting them in the coops. So during the week, the peacocks stay in their pen all day and night, and the geese stay in the main coop with the chickens and turkeys.
With the end of the season here, I’ve let the birds all into the garden during the day. They have gone over it really well, scratching things up and cleaning up most of the growth. Pulled up all the dead corn stalks today, so I’m sure they will love that tomorrow. Still need to dig up the potatoes, and there are a few herbs still growing. The mint seems to have survived the frost last night.
I moved one of the baby pens into the garden to protect the winter crops from the birds. I had a couple of cabbages that I moved under it, and planted a few seeds. Only 2 appear to have grown, and hoping they survive these cold nights enough to keep growing. I have a tray of plants in the house I started that I’ll put out after this cold snap passes. Think I waited too long to start them. Again. So maybe one year I‘ll get that figured out.
We put in a lot of cedar posts and some fencing, so the field is enclosed well. Next year I’ll need to teach the birds to stay out there and eat it more, instead of looking for coming up and looking for feed. Think it will make for better birds and will lower food costs for sure. There are still more fences I need to get up, and more area I need to enclose, but that will come. I also have plans for building a new field coop that will house the turkeys next year. This year, we put the chicks out in the PVC pens as soon as they were big enough to go out. When they got too big for those, we moved them to the field during the day and locked them a small container at night. It was when they got too big for that container that we ran into problems. We tried putting them in the PVC pen at night, and that worked for a while, but they got more and more difficult to put in at night. Moving them to the main coop proved too difficult and complicated, besides, by this time the birds had developed a tendency to roost in the trees. Perhaps developing a routine early next year will help to get them behave better.
We have been watching the wild life out the back window in the woods behind the house. There has been a doe and her fawn all summer long. She had two, but one got hit by a car. This fall there was another doe came along this fall. Today we saw a buck. And there was a group of about 5 wild turkeys come thru twice. Haven’t seen them for a while, but nice to know the are still around.
here to edit.
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