• Animal Tracks • Grazing chickens

I wish that I was better at bird identification. I know about a few dozen kinds of birds but to really know the song birds and be able to identify them by song would be great. Again, I know some but not as many as I'd like to. It seems that the time to be learning is now and I really don't have the time. I can tell you if there is a new  bird in the neighborhood and this year there are a few. It seems that the birds are out in force. Of course the insect population, minus honey bees, is booming with this wet weather. The mulberry is just begining to ripen and the geese found the tree and have been sneaking over to gobble berries that fall. If you think about it, the small birds that fly into the tree and shake loose or drop berries are helping the geese get a belly full.Interestingly enough, I was just reading about permaculture for raising fowl and mulberries are one of the recommended plants to include.. Garter snake

Permaculture doesn't say how you are supposed to deal with predators. For the past week I was loosing 3 to 7 young pullets a night to some predator that was grabbing them by the leg and pulling either the legs off or the pullet out from under the coop and eating it. It looked lik an early morning predator because I found the pullets with their legs torn off still alive and trying to sit up. The humane trap came up sprung and empty for three days. I got outside at 3am on Tuesday morning and finding an oppossum headed away from the coop shot it. Next day were only three dead chickens. Last night I set up at 12:30 am and waited until about 2am when I heard a fuss and shined the flashlight over to the coops only to see two raccoons staring back at me. I missed the first one who was moving but treed and got the second one. Now I'm going to have to wait to see if the other will return. Adding that to my already full days is wearing me down. Unfortunately, I know of no other way to raise chickens humanely and on pasture in a predator inhabited evironment than to protect them myself. Loosing almost 3 dozen chickens is too expensive and too much a loss to feel good about the occasional meal to the chance predator. When they decide that the chickens are the buffet it is time to step in.

Back to Email