Two questions...one stupid ..one not :)

[juliepoudrier]

KrisK,

I keep bantams (Sebrights and OEG) and am thinking about adding some full-size chickens. While I think it's okay for chickens to share space with livestock, I prefer that my chickens have a safe house in which they can be enclosed at night. If you don't close them up in a secure place at night, be prepared to lose them to predators like coons, possums, snakes, and owls. I let mine free range (which does put them at risk to hawks, stray dogs, and the like, but at least during the day they aren't *sleeping* and therefore unable to look out for themselves) during the day, but at night they are closed in a house. Last summer I lost my best little silver Sebright rooster to a 6-foot blacksnake because I hadn't closed them up when I went out to their pen earlier in the evening, and by the time I returned at 9, Mr. Snake had killed poor Soli.

 

I also keep chicks enclosed during the day in a special pen that can be moved from spot to spot and has no bottom so they're on grass, but which completely protects them from the sides and top.

(When I was a child, we used to use old wooden chicken crates lined with rat wire or screen and with the bottom removed for this purpose.)

 

J.

[Bounce]

Hi Kris. I will bring one of my hatchery catalogues to show you on Sunday. There are so many interesting breeds. My rooster Prince is a bantam and he's nice because he is not as LOUD as bigger roosters.

I kept my birds in a converted outhouse with a lamp all winter. The bantams and heritage breeds did just fine.

Poultry will foul the feed and bedding of your sheep. My girls sneak into the haybarn to perch and hide eggs. Having a border collie is so handy for discouraging them in the hay and getting them in at night.

I've met many people around here who pronounce it ewe (rhymes with GO). My hay farmer calles them ewe (rhymes with Blue) I usually call them sheep until I hear what someone else is calling them, then I call them what he/she said. Its hard enough being a newbie shepherd without looking stupider than I have to.

You might be able to find a fish hut since you live so close to Lake Huron. They make dandy hen houses. Another trick is to build 4 sturdy walls and top it with a free old truck cap. The cap lets in light and you can open the windows for fresh air. Looks very rural Ontario (hick-ville) but it works.

[Debbie Crowder-BaaramuLuke]

Thank heaven I now know the origin of the pronunciation of ewe being yoe. When I first heard Tom Forrester use it, I thought he was referring to them as hoe's (not the kind you weed with) when things weren't going well for us up top.

'night, ya'll.