Ode to Fancy

    So this blog is going to be a little different than the others.  This week started off a little rough for the A and B Homestead.  We have a variety of chickens and of course our 3 chocolate turkeys.  Of the variety we had polishes, barred rocks, blue plymouth rock, buff orpingtons, isa browns, and a silkie (named Fancy).  Each one of them have their own personality and attitude.  

    Fancy always stayed away from the chickens.  She seemed more comfortable around the turkeys.  She hated being in the chicken coop and would always find a way to escape.  She was our little Houdini.  Like the turkeys she liked to sleep under the stars.  She was the fighter and survivor of her set of eggs.  Two others hatched but she was the only one that survived.  

    Well at the ripe age of 8 months old was as far as she got.  There had been a lot of land clearing going on around us and every morning we would hear owls hooting everywhere.  Well Sunday morning I went out to feed the livestock and as I got to the chicken run I noticed an unusual amount of feathers everywhere.  When I got in there I noticed that those feathers were Fancy's and it appeared that she was attacked from above.  The worst part of this is that I found pieces of her in the coop and outside of the coop next to a large pine tree.  This confirmed my suspicion it was an owl.  

    Fancy was my wife's favorite chicken.  She would call her Miss Fancy Pants.  She will definitely be missed.  Since that morning we have not lost any other livestock.  I have seen a barred owl flying near the homestead, so I am going to assume that this will is the culprit.  Sometimes life is hard when you have pet livestock, especially when something as gruesome as this happens.  In 20/20 hindsight, I might need to put a mesh netting up to help protect the chickens from these aerial attacks.  However, with that being said Miss Fancy Pants I hope you are strutting your stuff and eating all the grains you can in chicken heaven.  

Where did my turkey hen go?

     Well on Sunday that is exactly what I said, "Where did my turkey hen go?"  I came home from going to the store and noticed that Claudia (our chocolate turkey hen) had disappeared.  I went against some advice about clipping her's and our toms' wings so they wouldn't fly out of our 700 sq ft run.  Earlier that morning I had heard some wild turkeys gobbling towards the back end of the property.  So naturally I thought she had flown the coop and ran to them.  Of course our two toms were pacing and gobbling franticly.  So I walked to the end of the property searching for her by calling her name but never found her.  Well about an hour later she showed back up and went right back into the coop again.  Well I didn't think much about it and went on about my business.  

    On Monday, during the middle of the day I heard our toms freaking out again.  As I went out to check on them I noticed that Claudia was missing again.  However, this time I heard her yelping back at the toms.  I went back to see where she was and I realized that she had a nest next to my shed.  I thought it was awesome but knowing that the coyotes have been getting closer to the house lately, I decided to take her egg and her back to the coop.  And then I put her nest in the coop under the chicken nest boxes.  I know its not a good idea but I wanted her to be safe.  Also, I clipped her primary flight feathers to be able to keep her in the coop.   

So now it has been 2 days and she now has 3 eggs and seems to be doing very well. Every once in a while a chicken hen will go over and look at the eggs and then jump into their nest boxes. For turkey hens, they love the privacy of a nest to where they can hide very well in their nest. In the wild, I have jumped several hens because I did not see the hens sitting on eggs. So if you are raising turkeys, you might want ot keep in mind that the hens will fly out and find a private area to lay their eggs.

How to fix a wet and sloppy chicken run and coop?

    So as this year started it has been very wet here in Georgia.  And in January and February, when it wasn't raining it was either really cold or not sunny so our run and coop would not dry out.  It was really annoying not only for us going to feed and water but for the chickens and turkeys.  So naturally we tried a few different things to try to remedy this problem.  

    Our chicken run and coop area is quite large (24 ft x 32 ft) and could get quite expensive to fix this issue. The first thing we tried was wheat straw.  And with our coop being so big it would take 4 to 5 bales of straw which turned out to be a little bit more expensive than what we wanted. With wheat straw it would soak in the moisture but didn't seem to soak in enough and the smell was not pleasant after it soak up the water.  So naturally we would rake it up and carry it off to our burn pile. 

    The next thing we tried was wood chips (cedar and pine).  Well just like the wheat straw this started racking up the cost of maintenance due to having to buy 4 bags or bales of wood chips.  Now the cedar chips gave off a great aromatic smell for a few days.  And both soaked up the water quite well.  Now the hardest part was the clean up.  It was way harder than cleaning up the wheat straw.  But we were not sure if we should take this off the proverbial chopping block yet.  

    So the final thing we tried happened to come by chance.  We were walking our dog and noticed the area where there were abundance of pine straw was quite dry underneath.  And the next day it looked like the pine straw was dry.  This was our AHA! moment.  So we raked up about 6 wheelbarrows full of pine straw and took it to the coop.  Within two days our coop was dray and the chickens were enjoying scratching under the pine straw.  And this didn't cost us a dime and had better results than the previous two methods.  Along with the pine straw we spread some diatomaceous earth around and even put some in a bin and the chickens and turkeys enjoyed that for dusting in.  

    After a few weeks of trial and error, we decided pine straw was the best for us.  In Georgia, there is an abundance of pine trees so it is very easy to come by.  This turned out to be cost effective and helped to even clean up our yard.  In other areas where pine trees are not abundance I would recommend a different method.  I have read where people put down sand and wheat straw and how that helps but I did not test this method out.  There is always a way to fix a wet and sloppy chicken run area.