Thursday, March 10, 2016

Chicken Tractor Update part one

Well I knew I should have used mesh wire on my chicken coop instead of chicken netting.  Last night about one in the morning I was sitting at my computer working on my book, when I hear my chickens going crazy.  Now my dog isn't barking until this happens and she's on the porch the entire time.  So I go out to see what all the commotion is and I see one of my buff hens out running around.  The five roosters that are out free ranging all day are chasing her around.  I run back in to put my shoes on and come back outside to rescue her.  I'm wondering how she got out and where the other buff hen is, thinking the worst.  I sick Sadie on the roosters to keep them away from the hen and me while I grab her.  She comes to me willingly so you know she's had enough of the boys chasing her.  I tucked her under my arm and she's completely quiet and still.  I need to see how she got out first and make sure nothing is in her pen.  There is a huge hole tore into my chicken tractor but luckily the other buff hen is alive and well.  I didn't see any animals inside but something sure tore into the pen.  I take the hen in my arms and put her in the coop with my blue orpingtons and come back to get the other.  She isn't happy about it and squawks loudly sending all five of the roosters after me.  I drop her when one of them comes at me, but luckily Sadie gets between us.  Its hard to see those blue roosters at night in the dark.  Anyway the hen runs from me and corners herself between the fence, a play kitchen that belongs to my kids and a bucket that is setting beside it.  She is completely surrounded on three sides and can't get away when all five roosters pile on top of her.  Literally, one jumped on her, then another jumped on him and so on until they were all on her.  Again, I sick the dog on the roosters because I am not capable of fighting five roosters off at once.  Those things are too fast and too mean.  Now granted all but two of these were hand raised by me. The other two were out of eggs my mothers hen hatched.  She gave them to me when I gave her my extra pullets that I didn't like.  She didn't want to fool with butchering them and did not want two roosters running around, so I took them.  These two you have to watch, carefully.  As I said I sicked the dog on them and she ran them all off, while I eased in and got the poor hen who had just been assaulted by five roosters at once.  Then I put her in the coop with the blue orpingtons.  I will have to get some wire sometime this week to fix the chicken tractor if I'm going to keep my buffs separate from my blues.  I guess I will also have to butcher the roosters soon or build a pen to put them all in too.  I don't know if they tore the hole in the fence or if something else got in but I have to wonder since just last week my buff rooster died unexpectedly.  I wonder now if something got him through the fence and maybe broke his neck.  Could it have been those roosters running loose or was it a wild animal? I've learned my lesson though. Always use good wire instead of cheap, chicken wire.

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