I went out to lock the sheep up last night at 2220 (normally I remember to remind the child to do this but I forgot, so I got to do it).  I took my Walther P-22 out with me as I am at war with the chicken predators.  Once our chocolate lab saw the gun (doesn’t matter what kind) she was pushing her way to the door so she did not get left behind.  We toured the chicken coop yard first to make sure all was quite then went to lock up the sheep.  Unfortunately, all my traps were empty at the chicken yard.

Once we crossed the creek and headed up to the barn the dog started throwing a hissy and whining and bugging something on the ground.  I flashed the light that way and spotted an adult sheep running away from the dog and the dog trying to lick and step on a new baby lamb!  I went over and picked the lamb up and told the dog to look for another one.  She ran around but did not find another baby.  The mother had ran into the barn with the rest of the sheep.  I stuck the baby in the barn and waited for momma to come claim it.  She did so I went back inside and informed Annmarie.  We decided that we had better start locking the sheep up right at darkness.  It had only been about 2.5 hours since the sun had gone down when she had her baby.

Baby boy 16 hours old

Baby boy

This morning Sarah went out to check the gender of the lamb just before school (soaked her shoes through) and came back in to tell me that it was another little boy!  He won’t be ready to go until Jan-Mar 2012.  I think we still have four more really pregnant moms.

Annmarie and I went and purchased a washer/dryer since ours went out over the holidays.  I can remember when they used to last 20 years!  Not anymore.  So I have to disconnect the old ones today and then make a trip to the laundromat to catch up on laundry (Annmarie is out of socks, again).  

I went out to the chicken coop at lunch today, patrolling for predators, and the back creek is running!  The rain is coming off the mountains in spades.  Of course when the clouds cleared and I got a look at the mountains they are totally white again.  So I spent an hour raising my fence out of the water so it doesn’t get ripped out by the flooding waters.  As usual I had wired the fence to a cross wire in the middle of the stream. I had to hang on to the top of the panel, crawl out on the panel over the water then lean back to reach down to the water level to unwrap the wire.  I am hanging backwards and facing the dark muddy water rushing underneath me.  It is very disorienting.  I had to concentrate on the wire and ignore the visual effects I was getting from the roaring water.  I trudged up the creek to the other fence crossing and had a log jammed into the fence.  I couldn’t pull it out due to the water volume/speed, so I had to trudge back to the shed and bring the ax back to the fence.  I chopped the tree loose and pulled it up onto the side of the hill well away from the water line.  At this rate my chicken yard might get flooded.  As long as it doesn’t rip out my chicken fence all will be well.

Back creek runoff has tripled in size in last 4 hours

Back creek running toward house.

Log stuck in the fence.  I got it out.

Coming up on my coop yard.

I lost another chicken on Monday or Tuesday.  I am at 21 laying hens now.  Sarah and I went out on Wednesday and worked on picking up (Sarah worked at the coop, I moved rocks on the hillside and supervised) inside the coop.  I provided motivation.  We have a deal where she can trade jobs with me at any time and moving rocks didn’t look appealing to her so she picked up dead chicken parts from all over the chicken yard and inside the coop.  As far as I know nothing is killing the chickens now that they are protected behind the electric wire laden yard fence.  I did have to move the rock pile back into place for my babies.  Whatever was crawling under the fence moved a few 15# rocks and tried to squeeze under the fence again.  Luckily, I drove a large wooden stake through the wire and planted the wire firmly into the ground.  The predator could not get inside!  I replaced the rocks and decided that it is not a cat, most likely a raccoon again. Not having any luck with the traps so far, still setting them but no takers since the possum.  Annmarie is going to get the camera setup on the computer this weekend so I can see what is eating the chickens.

I compensated for the loss by purchasing another 25 babies.  They should be here in a couple of weeks.  The first of June was the last day to order chicks from the feed store and not have to pay shipping charges.  I can order myself via the mail but shipping is around $35 on top of the chick cost.  So getting free shipping is a big deal.   I ordered 12 Buff Orpington and 13 Ameracanus (really Easter Eggers since I am getting them from a hatchery).  So I will need to kick the teenagers out in a week or so and let them assimilate with the main flock.  They are always scaredy cats at first and take a while to fit in.  Kinda surprising since they are in the same coop and only separated by wire.

Annmarie and I had discussed the need to cull the old chickens last year but I lose almost 35% of my chickens every year.  I have one or two chickens from my original batch that are almost three years old.  Everyone else has gotten eaten by predators.  That is a crazy predator kill loss ratio.  People wonder why old time farmers used to be so hard on predators.  It is pretty obvious to me.  I use technology and electricity to help me out but without those I would be even worse off.  The only good thing is the predators are killing my black and red sex link chickens.  I never really cared for them and see them as no great loss except for their ability to lay eggs.  No personality and very far ranging.

I had to let the chickens out of the coop this morning since I am having Butler issues (which I hope are easily fixed).  At the same time I let the sheep out of the barn, weather is not very good so the sheep decided to stay in the barn any way.  But, I did notice a bundle of white feathers in the tall grass up by the barn, so I waded through the two foot tall water laden grass to get there (in my slippers of course) and found my white rooster!  He got a leg stuck in the fence.  It was pinched between a wire panel and a 2×10 in the cattle loading pen.  I got him out and set him on the ground.  He was hanging out when I left.  Not sure if his leg is broken or not, but since the chicken pen seems to be the cafeteria for some predator I figured he was safer on the ground in the deep grass.  We will see if he pulls through.  No traps were sprung, I am going to figure out how to put a trap in front of the chicken door to the chicken yard.  The electric fence is still on so they aren’t going over the wall.  I like Spring I really do, but every Spring I have a knock down drag out battle with the predators.

There is no more skirmishing going on.  We are under full attack!  I lost another two chickens today.  We were gone all afternoon and didn’t come home until after dark.  I found one dead chicken inside the coop and my Chicken Butler door was wide open!!  Now in the Butlers defense we had another severe storm with lighting and that may have messed it up.  The chickens are still dying due to a malfunction of the door.  I manually shut the external coop door and latched it.  One hen had managed to crawl up on top of the quail pen.  She was seven feet straight up with no way to reach her.  She would have survived a full blown raccoon family assault.  I think I may have another mother raccoon.  This happened last time I had a mother raccoon. she just kept coming back and killing 1-2 chickens every couple of days.  I am not sure what I am going to do.  First thing to do is to get the Chicken Butler working.  I may have to put it on a timer, not real sure what I am going to do.  May just have to reset the limit switches on the Butler.  I need to turn my babies loose so I can get more babies, but until I catch the killer that will just provide more victims.

On the plus side Annmarie just got me a wireless camera that will transmit 200 feet.  I was going to mount it outside looking at the chicken yard door, but I may mount it inside and outside the door and just move it after I catch whatever is killing my chickens.  It even has low light capability so I can see in the dark.  I am trying to talk Annmarie into setting it up to live stream video from our website.  I thought that would be cool!!  But right now I am thinking it is one more tool to use in the Predator War.  If I get it hooked up to the computer I will be able to view a 24 hour window of video and start marking the predator’s habits so I can nab it.

The weather decided to cooperate today.  It was windy and rainy this morning, Annmarie and I went in to start bringing back the feral cats we had fixed.  We had 10 cats fixed this weekend all feral.  Only two left, one at our house and one and Annmarie’s mother’s house.  Hoping to get those next month and our kitten problem will be gone!!  Yeah.  We will have almost 20 cats spayed or neutered on the property, that seems to be about the number that is needed to keep the mice away from the houses.  I suppose if we didn’t live in the middle of 300 acres of CRP (undisturbed native grass fields) we wouldn’t need as many, but we do so we will keep this number up.

Cattle guard prior to fixing the rails.

Cattle guard after adding rails and hog wire panels.

Sarah and I went out and finished fixing the rails for the cattle guard.  They used to have two boards bolted to them which I always thought was decorative, not so.  The rails kept the sheep from sneaking around the cattle guard.  So I added hog panels to make doubly sure that the sheep would not sneak around the wooden rails.  Sarah dropped a 2×12 on my tennis shoe foot.  The joys of working with an unwilling teenager.  Luckily, I can still walk.  Once the cattle guard was done we restretched the fence on the South side of the guard.  I would have done the North side but I needed some wire/T-post connectors and they were back at the house so I opted to do that another day.

I lost at least one more chicken today.  I will have to recount tomorrow night to get an accurate count for the new month.  They are disappearing during the day which means it is not a wild predator but a domestic predator.  The domestic predator was in my chicken yard snacking on chicken legs.  We are one less domestic predator tonight.  I will get the count tomorrow night and post it.  Not sure whether it is one or two chickens.

On the way up to the bone yard I noticed three different rock chucks scampering around the hillside.  The upper fence is almost laying down for about 50 yards.  The cows are going to be able to just step over it to get into the CRP.  That upper fence is in very poor shape, but since I haven’t finished the fence around the house I cannot get up there.  Not until after the barn is repaired before I can start working on external fencing.

Horseshoe above door.  At this point I need all the help I can get to protect the chickens.

Traps as a visual predator deterrent!!  I think they will work (at least that is what I am telling the wife).

On the chicken theme Sarah and I mounted the traps along the chicken coop today.  They look very good.  Annmarie was not that impressed.  I know that all predators will see the wall and tremble!  Plus, I have three live traps set up outside the chicken yard tonight.  I baited them all with dead chicken wings and feet.  Sarah thought it was morbid to use the body parts, but I told her what was the best bait for catching a chicken killer?  Chicken!  Seemed pretty straightforward to me.