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Wow. I have no idea what the range of a rat snake is, but I’d be inclined to thin them out to see if it helps. Maybe kill every other one, at least? Could be that the snakes came for your mice first, then found the eggs. So you have something like a fancy casino buffet for rat snakes going on...

That’s a lot of snakes! All I know about rat snakes is that they can get through about anything except for hardware cloth (HWC). Put it everywhere you can and bury it around the perimeter if possible. This will sound crazy, but does your coop have a corrugated metal roof? Years ago, I had one...

I live in a hot, muggy climate (Gulf Coast) and am a big fan of open coop designs. This coop will be 12x30 overall with an 8x12 roosting area at the north end. The roosting area will have a single-slope metal roof and will have 1” pine board & batten siding on 3 sides. The south side of this...

Thanks for all the replies. I received 24 chicks from Cackle (ordered 22) and only lost one little too that was in some kind of respiratory distress. We couldn't help him, so I culled. Otherwise they're doing great so far. RE: Marbles: I couldn't decide, so I did an experiment with 1 waterer...

Good idea, thanks. I don't have any marbles. Seems like limestone rocks would work? (The stuff you pave a gravel road with.)

Here's the finished product, and just in time. Chicks shipped yesterday! I plan on using the Brinsea warming plate exclusively after the first few days, but I saw a video from Cackle Hatchery saying that you needed a brooder light at arrival to help the chicks recover from the trip.

Ok, I've about gotten this thing thrown together. I moved the tractor/brooder under the lean-to and put it up on some 6x6 post drops. I then strategically surrounded it with all my junk to scare predators away...:gig I hung a tarp on the north side to keep rain from blowing in, replaced the...

That is good to hear, especially the part about picking them up. Thanks.

~48 pounds of meat from 100% pasture for 21 weeks is darn impressive. Do you notice any significant differences in their temperaments from one breed to another? I've read that certain breeds (Chinese and African, I believe) are more aggressive than others. I'm not worried personally, as I'll...

Well I made some progress on a couple of fronts. I’ve got the metal roof screwed down on the lean-to. Also added the HWC to the bottom of the brooder. I found more termite damage than I was expecting, and I didn’t trust staples to hold on in the bad areas. So I ran big deck screws thru to the...

Thanks! I’ll check out the Metzer Farms link.

Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your experience with several breeds. The main reason I’m looking at geese is their grassy diet, that said, I’ve been looking at moscovies, too. I just don’t want another processed feed-dependent critter right now. I also harvested wild geese infrequently as...

Ok, that makes sense to me. Sounds like geese might be coming to my farm. I appreciate all the info you shared!

I’m thinking about adding geese to my flock, mainly for meat. I’ve got some idle pasture that would support quite a few geese, but I think I’d start small, maybe 4-7. I’ve kept and slaughtered chickens, quail, and rabbits for meat, and in each case the animals to be slaughtered were kept...

Thanks for the detailed response. I’ll stick with the last line. K.I.S.S.!

Welcome!

+1 for permethrin spray. Make sure to get the formulation that can go both on the structure and on the birds, too. Read the label. The bonus is that permethrin will kill any bug messing with your chickens, including mosquitos and gnats.

Regarding the ultra-processed chicken feed pellets: Can you recommend some options that are at least minimally processed? I’d love to grow my own feed one day, but I’m years from that. The closest I’ve ever seen to locally milled and minimally processes was when I lived in another state years...

Oof. Good point. I hadn't thought of that circumstance for other people. In my case, I relocated them to a managed flood plain area where no one lived. This is what the game warden told me to do when I called about trapping them.

:gig