No more chickens ranging free, and no more eggs

I am still struggling with finding a way to fence in the chickens without fencing in their groundhog neighbors, and more importantly, fencing out the fox. 

Before the fence can even be installed or repaired, I need to cut down a whole lot of prickly blackberries—of course at the time when they are just flowering and fruiting and the bees are having a party.

For now, I have secured the fence enough that the rooster and hen seem to have accepted their prison and are not jumping any more. The bottom of the fence and the groundhogs still need to be sorted out before Foxy finds her way back in.

I tried a live trap outside the groundhog escape route, and caught me a nice little skunk instead.

At a loss as to how I can make this all work, I decided to tackle a more solvable problem—getting the young chickens out of the dog crate in the garage. I connected 2 dog crates to give them a little more space, and purchased a small coop connected to a hopefully secure 13-ft fenced enclosure. If I ever do solve the problems with the bigger fence, I can use it later as a grow out pen for youngsters.

And we have some of those too. Broody Hen in the big coop is up to 3 chicks. That may be all she gets, or there could still be a few more. When I get the new baby coop for the teenagers, the new babies and mama can move into the dog crates in the garage.

The saga continues. There is still a really good chance I will give up the fight and sell all my chickens.

The fox is winning and it is too cold here!

The last free ranging chicken

Papa Bear's bed is just right

My last post was about a visiting fox and bear. 

Pretty sure the bear was on a romp and has moved on, although I did find where I think he took a nap, just inches from the path where I walk the dogs. Very good thing it was a Tuesday and we were both at work. It was 4 pm when he went on his romp, a typical time for a wander with Woody or Cyrus.

The fox has been more of a problem.

We have had chickens on the loose since we started raising them in 2011. We had 21 chickens happily free ranging in December. The fox, probably an opossum, and maybe, who knows, an eagle or a hawk, have been picking them off one every few weeks or so. I can live with that, but recently a gray fox has been picking off one a day. We are down to 7 chickens.

Too darn cold for June!

I fenced them in and they jumped the fence 20 minutes after all my hard work. I added more fence around the top to keep them from jumping, and the fox dug under and killed another who was in that prison and couldn't escape.

Yesterday I gave the 4 remaining hens that I could capture to friends to keep for awhile. (Thanks, Terry and Alice!) I could not capture the rooster and 1 other feisty gray hen, and we have a broody hen sitting on a dozen eggs. All 3 are locked up in the coop until further notice. I can't keep them in there forever because it will eventually get hot and there is poor ventilation in there since I closed off the 5 big broken-glass windows with plexiglas.

I said eventually get hot, because it was in the low 50°s here today. Had the wood stove going all day, even while wearing a sweater with a flannel shirt. The good news is that I did have the air conditioner working perfectly earlier in the week. At least we can control our in-house weather.

So I think there is solar/electric fencing in our future. Still doing the research while my poor confused chickens are closed up in a "hot" coop.

CORRECTION: In the last post I identified the fox as a silver fox, a variation of a red fox. I was corrected by a friend, a vet tech, who said it is definitely a gray fox. OMG! The internet isn't always correct? Who knew? Thank you Stacey!

The fox and the bear

Yes, we have both. 

The tree swallows building their family in the little red birdhouse is the lead photo because it is much nicer to look at than the fox or the bear.

We lose chickens to predators. It happens when you let your chickens free range. In about 10 years of letting them roam, we have lost maybe 1 or 2 in a year...more sometimes when we have the killers who go on a killing spree, like the bobcat (and Cyrus, but that's another issue).

This one distinctive red fox has been around since at least August of 2021, when the trail camera captured it in color. Some internet searching identifies it as a silver fox, an off-colored version of the red fox. It came back in February when we were starting to lose chickens again, and caught it on the camera again, but then it seemed to take a break.

Now it must have kits and it is back with a vengeance. We lost 3 chickens in the last 3 days. 

We built a new fence around the chicken coop on Monday, let them out of the coop next morning only to find they all but 2 jumped the fence to be free again. :(

That was Tuesday, the only day I work long hours.

So I am sitting in work thinking we are going to find another missing chicken when I get home (true) when I get a text from my neighbor that they just spotted a bear coming across the road from our property. In this case it was a good thing we were both in work. At least I wasn't out walking the dogs when that happened, at about 4:30! I am sure that would not have ended well.

So, the question is, what do I do with the 10 growing chicks in the garage?

Somehow I think their future is not going to be as free as their predecessors. But I can't keep them in a dog crate forever...

Hiding in the limelight

Cyrus asked me to stop complaining about it being too cold up here. He prefers cold and snowy over warm and sunny. My Limelight hydrangea is the perfect spot for both dogs to escape the heat.

The plants I am trying to grow underneath the hydrangea are none too happy about the intruders. All of the bleeding hearts died this year—the half that I just moved under there last year, and the other larger portion that for 10 years has been quite happy in the garden by the house.

It was just an unusually cold winter—frigid to warm to frigid—step and repeat.

I think the warm is here to stay (sorry Cyrus!). We are back to sitting in the backyard watching the beautiful June sunsets.