Bears.

Regarding Bears.
FL Wildlife Commission's bear info page

In the link above, near the bottom of the page, is a video produced by the Florida wildlife commission. I found this to be quite informative.
They have several Bear related articles which might be worth the reading.( I'm not done yet!)
So far from what I gather covering last nights attack on the Chickens, It's our fault the bears attacked the chickens. Ok. So, to get just a little deeper here, the big rule is Don't feed the bears and don't attract the bears! Sounds good. What we needed to know before last night was that we were attracting bears. We also needed to know what bears ate and how they go about finding food. That's on us, no going back.
The big thing is securing food, trash, gardens and live stock. Which to this point we haven't really given much thought about. We don't create very much trash and mostly put it out in the morning before trash pick up. So that's covered. The gardens are all open boxes so it's fair game if we loose some to critters. No big deal they grow back?! Right?...
Livestock. Ok, we're slack where that's concerned. Mostly because we just didn't know we needed to do more. We have had our chickens for 18 months or more and until the Raccoon attack we'd not had any problems. Now things are different. we are looking at electric fencing now we are on a budget and have to plan this out. Going back to the FWC articles and video the big winner is electric fencing as a nonlethal answer to keeping out chickens safe. They say it's the most reliable way to keep bears and other critters out of where you don't want them.
I have said before education is painful and I stand by it. (Experience)
In the meantime I have put the tractors back together. I was surprised at how well they took the beating. I am hoping that the bears don't bother us again tonight
well I've gone on long enough.
Thanks for reading.

Black bears attack

Last night, two black bears got into the bigger "better" chick tractor, and killed 10 or 11 chicks.  One or both tried to get into the shorter triangle tractor the nuggets are in, but could not touch them apparently.  Hubby caught the bears red-mouthed and in the act.

Once we scared off the bears (very loud noise from a cap-and-ball black powder pistol, our noisiest firearm) we tried to assess the damage and catch the survivors who began coming out of various hiding spots.  This morning, there was one more survivor where the bigger tractor had been, looking for his buddies and food.  They aren't holding very still for counting, but it looks like we have 12 or 13 assorted chicks left now, along with all 8 of the nuggets.

I did not see the bears, but from hubby describing one as smaller than the other, I suspect this was a repeat visit from our unwelcome neighbor who came up on our porch (!) back in October.

While it is extremely expensive to build a bear-proof coop, and logistically impossible to make a bear-proof tractor, we are toying with the idea of setting up a safe zone with electric fence perimeter to scoot the tractors around inside.  Unfortunately that will need to wait until payday.

Bantam chicken eggs

This past week, both of our bantam/Polish cross hens - both named Eileen because we cannot tell them apart - started laying.  I am surprised they didn't do bantie-sized pullet-bullets, but regular bantam size eggs.  Here is one of the Eileens in front of the five gallon bucket that serves as their nesting box with a regular golf ball in it.  The golf ball isn't just there for size scale, it's there so we know when one of the Eileens goes broody ... we figure she will be guarding that ball plus any fresh eggs.

one of the Eileens, a "new wave" bantam cross

We have not yet cracked open the first egg, as there are a couple regular eggs in front of it (first in, first out rule).

I tried to get a new pic of Corey, the new wave rooster, but he was not inclined to hold still for the auto-focus on the digicam.

Yes, the Eileens are named such after the song, "Come On, Eileen," but I thought for sure it was by Flock of Seagulls (no, they did, "I Ran") instead of Dexy's Midnight Runners ... because the feathers on top of their heads look like those wild hair-dos Flock of Seagulls had.  What the cluck, over?  Oh well, Eileen is a better name for those two than Seagull or Ran.

Chicks at six weeks

So I have had these chicks for six weeks now, and the nuggets are getting some good size on them.  The two chick tractors are working perfectly now, with the little feathered gluttons grazing in between feeding times, and of course the all-they-can-catch-and-eat on bugs.  Hubby is quite pleased with how well they are stirring up the leaves and pulling the grass and in general scratching and pecking just like chickens should.  You can tell in these pics where the tractors were sitting before moving.

assorted chicks soon after moving the tractor over

you can certainly tell where the tractors were

a few of the nuggets tearing at the fresh grass

Oh, we are down to only 23 assorted chicks, as we lost a red cockerel, likely due to rowdiness judging from all the noise they were making the evening prior.

I am thinking of slaughtering ("harvesting"?) the nugget pullets sooner than Christmas.  There are only two of them, and the six cockerels tend to push them out of the way for feeding time so I think they may not be growing as fast.  They are a bit larger than the Cornish Rock "Game Hens" at the grocery, which are actually Cornish-Rock pullets at 5 weeks of age, with no game in them at all.

Right now, hubby is looking at these chick tractors as an end to his needing to mow ... while I look and see composting in place and think the grass will grow even faster than before.  We ought to figure out which of us is correct around May.

Building a better chick tractor part two

Hello!

We finally got the Large chick tractor built and full of chicks, which I'm sure you've already seen and read about! I took a few minutes of video to show how it came out. I know we put in a few pictures but I think this will show the tractor just a little bit better. It has the added benefit of lively little chickens bouncing around.

And a few pictures I took as well.

Thanks for reading!

Building a better chick tractor

Yesterday and today hubby has been busy building an improved chick tractor.

front door, big enough we can crouch in

built-in roosts with roof enough to shield from rain

putting on the above-roost door

I have helped with the seemingly menial parts, like climbing inside and threading the ends of the zip-ties back for hubby to secure.  He says it is twice as fast with my help, so neither menial nor insignificant.  This tractor will be big enough we could also use for goslings, keets (guinea fowl), or even poults (turkeys).  Once finished, it will hold 24 chicks (8 cockerels plus the 16 remaining pullets/maybe cockerels).

Raccoon attack

Our new chick tractor was hit in the wee dark hours of the morning.  Hubby had put a piece of plywood up against it where the chicks were sleeping too close to the wire, but apparently the plywood piece was too light, as he noticed it out-of-place this morning ... then saw the carnage.

First, do NOT try to tell me how "cute" raccoons are.  In fact, it's best to not attempt to tell any chicken owner that ... especially not one who has had to deal with the aftermath.  I knew there was at least one chicken-eating raccoon around, because my neighbor lost all but one hen to a raccoon back in the spring.  I saw the blood splatters on her coop before she washed them off.

The good news is we only lost one chick this time.  The bad news is the varmint will be back, probably tonight.  The ugly news is I awoke at 0200 and 0400 (approximately) because I was having dreams of going out and finding dead chicks.  Ugh.  Next time I have dreams like that, I will be going out to check on all the birds!

Now, for a not-really-bad pic of the poultry wire pulled out in the corner.

corner where raccoon hit, pulling out the wire

Yes, that is blood on the PVC pipe.  A basic description of how a raccoon kills a chick: it reaches its hand-like front paw in through the chicken wire, grabs the head and/or upper neck ... and yanks it out.  The body does not fit through the hole in the chicken wire, and so that stays inside.  This particular coon got a leg also.

So hubby and I are heading into town to buy enough stuff to make a second chick tractor, with the modifications we talked about yesterday.  These modifications certainly do include half-inch hardware cloth!

I guess this can be put down as a hard lesson learned.  Raccoons are stronger than I thought.  I am assuming they are every bit as difficult to catch/trap/kill as their reputation suggests.