Quote from: mstevens on April 02, 2012, 01:16:40 PM
Nope. My wife was out in the field with him. She said he muttered "Look at him just staring at me. He knows he's safe from a pistol at that distance".

Edit: He came back the next day to have another go. The fox looks worse, but hasn't been hit yet.

Hmmm...

you'd think he could come up with a 22 rifle or a .223 to take care of things.

Oh well.

Quote from: ducpainter on April 02, 2012, 01:26:34 PM
Hmmm...

you'd think he could come up with a 22 rifle or a .223 to take care of things.

He didn't want to go back to the office to get the rifle.

Quote from: mstevens on April 02, 2012, 01:51:42 PM
He didn't want to go back to the office to get the rifle.

I was thinking he'd bring it with him when he came back the next day. If this fox is smart enough to know the range of a pistol I wouldn't expect him to sit by the road so officer friendly could take a shot at him.

Quote from: ducpainter on April 02, 2012, 01:55:23 PM
I was thinking he'd bring it with him when he came back the next day. If this fox is smart enough to know the range of a pistol I wouldn't expect him to sit by the road so officer friendly could take a shot at him.

Yeah, I would've thought they'd put the rifles in the cruisers if they were trying to get a rabid fox that's wandering through the neighborhood.

Quote from: mstevens on April 02, 2012, 02:10:21 PM
Yeah, I would've thought they'd put the rifles in the cruisers if they were trying to get a rabid fox that's wandering through the neighborhood.

It would seem to be a reasonably efficient method of having the right tool for the task.

Pinky and Perky have been joined in the last 2 weeks by a juvenile Brush Turkey. It wandered in and is hanging out with them during the day and also sleeps outside their coop at night. Seems to have made it's home here now.

Quote from: brimo on April 02, 2012, 04:34:34 PM
Pinky and Perky have been joined in the last 2 weeks by a juvenile Brush Turkey. It wandered in and is hanging out with them during the day and also sleeps outside their coop at night. Seems to have made it's home here now.

Awwww, he wants some new fweinds!   


Maybe he will stick around till November, all the while fattening up on seed!     

Quote from: Grappa on April 03, 2012, 12:27:13 AM


Maybe he will stick around till November, all the while fattening up on seed!     

It'll take more than a bit of chicken feed to fatten up one of those scrawny buggers!
(BTW we don't do thanksgiving here in OZ.)

Ok, have new chicks arriving this week. Should we let two of our broody hens take them in or should we keep them separate till they are older and the introduce them? Has any one introduced day old chicks with older broody hens?

So, I talked to a women today and she said I should place the chicks under the broody hens once the hens have been broody for three weeks. She said to do this at night. I will move the broody hens into our outside brooder next weekend and place the chicks under them that  night. She said we should be able to tell pretty fast if the hens will take them in as their own pretty fast. Does anyone have any other suggestions on doing this? Our new chicks should arrive in a day or two!

How do you know they're broody? You might want to get a bunch of the fake eggs (a half dozen or so per brooding nest box) so that they've got a "clutch" to keep warm - based on what little I know, they're broody if they spend most of their time on those eggs, trying to hatch 'em. If she's spending time on the nest on plastic eggs, it won't take much of a leap in her little brain to figure that's where the new chicks came from.

In our case, that's how I know when our hens have found a new, secret spot to lay - when there aren't eggs in the nest box for a few days and one of the chickens is missing most of the time. When I find her, I find a whole bunch of eggs.

Good luck -- I was waiting for someone to chime in who actually had - you know - real world experience, but that's the best I can offer.

Thanks!

Yeah the two of them are clutching our fake eggs we have in their nests and any ones that have been laid recently for a couple of weeks. I think I should be in the safe zone by the weekend that they have been broody long enough to think the eggs are hatching. The person I talked to said that they know if it is about time.

I am a little nervous about this because the last two times I keep the brooder in our house under my eye. I am hoping it will work. I would really like to experience the hens taking them in! It sounds easy. We will see 

Last night we placed our two Broodie chicks in our outside brooder. Tonight we just placed the chicks under them! OK, it was the sweetest thing, the two hens just coddled them under and the chicks buried them under themselves. The hens settled down and the chicks stopped peeping. OMG ... This was wonderful and might really work! Well I will keep checking on them tonight. This is so exciting!

So they made it through the night. I just checked on them again. I moved the hens and dipped all the hens and chick beaks in water. Started placing the chicks back under the hens and they moved their wings to shelter the chicks. The Silky hen moved a chick underself!  The hens still seem like the are in a trance state, I don't know how long they will stay that way.

It totally worked   

Quote from: Polpetta on May 20, 2012, 05:55:26 PM
It totally worked   

Nicely done!