Last night we had our first real calamity raising chickens. Our son was in charge of closing up the coop at nightfall because I was not home. However, he forgot to do it and by the time he remembered he went out and discovered 5 possums in the coop and our Cuckoo Maran rooster, Coke, lying dead on the floor. He rushed in the house to call me. By the time he got back out to the coop the possums were gone. So we had our first loss due to predator issues. It's a good thing our son passed hunter safety a few weeks ago because he can definitely work on eliminating this large population of predators.We still have our rooster, Cocky, who is an off-spring of our original rooster, LeRoy. But I am very disappointed about the loss of Coke. I was planning on isolating him with the five Cuckoo Maran hens we have and hatching out more purebred chicks. I love these chickens because they lay very dark brown eggs and it broadens the spectrum of colors of our chickens' eggs. A new Araucana rooster will be coming in early April that I plan to breed with our three Araucana hens for more purebred Araucana chicks, so I still have that to look forward to. Araucana eggs are also delightful as they can range in color from greenish to bluish to pinkish and they are so pretty along side the light brown and dark brown eggs from the other chickens.
I guess I'll have to take a picture of a typical dozen eggs we get so you can see the large color range.
Say a prayer that we get the possums before the possums get the chickens.
Hi, Cherie. Sorry to hear about the rooster loss. He was a beaut! One time, we went out to the barn and there were 7 dead roosters....racoon was the culprit. But, we didn't have them secured enough. We learned our lesson, the hard way.
ReplyDeleteTake care!
Jodi
Awwww your poor son, it happens occasionally here too, luckily all our predators are daytime, i guess we have too many dogs for the nocturnals. I had an owl take out one of my hens a couple weeks ago in the afternoon. Happy shooting!
ReplyDeleteI love your blog, but, no offense...ALL Predators are needed in our ecosystems. If we all eliminated them because we forget to do things like close up a Chicken Coop, we would have nothing but Humans and grazers left. Though many people would love that, it would be entirely unstable. So, although the Opossums like Chicken apparently, that's not a justified reason for killing them. Plus, they do other good things like eat insects and other creatures you don't like. So, before "Predator Safety" becomes a large part of your life, think of what life means, and what it means to spare it when you have the ability to do so.
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