125 comments on The Chicken Coop Refuge: Or How I Became a Bug Farmer
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125 comments on The Chicken Coop Refuge: Or How I Became a Bug Farmer
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I had the same problem. I bought some plastic eggs which I placed in different boxes. It worked, I even got them laying in boxes on the other side of the coop that they had never used before. They also keep the broody hens happy too.
I once found 3 hens trying to lay in the same box (12"x12").
This year I lost 2 hens to some member of the weasel family and 2 chicks to birds of prey. Last year it was foxes. It sometimes seems an impossible task to both keep the hens safe and allow them sufficient freedom to live naturally.
Our chickens run free in the day time, and mostly return to the coop in the evening on their own - except for a few that like to go into the goat house for some reason and the broody ones. My daughter is great at catching chickens, as well as helping those that have had problems hatching. We lost six of our best hens and roosters last spring to the momma red fox in the surrounding woods. She was very bold, and I figure she had a litter to care for. I carried a shotgun around for a few weeks, but I never had a chance at a viable shot, and I didn't really want to kill her anyway.
So we got a livestock guardian dog. She's just over a year old now, and lives outside and is always on duty. We've never lost one since, and the woods are now full of fox, as I saw tracks everywhere in there when it snowed this winter. She also keeps the deer out of the yard, and nothing's gone after the garden either (other than bugs and slugs). At 100lbs she eats her share, but she's one of the most wonderful animals I've known.
I suppose that having a dog and a flock of chickens that run free all the time would not work too well in a neighborhood setting, but if you have a little room it's not a lot of effort. With all the rain we've had in Pennsylvania this year, the chicken yard had to be dug out as it was getting unhealthy - a stinky job but it will make great compost.
It is amazing the difference in the eggs compared to what is in the store - the yokes are bright yellow/orange and taste so good.
They may eat ticks, but it does not help much - we're overrun with them. I'm sure I've got Lyme again. The kids get it often, and so do the dogs and horses. Without antibiotics, we won't be able to survive here.
Supposedly, guineas will rid a property of ticks. I can't personally vouch for this as I've never kept guineas. I plan on getting some next spring. But everyone who's had them tells me that they will eliminate ticks.
We have three species of fox here: red, gray and kit. I've never lost birds to a fox altho last weekend a little kit fox was trying to get into the coop. I have lost birds in previous years to the bobcat, raccoon, long-tailed weasel and sharp-shinned hawk. Now my birds are more secure in the coop and chicken tractor. Turkeys, ducks and geese roam free during the day but are confined at night. The chickens are never free because they are too hard to catch, but the tractor gets moved every other day so that they have new greens & bugs regularly. One of my white turkey hens recently drowned in the small pond the ducks & geese use. I guess that she thot the white ducks were turkeys and that she could swim too, if they could.
Nothing will eliminate the ticks. A deer tick nymph is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, and the place is crawling with them. Maybe they would do OK in a confined area, but not on a property surrounded by wooded areas. Dry years are not as bad as wet ones, so they are thriving now. I expect next year to be worse after the tick boom going on now.
We had guinea hens - stupid and noisy birds, far dumber than chicken if that can be believed. At least they were ugly. I did not notice that they did any better than the chicken at controlling the ticks, but then they did not live long enough to be sure. They got picked off by hawks and who knows what very quickly.
Don't know where you are located, but here in California the western fence lizard has some sort of protein that kills the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, and thus keeps the incidence of ticks infected with Lyme disease very low. Lizards Slow Lyme Disease in West I dunno, maybe you can import some of these lizards?
Thanks very much for that link - I've been very worried about Lyme for a long time. There is at least a chance I can hang on to our home, and I can do many other things to deal with what is coming, but Lyme is one issue I cannot solve yet. If you live here, you will get it - period. If you cannot treat it, you will be debilitated and eventually become a burden, unable to contribute to anything. This is at least a possible non-antibiotic. Perhaps this will lead to something that would help.
Sceloporus occidentalis & S. undulatus are sister species. It's conceivable but to my mind highly unlikely that the former possesses the spirochete killing antibody or enzyme and the latter doesn't.
Thanks - I've never seen one. I will be looking!
S. undulatus was common in Illinois when I was a kid but I don't know if its range extends to Penn. I think that it does, tho.
It looks like perhaps the Eastern Fence Lizard is also effective - except that in the Eastern states there are so many other animals for ticks to feed on that it doesn't help much.
http://eco.confex.com/eco/2008/techprogram/P12720.HTM
EDIT: Maybe I can make our land really really attractive to the Eastern Fence Lizard!
Ahso. Very interesting. Thanks for the link!
I used to catch eastern fence lizards by peeling the bark off dead trees & nabbing them. So if you want habitat for them leave snags standing, I guess.
I'm really pretty excited about this.
* Everything I have looked at so far in terms of potential remedies has been something I could never grow or cultivate around here, and so would be unsustainable or unobtainable - if it even worked.
* Now here is an indigenous creature that has the potential to make a big difference. I may not be the most observant person, but in 46 years of living in this small region of Pennsylvania - most all of it in the country - I don't recall ever seeing one. As a kid I spent a lot of time in the woods, and still do in spite of the ticks. So I have reason to suspect they are not here anymore.
* My property would seem to be ideal habitat. I have seen the successful recovery of turkeys and fox, so I am optimistic that I might be able to reintroduce these lizards here.
If they are not here now, it may make a fair impact on the Lyme situation. Probably more than anything else I can think of. I'm on a mission now!
That's great! Glad to provide you with some inspiration. Would recommend that you check with some local biological authorities (maybe a nearby college/university?) and see what you can find out about the local history of these lizards before you get too gung-ho. There might be non-native concerns, or reasons why they don't live there (predators?)
Good luck!