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Chickens!

#63
My folks raise chickens but the flock went from more than 30 down to 8 birds in 2 weeks because a mink kept getting into the coop at night and slaughtering them. The mink could squeeze its way in but there wan't enough room for it to get a dead chicken out through the crack in the wall. So it would give up on that bird and kill another one. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

What a mess.
 
#65
I was hanging out with a few friends w/kids at another new friends acre of land, and the cute li'l chicks decided to chase & catch themselves a chicken (or 2.)

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#66
Got two in the hope of having them deal with the european fire ants in the garden - no dice on that front, but eventually the flock got up to 9 or so - however, I'm now out of chickens and happily, since we have significant predator pressure here and between hawks (which I'm quite fond of again, since being out of the chicken business), raccoons and mink it just becomes an absurd amount of trying to build "Fort Chicken" and then finding whatever defects there might be in a bloody mess of feathers (or just a ring of feathers, usually, with the hawks, since they took them elsewhere to eat after striking them.) Free-ranging them and feeding the wildlife are pretty much one and the same here.

As for @hbarcat parent's mink, it's not so much not being able to get out of the coop with the chicken, it's simply the basically nasty nature of mink - they will pretty much try to kill all the chickens once they get into a coop.
 
#71
My brother was raising chickens for a time but was spending more on feed than he was saving in eggs ( predominately what he was raising them for ). Is that still the case? I have about a 1/3 of an acre for a back yard and with my [Invalid or Expired Link Removed] recently gone was thinking about animals again.
 
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#72
We really do love our chickens...6 eggs Every day...we make presents of them to our neighbors, to my barber, to the Teachers who ask me to sub for them...killer omlets on the weekend!
No idea why, but they make for terrible hard-boiled eggs. You have to wreck em to get the shell off!
It's a bit of a daily committment, but once you're into the rhythm of it, it comes quite naturally!
The only time they're out of the coop or the run (bout 8x3 ft) is when we're right there with them...ain't no neighborhood dawg gon' bite my baby!
OH! PLUS!!...having chickens makes us the Uber Grandparents! That is the biggest +...getting to watch the li'l chillins interact with the 'wildlife'... :)
Somewhere, back during June or July in this thread is a great pic of my Bride showing off our first egg! The smile on her face is precious!
 
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#73
the harp unstrung said:
We really do love our chickens...6 eggs Every day...we make presents of them to our neighbors, to my barber, to the Teachers who ask me to sub for them...killer omlets on the weekend!
No idea why, but they make for terrible hard-boiled eggs. You have to wreck em to get the shell off!
It's a bit of a daily committment, but once you're into the rhythm of it, it comes quite naturally!
The only time they're out of the coop or the run (bout 8x3 ft) is when we're right there with them...ain't no neighborhood dawg gon' bite my baby!
OH! PLUS!!...having chickens makes us the Uber Grandparents! That is the biggest +...getting to watch the li'l chilling interact with the 'wildlife'... :)
Somewhere, back during June or July in this thread is a great pic of my Bride showing off our first egg! The smile on her face is precious!
Click to expand...
you could stop feeding your hens so well and then their egg shells would be like the supermarket eggs. Or you could 'plop' and roll your hardboiled eggs under your palm on the bench to peel them.
 
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#74
the harp unstrung said:
No idea why, but they make for terrible hard-boiled eggs. You have to wreck em to get the shell off!
Click to expand...

Simply put, they are too fresh. If you want to hard-boil some (with easy-peeling), set them in the back of the fridge for 3 weeks or so, mimicking the typical time to market for commercial eggs. There's a chemical explanation of the food-science details, but you can look that up yourself.

It may also be helpful (if it's not the way you do it now) to boil water, then insert eggs. Personally I do that and turn the pot off (which leads to a long-tail time to get to hard-boiled, but tends to avoid green and sulfurous yolks.) In any case, egg into boiling water rather than egg in cold water that you bring to a boil with the eggs in it is generally helpful in avoiding/reducing sticking shells.

Finally; Some shells will stick in any case...but the above will reduce that considerably.
 
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#75
T_Bone_TL said:
As for @hbarcat parent's mink, it's not so much not being able to get out of the coop with the chicken, it's simply the basically nasty nature of mink - they will pretty much try to kill all the chickens once they get into a coop.
Click to expand...

The key factor is the coop. A mink will kill a single wild bird and the rest of the flock will fly away. We farmers keep our birds confined in a box so a mink that gets in to kill one chicken is surrounded by a whole bunch of panicking chickens bouncing all around with no place to escape to.

Mink instinct is to attack any panicked chicken that is running around in front of it.
 
#76
the harp unstrung said:
We really do love our chickens...6 eggs Every day...we make presents of them to our neighbors, to my barber, to the Teachers who ask me to sub for them...killer omlets on the weekend!
No idea why, but they make for terrible hard-boiled eggs. You have to wreck em to get the shell off!
It's a bit of a daily committment, but once you're into the rhythm of it, it comes quite naturally!
The only time they're out of the coop or the run (bout 8x3 ft) is when we're right there with them...ain't no neighborhood dawg gon' bite my baby!
OH! PLUS!!...having chickens makes us the Uber Grandparents! That is the biggest +...getting to watch the li'l chilling interact with the 'wildlife'... :)
Somewhere, back during June or July in this thread is a great pic of my Bride showing off our first egg! The smile on her face is precious!
Click to expand...


A trick my Grandma taught us for that coming your way :) She had chickens and a few others animals on their modest farm in Winters.

So boil 'em however you do it. When you take them off the heat just run cold water on 'em to drop the temp then walk away to let them cool further. When you can easily hold one in your hand it's go time. Leaving them still in the pan, drain off the water then shake the crap outta them eggs in the pan. For some reason the eggs and the way they crack the shells in that manner make them lift off the membrane between the shell and the egg. Works wonders on store bought ones too. Just find the air gap bit on whichever end and pinch that sucker off. The rest of the shell should come off easy peasy lemon squeezy.
 
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#79
the harp unstrung said:
We really do love our chickens...6 eggs Every day...we make presents of them to our neighbors, to my barber, to the Teachers who ask me to sub for them...killer omlets on the weekend!
No idea why, but they make for terrible hard-boiled eggs. You have to wreck em to get the shell off!
It's a bit of a daily committment, but once you're into the rhythm of it, it comes quite naturally!
The only time they're out of the coop or the run (bout 8x3 ft) is when we're right there with them...ain't no neighborhood dawg gon' bite my baby!
OH! PLUS!!...having chickens makes us the Uber Grandparents! That is the biggest +...getting to watch the li'l chillins interact with the 'wildlife'... :)
Somewhere, back during June or July in this thread is a great pic of my Bride showing off our first egg! The smile on her face is precious!
Click to expand...

Try putting your eggs in the fridge for a couple of weeks before you hard boil them. They peel easier!
 
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