Here's what else I just read: -If a chicken gets greedy while the others are fighting for the grapes, she may swallow them whole and choke. -Grapes & raisins are high in sugar and are not a nutritionally balanced food. Too much will ruin their appetites for the protein they need. Perhaps someone with a vineyard put out unlimited amounts with disastrous results.
If you're interested, there is a thread dedicated to eggs here. So far it's about 5 pages long. As always, some interesting stuff there.
Thanks for the site and we have been a member of BackYard Chickens for about 15 years but don't visit much in past few years. We've raised chickens for 22 years now with no problems till lately so is it the continuous rain thats stressing them out or is it in the food that we use now that the best one is no longer available or something else?
I've gotten eggs from friends but have not spent a lot of time around their layers. My friend who had them at his business lets them free range in the store and around the property. The only time he does anything with their eggs is to breed them or to sell their fertilized eggs (some of which go for $40/each.) I don't think he eats any of them. He has a couple of hens that lay their eggs in random plastic planters. I know nothing about the care & feeding...
Ours is in a very secured pen all night but run free all day. Sometimes far back into the woods. Something got inside the pen last November and killed two of our favorite hens.We have it snake proof with netting ,and varmit proof with welded wire all around it.Don't know what chewed tru the welded wire femcing.
I was watching one of those 'Mountain Men" shows and was shocked to see that possums (or maybe it was raccoons) will eat chickens. I guess whatever got through your defenses was hungry enough...
This is true too.I have seen a baby possum in the nesting box.It was actually very cute it was a pink little baby.Mostly we see snakes in the nesting box or around the waterer. Most are jusst rat snakes but did find a rattler under the waterer.We took it to the woods and turned it loose.But if it came back we kill the poison ones. We sldom kill the non poison or poisonous. People don't realize how important snakes of all kinds are to the environment. They say rattlers are disappearing all over the world now aand nobody knows why.A large one fell on hubbys shoulders years ago so we look up and down when walking around.We bought a really good snake catcher about 5 years ago.
I was on my tractor when I spotted this one a year or two ago: I think only one person I told about it understood why I did not kill it. Everyone else kinda shook their heads. I'm certain the folks who were raised in these areas know a lot more about wildlife than I'll ever learn, but there's no reason to kill a snake unless it's repeatedly near the living quarters, or you got kids & pets at risk. I did not know that rattlesnakes were disappearing.
I was surprised too to hear that but its true. We haven't seen a poison snake here in about 10 years but do see rat and king snakes. One kiled our peeps 3 years ago in the brooder.