There's always the possibility of a bear being attracted by the smell of feed. Additionally, bobcats are more common across much of Upstate NY and think nothing of jumping or climbing a fence if food is inside. I once spotted a bobcat inside our chicken run, with a fence about 4' high. I'm not a fan of letting species mingle like that. Chickens can carry parasites and illnesses that could make other animals sick. I once entertained the thought of letting chickens in our goat pen now and then to sweep the yard for ticks, but our vet advised against this. There's probably some good books or forums out there that can help with questions about enrichment activities and health maintenance. Ours never made it past November or so long enough to deal with all that.
Talking about feed prices. I could of got you guys as much feed as you could of possibly wanted for free. She works at a grain elevator, and they have a pellet plant that they make feed pellets out of grain dust that they suck up. I guess they made to much and haven't sold enough. So it has been sitting in the bin for to long and compressing and getting hot. So they are giving away it for free to get rid of it. You want 40 tonnes? Come with a bunch of dump trucks.
Those screening pellets usually aren't very good for monogastrics (pigs, chickens) - they don't have enough nutrition because they're mostly hulls and they can't digest the high fibre content very well. Ruminants can usually get by on them fine, but you have to watch mycotoxin content (ergot in particular).
I’m starting to downsize around here. Feed prices are ridiculous and with each passing year all the work involved with having animals seems more like a pain in the ass. Next year I won’t be letting my turkeys hatch a new brood, and in the future we’ll reduce the chicken flock to a dozen or less birds. The goats are three years old so they’re probably another 10 year commitment which is okay. But plans to buy more have been canceled. I tore down a flight pen we built close to 25 years ago. I can’t tell you how many birds of how many species it’s housed both here and at my previous residence. But time finally got the best of it and I decided to tear it down. Here’s what’s left: In its place I planned to plant more blueberries and maybe some grapes. But looking at those treated boards, they’re still in good shape. I might leave them til Spring and see if I can amend the soil and use it to contain a garden of some kind.
The drilling rig showed up in our yard today to start our geothermal project. The permit, while issued, hasn’t arrived here yet, and we had no clue they were coming today, but they plan to drill tomorrow. I was driving so my wife called our account rep to explain we need to know if someone is gonna be here and find out what the hell is going on. Long story short, she said we should be OPEC/ firewood free by end of January. Although how they intend to pull our old furnace in the middle of Winter to put in the heat exchanger while keeping the house habitable is beyond me. We’ll cross that bridge when we arrive I suppose.
They gave us loaner electric space heaters to put around the house for the 2 days they spent hooking everything up and getting the geo going. Thankfully it was late November so it wasn't super cold yet, but it was still pretty unpleasant for those two days. It got down to the 50's in the house those two days. We explored doing it, as part of the deed to our house says we own a 30 feet extension into the creek by our house, but ultimately there was no feasible way to do it the state was going to OK. There's big incentives to use alternative power sources, but getting them approved by local/county/state government is near impossible in most cases.
As it turned out, the guys that did our installation worked fast and efficiently enough that the new unit was in before they left the same day. It can work on electricity as a back up so it generated heat for that night that way and then they hooked the lines in the following day.
I wrote a while back about slipping on the ice and falling. Taking that into consideration, as well as the fact that I paid just shy of $100 for four bags of feed and a bag of sunflower seeds the day before, I've come to a conclusion: I'm done. I've gotten rid of one batch of animals last year and will continue to do so. Aside from perhaps no more than a half dozen chicks every couple years for eggs, I will not be getting more animals as these ones die off. It's too goddamned expensive. Chicken feed aint "chicken feed" anymore. I paid $4.00/ bale of hay that's not that great and the goats waste. It was tempting to find a new home for them, but that would be like giving away our dog, so they're another 10 year commitment I will stick with. The turkeys are going come Spring when I can sell them easier. I may get rid of the current flock of chickens if they don't start laying better and then replace them at a later time ( no more than six ). Our goats will be getting new quarters in the barn across the road where the chickens are now. I'll have to run stronger fence and make a few minor modifications to the interior, but it'll be on flat ground, easier to clean, and less dangerous in the winter. And really, it'll be an upgrade for them. I'll make some modifications to the current turkey pen, largely for drainage and the chickens will go there. The large fenced in area where the goats are now will be our dog's new play yard since we live too close to a busy road. Part of me is a little sad it's come to this. I've ALWAYS had animals, lots of them, and enjoyed it, but it's too expensive. And I got lucky the other day. If I'd broken my arm or shoulder, I wouldn't be able to work, play guitar, or write. It's not worth it.
Sorry to hear things are changing for the wrong reasons. I hope, looking back, you find it was a good thing, even if it just frees you up more for your writing.
It's all good, really. I feel okay with the decision and even now know it's a good thing. I think I've known it a while, but those two events, back to back, gave me the nudge I needed.
@walt that's a hard decision to make. It's a lifestyle change. The cost of feed like you mention is a big consideration for what I have going on, too. Every time I've picked up feed the last 6mo or so, the price has increased. I think it was $27 for a sack of all flock last time, which lasts +/- a month, plus water costs which are out of control, plus straw bales. I'm younger than you, but physical limitations come into play as well. Unless my kid grows up and shows a lot of interest, any production creatures are mostly my thing. There's a bigger immediate return for small animals like ducks, chickens, rabbits, and they are easier to manage. I think having those around will be rewarding and keep you tied to the "lifestyle" a bit. I think being an empty nester and having no more creatures would be a bummer. But then you could travel or something. Take care of yourself. Until we go all Altered Carbon, we only get one body in this life and the breakdown spiral is just miserable.
We'll still have some, as the goats are pretty young still, going on four years old. So they're staying, they're just going to a different place on the property that will be easier to manage them. And we'll still have a very few chickens for eggs for our own use. But compared to what we've had here over the past years, it's a HUGE downsizing. Also speaking of travel, I'm gonna be on the road a lot more this year with the band. Granted, more often than not it's only an overnight, but it's still a consideration as well. It's all good.
Well...... Sadly our entire flock is gone again. We had built them an inner coop inside the one where they roam around in during the day. It was basically a fortress of hardware cloth and it was keeping them completely safe at night. We went out tonight to put them into the coop like we've been doing every night. It was just before dusk, so still a little light out, but not much. Walked in and everyone was dead. I'm guessing it was another weasel as the scene was exactly like what happened last time. Everyone scattered, a couple trying to hide in spots, but everyone just dead. We had gotten 12 hens again, but one of them a couple months in turned out to be a rooster. I figured with having a rooster in the flock now, they would be a little more protected, but the damn thing killed the rooster too. They were still a little warm so it probably happened about an hour or so before we found them. It's pretty heart-breaking to lose two full flocks to another animal. We are going to completely tear the building they are in down to the studs, concrete everything, hardware cloth everything, and put all the boards back up. Our garage is like a barn with three more buildings attached to it and there's 3 other barns in the neighbors yard which is basically just a giant vector for animals to pass through. We can't stop things getting into our garage, so I think we may have to start just setting traps daily around the coop to add another layer of protection. It really sucks as well since there are so many people around here with chickens and they let them just roam around their front road right on the main roads and you don't see anything happening to their flocks and we've basically built a palace for them and make sure they have their heaters on if it's too cold and plenty of toys to have fun with and worms and treats all the time and ours end up being murdered. This last batch we even had a chicken who turned out to be blind and most people would have just killed it, but we made sure to build little ramps to help her up and down from the roost and we painted the waterer and food bowls bright contrasting colors so she could find them. It's really just devastating.
Damn, sorry to hear that happened. Was there any snow that would allow you to track where the predator got in?
They definitely got in through one of the garage buildings and then under the hardware cloth and through the wall into the coop. Although, everything was pretty open as we didn't go out yet to put them away in their inner coop. It could have easily climbed up their run and got in that way since the door was open. I thought weasels were mostly night hunters, but apparently it timed out just right. It did snow yesterday and there's a mountain of tracks in the yard. There are a lot of animals that pass through. Mostly squirrels /rabbits/rats, but we have a bald eagle nest across the river, multiple owls, I hear foxes all the time at night. There's activity around the area all the time. I'll have to go out this afternoon and see if there's something specific I can see, but I'm pretty sure things are getting into the garage area and then making their way down to the coop. We have some contractors working on the house and one of the guys has ~200 chickens so he's setting a bunch of traps around the coop today and hopefully we get something. If there's a weasel in their tomorrow morning, I'm drowning that fucker in the river.
Feed prices continue to rise, and a bag of chicken feed is now 17.00. Crimped oats for our goats is 21.00 I already sold the turkeys and was gonna get rid of the chickens. But with millions of birds being culled due to the avian flu, they’re staying. We like fresh eggs too much.