Monday, June 3, 2013

Chicken Update

We've not had any additional raccoons, so just the 2 caught last week (so far.)

The trap is still out there.

Our remaining 8 chickens are still alive.  One chicken is looking a bit funny, with one eye shut. Was she injured by a raccoon?

Another possibility is that she was hurt by another chicken.  Chickens have a deep need to establish a pecking order.  They had it all figured out and then 9 chickens were killed. So they are reestablishing their pecking order now.

We are only getting 3 to 4 eggs a day now.  At least a couple of the remaining chickens are moulting, so aren't laying.  And they are probably still traumatized. So maybe 3 eggs from 8 is doing pretty well.

Kevin and I need to decide whether to raise laying hen chicks or not.  We still haven't decided.  It would be a fair amount of work, especially in the early days. But it would also be fun.  Chicks are so cute! 

If we DO get chicks, we will keep them in our garage the first couple of weeks. We raised meat chicks last year and had them inside for a couple of weeks. They were mind bogglingly smelly after a few days.  Never again :-).

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