Sweet!!

Five eggs today, although one was in the middle of the chicken yard...?? I also have two hens who insist on escaping on an almost daily basis. One is the little Polish Crested, almost a game bird. The other is a big rolly-polly bird that I wouldn't figure could get that much wind power. I keep catching them, snipping their wings a bit closer, and tossing them back in the yard. Shrug. Frankie (dog) corners them but doesn't eat them, so all is well.

Go for Frankie. She is a chick herding dog!

We're getting about a dozen eggs a day now from our 16 birds. (4 are 2 and 1/2 years old, 3 are 18 months old, and 9 are 6 months old.)

I knew I had one chicken regularly laying an egg/day under my persicaria, but today we found another outside-the-yard nest with 14 eggs in it! This must be the Polish Crested, she is my other escapee who insists on a daily walk-about outside the yard. Both chickens get out and back in usually by themselves, or if I open the gate, they scoot right in. I also found an in-yard hidey nest with about a dozen eggs (in the middle of a thicket of nettles). So gathering eggs is a bit of an easter hunt these days. I'm hoping when my little buff orpington decides to quit being broody, the hens will resume laying in the nest box where they should. I only have one nest box, which is oversized and fits two comfortably, but my guess is Ms. Broody may have been pecking some of the others trying to share. She pecked my husband and drew blood.

When arranging for in-kind chicken-sitting with the neighbor below us, she reported that she's been having predator problems, has lost 2-3 hens this summer. I have had no losses. Well, the other day her husband caught a bobcat with one of their chickens in its mouth! He got his gun, ran the cat down, and shot it. Hopefully that will solve predator problems for a while -- they are apparently both solitary and territorial.

What color are the eggs in the outside nest.....I think Polish crested lay white eggs, and they usually don't start laying until they are much older----so I suspect they are from another hen.

It is a pain when they lay eggs outside the nest boxes.

I've had an amazingly easy transition with my 9 new hens this year. They are sleeping in the coop and laying eggs in the nest box. I think it's because there are not any roosters this year, so everything stays much more civil.

The most recently found egg stash are all very light cream color, noticeably slimmer and longer than the eggs I'm getting from the others. I only have two chickens that get out on a regular basis (that I know of). One is a big fat Wyandotte, and the other is my skinny little Polish. The rooster will sometimes fly up to the top board of the fence to do some crowing, but I haven't seen him actually leave the yard. Apparently 4' is not quite tall enough to keep them fully contained, but for the most part they stay inside the yard, and the fence was pre-existing.

I also have the dual problem of 3-4 hens plus the rooster using the nest box for a group cuddle-up at night. I was thinking of blocking it at night, although they are slowly but surely taking to the roosts, so likely I'll just give it a wait-and-see. Procrastination is sometimes my friend.

Correction - BOTH the Wyandottes are getting out. They are very difficult to tell apart, other than one has a bit longer comb than the other. I have always assumed it was just one getting out, but today I found them both wandering around outside the yard. And the rooster easily hopped on top of the fence again to keep an eye on what I was doing with his ladies. Part of the problem is the chicken yard is situated on the crown of a hill, which gives the birds a bit of leverage if they start at the high ground and fly to the fence slightly below. We may have to do some modification at the top of some sort. Or just put up with the wanderers. Perhaps when the rains start they will be more inclined to stick close to their shelter. They do seem to dislike getting wet.

Cut the wings back by at least 1/3.

I'm curious: when people talk about cutting wings back, are they just clipping feathers?

Yes, cutting off the feathers on the wings. It's painless for them. And easy to do with just a good pair of scissors.

A good link on how to do it. Don't hold back.
http://www.permaculture.co.uk/...

Phew! Thanks. I was picturing bones crunching.

Once we trimmed my parakeet's nails and went too far. Cries of anguish from bid and kids, an escape, and tiny drops of blood everywhere.

Tweety recovered promptly, though.

Mr. Squeamish

I clipped them all when we turned them loose to the outside (few months ago) Must be time to do so again, at least on my escapees. I trimmed the flying feathers to about the length of the other feathers, maybe I need to go a bit shorter. Only did the right side on all of them. I think some birds just have a live-free-or-die attitude. So far, not a particular problem, they shoo back in easily, and my dog tracks but doesn't attack them. Can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be to be laying an egg with a dog lying less than 2' away, head on paws, staring at you intently...

For some reason, the chickens were all riled up when I let them out this morning, perhaps because there was a coyote sniffing around last night (I heard one yipping fairly close to the coop, sounded like a youngster). The rooster was chasing down all the hens, the hens were pecking and chasing each other, and one of the hens hopped out of the yard and chased down the dog, ruffling her feathers and squawking at him. Poor Frankie didn't know what to make of it all, looked at me with a "What??" expression, and I told her to just get out of the hen's way. It was quite the circus!

We've been keeping chickens too for several years. We had a great chicken massacre earlier this summer, by uncertain predator, that killed off the whole bunch except one. (We only had 7 or 8 at the time.) I'm not one for naming chickens, but we call this one Lucky. I guess it could have been raccoons - that's our usual problem - but they usually just take one each night until you fix the fence problem or get better about shutting the door at night. Whatever it was left a big ugly mess of dead and mortally wounded birds, which is decidedly un-raccoonlike. It looked more like coyote damage, but no tracks, no evidence of digging in, feathers on the top of the fence. We do have cougars, bear, and now wolves (thanks a lot Dept. of Wildlife) here, but I would think a larger animal like that would tear the coop and/or fence apart. I don't know much about bobcats, but I don't think they hunt in packs and it seems like an ambitious project for a solitary cat. Very strange.

My current dilemma. It was too late in the year to get chicks. I now have one chicken. Do I want to run extension cords out to the coop, run a heat lamp all winter, heat water all winter, snow blow across the yard to the coop all winter, for one chicken? Me thinks not. Would one chicken even stay warm enough all by itself? I think I'll give her away and regroup in the spring.

Lauri, it could have been a cat, (cougar or bobcat) they can jump, so would clear the fence pretty easily, yet it is strange no paw prints! I was thinking your story was going to finish on the dinner table, glad you're giving it away (unless this is a euphemism for "dinner table" )
Deb, you didn't think you'd have to watch out for the dog huh!!!!

Hey, Greg - haven't seen your smiling face for a bit. Hope you've been out and about enjoying the summer. And, you're right, I was much more worried about Frankie attacking the chickens than the chickens attacking Frankie. Kind of a strange twist. I'll have to lug my camera with me in the mornings and try to capture the chicken-dog interaction.

Laur, our neighbor who had bobcat problems was having them disappear one at a time, similar to a coon's MO. When he did catch up to it, the cat was leaving his coop with a chicken in its mouth, still alive, apparently to be killed at some later place. I thought that was kind of weird.

Hi Deb! Yes I have been having one crazy busy summer, which is a great thing~!