The GOOD and the BAD - June 2022 Monthly Update

Yes death of livestock is apart of farm life BUT also killing predators is apart of farm life also!

I can tell you from experience that even grown hens are vulnerable to snakes. I had one that was getting eggs out from under a broody hen in the main livestock barn. When he got all of the eggs, I started taking the new eggs, trying to break her broodiness. I guess he got mad. Came back and killed her. Couldn't eat her, but he suffocated her - she was slimed halfway down her neck. I have some pullets in my house now that I have been growing out till they were big enough to put out in the coop. Now 2 months old, so I think they will be safe. If you build a more permanent coop, use hardware cloth, not chicken wire. Snakes can still get through the chicken wire.

You have to dispatch predators. They will always return for eggs or chickens. Snakes can kill full grown chickens.

Please get a guard goose. That will truly help

Nylon bird netting helps keep birds of prey out. Golf balls, ceramic eggs for snakes. Snakes will kill the older chickens trying to swallow them. I always check my coops before locking up my chickens for the night. We do the best we can. God bless you both

Sorry but that would be a dead black snake…I have to protect my livestock! I lost 9 birds in one evening due to over heating! Homesteading is not for the weak at heart!

Katie, I know it's hard to have a divided allegiance between work and the homestead: you are creating the security and resources to have the homestead be successful. All your efforts are making your dream lifestyle possible. What a blessing to have a husband with broad shoulders to manage the home and advance your mutual dream while you do your part. One day your divided life will be put to rest and you'll be able to contribute more to the homestead experience.

hey guys, just started watching your channel. About the chickens i have raised them all my life, and for an area like yours, you are best off not dealing with the wind chimes, tape etc and just going to walmart and getting that black plastic mesh thats about 6ft tall, about 20 bucks a role, and spread it across the remainder of the open areas around the trees/brush and keeping it up with tea posts, when u do that, tie red/orange flagging tape in areas around it so birds can see that its covered, worked for me for years! def worth the try!

When it comes to predators you have to deliver something a lot of people don’t have the nerve for so either learn to build live traps and relocate many miles away or swiftly eliminate the problem, dad always loved his 12 gauge cure which worked every time.

So sorry for all the heartache with the chickens! I've had the same kind of attacks on my chickens! Since then I had to make a permanent coop with run attached. The run is about a 20'x40' made out of 5 foot chicken wire fencing, with t-post every 7 foot, the chicken wire has metal u-clips placed all around the bottom of the fence to secure it firmly to the ground, I took down 3 cedar trees, took the limbs and bark off of them, making them into Poles, positioning them upwards, standing out of the ground at 8 ft. for the middle pole, and the end poles were about 6 foot out of the ground at the beginning and end positions of the run they were all buried about 3 foot into the ground packed in good, spaced at equal distance from each other in the middle of the run going longways! I then drilled holes through the tops of the poles and made sewed long lengths of the orange (You can buy green if you like, orange was cheaper) safety fencing together, cut from a big roll I got, the safety fencing itself is about 3 foot wide, So I cut the pieces into 45 ft. lengths and sewed about 7 or 8 of those fence panels together by just tying them every foot with pieces of twine, tying the 2 pieces together and tying a knot, it was a tedious job, felt like I was making a plastic quilt or something! After I got my 45ft. by 24 ft. fencing panel made, I then took a spool of 14 gauge wire and made like a wire cable line threaded through the holes in the top of the poles. The next step you will need at least 2 people to complete so you don't pull all of your hair out, lol! And that is putting the safety netting over middle wire/cable buy using a ladder as the other person feeds you the netting all down the middle, then once positioned you take the perimeter ends of the Safety netting and securing it about every foot going down the top of your chicken wire fence line and stapling it to the top part of the Coop, under the roof area to enclose all aerial pathways off ! Yeah it might look like a circus tent, but I have not had anymore problems with aerial or ground predators, except for a snake that squeezed through the chicken wire one time to try and steal an egg out of the coop, which that was the end of it! It was a rat snake, and I used not to kill them, but they will seem to always come back to their crime scene again, no matter how far you move them, I moved one over 200 acres away, and that same snake came back about 2 1/2 weeks later! So I then had to add 3 ft. hardware cloth going around bottom of the chicken wire on the outside of the fence, securing the 2 fences together with wire ties every foot! I live in Florida, and over time I spent some money on these projects, but if I wanted to have chickens here, (predators: snakes, coyotes, bobcats, panthers, Hawks, Owls, Racoons, Mean possums) I had to build it like Fort Knox! I was tired of loosing so many chickens and my money raising them! I gave them all a job in that run, they are my compost makers, I put a short round wire enclosure in the middle of the run, where I piled up debris, grass clippings, wood chips, and daily food scraps poured over the top, they spread it out, I re-pile it in a couple of days, and add more debris, etc. etc., repeating the process! In about a month, I have good compost to get for the gardens! The Chickens feel safe, I do let them out to free range, but only while I'm outside watching over them, when It is time for them to go back in, I get a piece of bread and yell "Come on beep, beeps", they all come a running ,they follow me in, the ones who want to be ornery and don't want to go back in, I use my wooden cane to direct them in then, throw pieces of bread to everybody, then close them in and go to my other run and let them out to free range, as I have different flocks of different types of chickens in different runs! One egg layer Run, and One meatbird run with my Dark Cornish breeding Chickens. Another thing I had to learn the hard way was that you have to kill the snake, otherwise He has your place pegged as a meal spot! And when you kill them, you should always leave their bodies to decay above ground (of course away from your homes line of your smell), because other snakes will smell it, and it acually deters other snakes from wanting to move into your area! Homesteading is never easy, that's for sure, but so totally worth it in the end! Don't give up ya'll two! I hope these suggestions help you in some way! ❤& 🙏's, May God bless you and your Homestead!

Most homestead have guard goose to keep flying predators away. One seems to do the job

Time to send the snake to Lala land. Also try not the anthropomorphize the animals. Life is not a Disney adventure. We have 6 hens and they sometimes are downright cruel to each other. Keep up the good work.

You need to ask yourself this question, “What would a veteran farmer do about the snake.” Find the answer to this question and your snake problem will be solved.

okay on the coop, hardware cloth the whole thing so nothing can get in except for the door and the full roof lift, you use a stick to hold up the lid to gather eggs,then latch it after you close it. So at night they are safe, also check the coop at night before locking up to make certain the snake didn't sneak in during the day. if you still have aerial predation, get some bird netting and hang it randomly so flyers are not inclined to try to get into the bird padock. the hardware cloth and bird netting should be fairly cheap.

The wood does look like brand new wood!!!! ZERO mold. Great job!!!! I get trying to relocate the black snake, BUT enough is enough. BYE snake!!!!! I’m sorry for your losses. Keep on plugging along!! You guys are doing great!!

Yeah, that’s why we have a permanent coop that is closed at night & a completely fenced & covered (with chicken wire) chicken yard. We do open a fenced but not covered yard with a bunch of trees for them during the day, but if we lose any to predators that gets shut off for awhile. Good luck! ❤️

Buy several geese, they're great for predators protection. Not only because they can be loud to scare off predators but once grown their size is daunting to aerial ones too

Hi guys. I wanted to say how sorry we are you lose so many chickens. Specially the sweet rooster.😢 I have 2 roosters that I can’t keep due to restrictions. If you guys like one of them we will be happy to send it to you. Let me know. I hope you guys don’t lose any more. Blessings from the Hovenkamp’s

Snakes will start eating your eggs if it doesn’t have any more little chickens 🐓 to eat. 😞The good will always out weight the bad it’s just hard to see sometimes when you are right in the middle of it. Keep up the great work. You are one of my favorite channels to watch. 🥰

Lucky truly was lucky to live with you guys, and he has left quite the legacy behind. These were the best few months of his life, and I'm so grateful that you guys took him on.