Re: chicken talk, was: eggs?

[Guest guest]

Rhea,

Good chicken stories - I hope to get some of my own someday. I remember

growing up on a farm, we had many cats that had access to the coop - to

catch mice, but didn't bother the chickens. I think the chickens are too big

for cats - but your cats are curious i'm sure.

Introduce them and see what happens. If you have a rooster - he might set

the ground rules for the chicken-cat relationship.

-

[Guest guest]

Hi Rhea. I rented a small house on about six acres in the middle of phoenix for

a few years and the owners raised birds of all kinds. Turkey, chickens, geese,

ducks, gineas and peacocks. I have half a dozen cats and they never went near

the birds. And my cats were all great hunters. They ate wild small birds, but

seemed to know that these bigger birds were out of their league.

Blessings

Donna

----- Original Message -----

From: Rhea Richmond

Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 6:08 PM

Subject: chicken talk, was: eggs?

Our chickens have been amazing me. This is the first time we've had

chickens so I pretty much went into this with expectations from the books.

For example, I read that chickens will overwork the ground closest to their

coop, yet our chickens come out in the morning and take off, hiking all over

the place together, eating whatever bugs and greenery they find. Every

night as a group they march back into the coop and we close it up. The

commercial feed is in a sheltered area about 20 feet away from the coop, so

I know they aren't just eating their fill of it before coming out.

Once the weather warmed up and some of the snow melted away, the amount of

feed they were eating dropped a LOT, and their desire for crushed egg shells

went up. I wish now that we'd been measuring out the food, just to answer

the question of " how much less feed are they eating? " Today I watched them

traveling around together eating worms that had come up because of the rain.

And my daughter hand fed them plants again today. It's a small leafed

plant, tiny white flowers when it blooms, and the chickens just love it. I

think my daughter tires of feeding them before they tire of having her pick

it and hand it to them. : )

I so enjoy having the chickens free to move about and get their food where

they find it that I really don't want to pen them up. But come warm

weather, our two boy cats who love hunting and eating mice will not stand

for staying in the house. Currently they only get to go out after the

chickens are in for the night.

I can't imagine that any amount of pen moving is going to equal the

wonderful diet they are getting by being free to move around. Can cats and

chickens co-exist? Surely cats wouldn't have been tolerated on farms if

they attacked the chickens, yet that's sure what our cats look like they

want to do. Anyone have experience with this?

Thank you,

Rhea