Post by fowlplay on Apr 2, 2004 20:53:08 GMT -5
hey everyone. made some changes to my brood housing this week. just thought that i would share it with you.
encounterd a new, and very costly problem. as a lot of you know, i breed alot of old english. well, the other night, one of our best "$1000" hatch cocks ran a rat into a hole, wich we had not noticed until it was to late. he managed to stick his head in the hole and......POW! that damn rat took out a chunk of his skull. by the time we found him, that rat had done ate all of the meat from his neck and head. very tough financial loss, and a very emotional one for my wife. lucky for us, one of his hens just started setting on 8 eggs, and we located a brother to our now gone ace cock. now to fix this from happening again
SOLUTION:
all of my brood houses have dirt floors in them. after some thought, i went out and bought some more poultry netting that is long enough to run the whole length of the house, and wide enough to span the width with enough on the edges to fold and staple to the inside frame work.
next, i take a trip to my local saw mill and picked up a pick up load of plain old, every day saw dust. i put saw dust on the floors, over the wire, about 4-6 inches deep.
as time goes on, this will slowely settle and pack down into a nice solid base, thus making the chances of a rat digging his way into there pretty slim.
this is something that we were already planning to do, now obviously, we couldnt put it off any longer. with all hopes, this post might save your prized game fowl, or even your little one's favroite chicken.
good luck to all-
tony
all and again........its just a thought
encounterd a new, and very costly problem. as a lot of you know, i breed alot of old english. well, the other night, one of our best "$1000" hatch cocks ran a rat into a hole, wich we had not noticed until it was to late. he managed to stick his head in the hole and......POW! that damn rat took out a chunk of his skull. by the time we found him, that rat had done ate all of the meat from his neck and head. very tough financial loss, and a very emotional one for my wife. lucky for us, one of his hens just started setting on 8 eggs, and we located a brother to our now gone ace cock. now to fix this from happening again
SOLUTION:
all of my brood houses have dirt floors in them. after some thought, i went out and bought some more poultry netting that is long enough to run the whole length of the house, and wide enough to span the width with enough on the edges to fold and staple to the inside frame work.
next, i take a trip to my local saw mill and picked up a pick up load of plain old, every day saw dust. i put saw dust on the floors, over the wire, about 4-6 inches deep.
as time goes on, this will slowely settle and pack down into a nice solid base, thus making the chances of a rat digging his way into there pretty slim.
this is something that we were already planning to do, now obviously, we couldnt put it off any longer. with all hopes, this post might save your prized game fowl, or even your little one's favroite chicken.
good luck to all-
tony
all and again........its just a thought