Chickens at home

[Fox67]

We don’t wash ours except to wipe off any poo with a damp cloth.

If I think there are any rats around (always some somewhere) I set a trap or carefully select an area to place a bait. Or use them for target practice as I have no close neighbours.

[Wazza999]

Do you guys have a problem with rats now that you have chickens??  I know rats are a part of life, but since our neighbours got chickens myself and another neighbour are now seeing rats or hearing our dogs chase the rats during the night.

I haven't had chickens since leaving home nigh on 50 years ago, but yes chook food and rats went together. That's how I learnt to shoot. Bit of bread as bait, corrugated tin chook house behind, camouflaged under the house air rifle ready. After I'd knocked off a few, a quick whistle to the neighbours Labrador who'd collect them, play with the carcasses then bury them. Simples and simpler times, don't reckon that approach would go down too well nowadays . Bloody rats would attack the hatchlings as well.

2011 NT Pajero; 2007 Goldstream Crown 4B

[#jonesy]

9 more baby chickens of various breeds.  I got "day olds" and popped them under a couple of broody chooks.  Some outgrew the adopted mum in a few weeks.

I also got 2 ducks as something different.  Turns out they poop a LOT.

I also picked up some automatic water troughs off Facebook for 10 bucks so that takes away one of the daily chores. 
I even grabbed one for the dogs water bowl.

[Wazza999]

'also got 2 ducks as something different.  Turns out they poop a LOT.'
You're not wrong, it's waddle, waddle, poop... repeat ad infinitum. I was given a couple of ducks as a kid, chooks are a model of decorum in comparison. Duck eggs are quite a different taste, we used them in cakes.
I'd like to get chooks again but they'd be too difficult to care for when we are away, plus there are lots of urban foxes around where we live.

2011 NT Pajero; 2007 Goldstream Crown 4B

[GGV8Cruza]

Bloody Foxes

Lost 3 chooks yesterday morning, let them out around 8am and had to go to soccer. The fog rolled in and must have gave the local fox a bit of cover, lost 2 to him and left one in the pen on the ground. That will teach me to trust the buggers. Now have to start the layer process again, still have 2 left at the moment but they are a bit skitish, one came up to the house and hung out on the deck for the day which is not normal, foxy scared them good.

GG

[Fizzie]

Here you go, chook owners, just teh thing that your chooks want!

https://www.chickenorb.com/

[corndog]

Don't recall ever seeing or evidence of rats around our place for 30 years. That was until the new neighbours out the back moved in. With them came their dog, that was OK,  Dolly the lamb, but that only made it to Christmas, chooks, still around, and an open compost heap that they still keep going. Now we got 20 odd Indian Myna birds, no i won't call them common myna to be politically correct. And rats most of the time, even been in my roof space. Now both side neighbours and I grow vegetables and fruits, but one neighbour have been doing it for decades and complains to me that now he has rat problems. All 3 of us have seen and trapped plenty of rats. Forget birds eating your crop, try stopping the rats. I got 8 this year in my back garden beds so far.