The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Gordon M on September 20, 2009, 10:46:56 pm
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Just got our first egg from one of our new Hy-lines the OH told me earlier on the phone. A perfect shape, brown and medium sized apparently. With any luck we should end up with large eggs (double yolkers would be nice) on a regular basis, that's if we don't lose the birds before hand, they have taken to jumping over the 4 ft netting and then jumping up onto the wall (4.5 ft) and that's with their wings recently clipped!
I may need to buy some tennis balls with bog chain attached and wrapped around each birds leg, that should keep them on the ground eh?
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Mine used to jump onto their four foot fence so I put a foot of wobbly chicken wire on top that they can't balance on. Does the trick I lost two prior to that who committed suicide by jumping into Hester's mouth - she's a German Wire-haired pointer with a hard mouth. they had previously been retrieved a few times by my Brittanys - soft mouthed! Try that and see if it stops them
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Yes, your right. That'll likely be my first job when I get home. I'll probably put wire along the top of the walls and that way they can have the run of the garden and be safe. If they get over the walls at the moment then there is a fairly busy road and dogs roaming around off their leads. Don't want to lose any of the birds, they really are characters!
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You need to use chicken mesh not just a single wire - if you use that they jump onto the fence rather than the wire, but if you use the mesh they can't see any gap to jump onto