Aspergillosis in backyard ducks can turn fatal, however, it can be prevented and treated with good management and help from an experienced veterinarian. Here’s how to prevent, treat, and diagnose this common disease.
What is Aspergillosis?
Aspergillosis is a common, noncontagious fungal infection known as Aspergillus spp. Although humans, livestock and all poultry species are susceptible, waterfowl are more vulnerable to this fungal infection than other species.
Aspergillus spp. comes in two forms: acute and chronic, with the latter being the more common in backyard duck flocks. Chronic Aspergillus usually occurs after ducks have been subjected to frequent antibiotics or have other health issues. Aspergillus affects the lower and upper respiratory tracts but can affect organs if left untreated. This fungus is an opportunist found in air, dust, feed, grains, hay, soil or straw.
Common in warm climates with high humidity, this disease thrives best in conditions 77°F or above and exists worldwide.
Why Waterfowl?
Why are ducks and geese more susceptible to Aspergillus spp. than other livestock? Like all poultry, ducks and geese have sensitive airways and are prone to respiratory illness. However, waterfowl need water so they tend to live in wetter environments than chickens or turkeys, making their coop and run more likely to breed fungi.
Aspergillosis Prevention
Like many fungal infections, Aspergillus spp. is an airborne fungus that enters the airways through inhalation. So, keeping a tidy and dry coop and run can go a long way in preventing ducks from contracting this disease. However, you don’t need to go into a cleaning frenzy. The tips below can help eliminate the risk of aspergillosis in your flock.
1. Forgo the Hay
Hay is considered a green bedding material and has a greater risk of carrying Aspergillus spp. and other mold spores than brown bedding.
a straw bed for duck
2. Say Yes to Straw
This brown bedding consists of dead grain stalks, such as barley, oats, or wheat, and while it can carry Aspergillus spp., the risks are considerably less than using hay or other green bedding.
3. Check the Feed
While providing ducks with a well-balanced feed, with supplements as needed, is one of the best ways to prevent Aspergillosis, did you know that even good feed can go moldy? Before feeding a new bag of feed, check to make sure the feed is not moist, wet or moldy. Store feed in metal trash cans to help preserve shelf life and keep feed dry.
5. Clear the Table
Allowing ducks to feed for 20 minutes in the morning and again in the evening will prevent overeating, reduce feed spills and cut down on rodent populations. Daily cleaning up spilled feed, leftover table scraps and uneaten fruits and vegetables reduces the chance of fungi growing in the coop or run.
6. Clean, Clean, Clean!
Once a week, removing wet or soiled bedding from the coop will help keep ducks dry and reduce any chances of Aspergillus from entering the coop. Scrubbing water buckets and food bowls will also aid in the prevention of bacteria, yeast and molds from growing. Always dry food bowls or feeders before refilling with fresh feed.
Other ways to prevent aspergillosis from taking up residence in your flock include maximizing ventilation and not overcrowding the coop or run.
Aspergillosis Symptoms
Aspergillus spp. is a serious respiratory condition that can be difficult to diagnose. If your duck exhibits any of these symptoms, take them to a qualified veterinarian immediately. Symptoms include the following.
convulsions
coughing
gasping for air
labored breathing
lethargy
loss of appetite
open-mouthed breathing
organ failures
paralysis
rapid weight loss
voice change
wheezing
Erin Synder
Treatment
The only way to successfully treat Aspergillosis is with help from a qualified veterinarian. This condition can become deadly if not treated properly, so treatment should be started as soon as possible.
A veterinarian will look for clinical signs and perform a thorough exam to determine the risk of Aspergillosis. If Aspergillosis is possible, radiographs and a fungal culture will be performed.
After a duck has been diagnosed, treatment will begin right away. Your vet will prescribe anti-fungal medication and nebulizer treatments to keep the duck’s airways clear.
During recovery, your vet may suggest moving a sick duck into the house to prevent more mold from entering the airways. Be sure to follow all instructions from your veterinarian to ensure your duck recovers quickly.
If one or more of your ducks are diagnosed with Aspergillosis, thoroughly clean the coop, run, water buckets, and food bowls to eliminate this mold from your coop and run. Be sure to wear a mask and protective eyewear while cleaning contaminated areas.
Aspergillosis may be a common threat to backyard duck flocks, but it doesn’t have to be. With proper management and good nutrition, you can significantly reduce any chances of this fungus taking up residence in your flock.
ducks drinking water
This article about Aspergillosis in ducks was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Chicken toys and environmental enrichment are key as poultry are highly motivated to explore and perform their natural behaviors. For this reason, when not given this opportunity, they’ll get bored. Encouraging the expression of natural behaviors can improve poultry’s health, welfare and performance of more diverse and complex behaviors. As flock owners, it’s imperative to create a stimulating environment for our birds. One way we can do that is through enrichment such as chicken toys.
Environmental enrichment is defined as modification of an animal’s environment to improve their biology by increasing natural behaviors, enhancing emotional states and improving physical development. Enrichment must be stimulating, evoke interest, and improve their physical, behavioral and mental welfare. Barren environments—environments without enrichment—can lead to poor welfare states, fearfulness, depression, behaviors such as feather pecking, cognitive impairment and poor performance.
The earlier the enrichment is introduced, the better. Early introduction can help our birds become more adaptable and less fearful. The 2001 study “Reducing feather pecking when raising laying hen chicks in aviary systems” showed that exposing chicks to litter and sand at hatch led to less feather pecking than those placed at 2 weeks of age. Ensuring the brooding environment has similar features to the coop environment, such as a perch, can also help lessen some of the negative behaviors.
Providing a flock with chicken toys and environmental enrichment doesn’t have to be complicated. Ensuring your flock can express natural behaviors like dustbathing, foraging and perching is key. This can be as simple as providing adequate space in the coop, giving access to vegetation outside or placing a new object within the coop. Here are some great ways to provide enrichment.
Space
In order to perform natural behaviors, birds need a certain amount of space. The Global Animal Partnership considered the gold standard for animal welfare guidelines, recommends having at least 1 1⁄2 square feet per hen within the coop and one nest box per six hens.
Combined with the recommended amount of space, outdoor access can also offer enrichment. Many natural behaviors such as foraging and dustbathing can be performed in vegetative areas outside the coop. However, some of these behaviors can be limited during winter months, and other enrichments may be required.
Chicken Toys: Perches & Roosts
Birds are highly motivated to perch. Jungle fowl, the wild ancestor of the chicken, often roost to protect themselves against predators. If chicks are provided a perch, they’ll perch as early as 10 days of age and use perches for night-time roosting.
Birds are highly motivated to dustbathe—so much so that hens will dustbathe when they’re housed in cages without material to dustbathe in. Using finer bedding material such as sand, ground wood shavings and peat moss can stimulate this behavior.
Hens particularly love dustbathing in a finer material to penetrate their feathers, so adding a litter additive is a great way to encourage this behavior. When poultry dustbathe, it has been shown to support feather quality, control parasites and be a healthy social behavior.
Foraging Material
Providing foraging material encourages foraging behavior. The purpose of foraging is for hens to understand their environment and find potential food sources. Providing foraging material can help reduce the occurrence of feather pecking.
Chickens forage by scratching and pecking at things within their environment including grasses, wood shavings, hay bales, feed and scattered treats. Foraging material can be food or nonfood objects that stimulate pecking for your birds, but not all foraging material is created equal.
Treats, such as mealworms, increase foraging behavior more than whole wheat or non-nutritional material like wood shavings. Scattering treats is a great way to encourage this behavior and reduce feather pecking.
Chicken Toys: Novel Objects
Placing new objects, such as chicken toys, within the coop is also considered enrichment. How your poultry react to novel objects may be an indicator of their fearfulness and how well they cope with stress. An example is found in “The effects of environmental enrichment devices on feather picking in commercially housed Pekin ducks,” a 2014 study in Poultry Science. Researchers found that providing ducks different colored whiffle balls with zip ties attached led to less feather pecking and cleaner, better feather quality when compared to the ducks that weren’t provided any enrichment.
Turkeys are similar, too. Providing simple things such as straw, an object hung from a string/perch or forage thrown on the ground reduced feather pecking.
They also discovered that chickens prefer simple objects to complex objects. A novel object could include string, thimbles, buttons and colored drawings on the walls, brightly colored plastic bottles, balls and rattles. However, to remain interesting and novel, these objects need to be switched or replaced often. Take care not to provide objects that your flock could destroy and ingest.
Providing chickens with environmental enrichment is an effective way to encourage the expression of natural behaviors and improve the health of our flocks. Enriching a flock’s environment can be as easy as scattering treats for them to forage. The type of environmental enrichment can vary based on things like the time of year, the size of your coop and giving chickens access to the outdoors. Select the type of enrichment that works best for your flock!
Mikayla Baxter, Ph.D., is the Digestive Health Products Manager at Perdue Animal Nutrition. This article about chicken toys and environmental enrichment originally appeared in the Nov./Dec. 2023 issue of Chickens magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Backyard chickens, from breeds to chicken coop placement and more, are fair game topics in this Hobby Farms Growing Good podcast with Holly Callahan-Kasmala and Chrisie DiCarlo, the Chicken Ladies.
Why a Backyard Chicken Podcast?
Holly and Chrisie, best friends of 40+ years, explain how they got started chicken keeping and started their Coffee with the Chicken Ladies podcast. “That’s what we’re here for, to help chickens and the people that have chickens,” they said in explaining why it’s important to them to share their experience with and educate others about poultry.
What’s in Your Chicken Coop?
The Chicken Ladies share the impressive list of heritage chicken breeds they keep on their farms and why. With more than 60 chickens between them, they talk about what to do with all these eggs — listen to the end for Holly’s and Chrisie’s favorite egg-based dishes — and the difference between backyard eggs and industrial eggs. Learn about the greens and herbs that Holly and Chrisie grow for their chickens, including a collard variety with an appropriate name for feeding to poultry.
Backyard Chickens On the Farm
Hear about Holly’s and Chrisie’s family farms, including why they took a 17-hour road trip to find of heritage breeds. Holly explains how she chose the location for the poultry runs, sheep fields and gardens on her farm. She tells us about her fiber arts and why it’s important for her to grow cotton and keep wool sheep now.
Chrisie explains that her experience with emergency veterinary care began with a toy doctor’s kit that she used to “take care of” all the neighborhood dogs as a kid and continued on into her career. She tells us about her three acres and what it was like to get started with just four chickens as a means of teaching her daughters about the responsibility and care of animals.
This podcast was recorded for Hobby Farms and Chickens magazines online. Click here to subscribe.
The Kiawah River Agrihood near Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy Peter Frank Edwards
Agrihood life is becoming more popular across the U.S. as planned, community food-focused living communities take hold. What is an agrihood? It’s a residential neighborhood that supports itself through community farming. Simply put, everyone has a stake in the growing of food and shares in the bounty. An Urban Land Institute report says there are currently more than 200 agrihoods in at least 28 states.
What is an Agrihood?
Agrihoods aren’t communes based on shared political or religious beliefs rather they are focused on farming and agriculture. Participation in the farming duties varies per agrihood, with some allowing residents full access to farming and ranching experiences. But regardless of participation, residents have access to reliable and healthy food.
Some agrihoods are marketed toward an affluent demographic. However, the agrihood model may be applied to urban areas and lower-income housing areas. Several agrihoods offer affordable housing, including locations in California and Colorado.
The Kiawah River Agrihood near Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy Peter Frank Edwards
Examples of Agrihoods
Residents live in tiny homes in Tiny Timbers, near St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. As a result, most residents own their homes debt-free. With only 16 homes, Tiny Timbers residents share responsibilities for gardening and caring for chickens, honey bees and orchards.
The creators of Kiawah River Agrihood, near Charleston, South Carolina, built an agrihood community around preexisting, established farms. Kiawah River partners with multigeneration, existing farms and others. Residents may work or volunteer on the farm or participate in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and may visit the Kiawah River farmers market.
“Kiawah River is the region’s only agrihood,” says Caroline Rogers, account executive for the Lou Hammond Group in Charleston. “With 20 miles of shoreline, 2,000 acres of picturesque property, including a 100-acre working farm, a goat dairy and a CSA program, Kiawah River is a maritime oasis of residential, future retail and hospitality offerings with custom and semi-custom homes featuring high-quality coastal architecture. It’s a place where life is centered on outdoor pursuits and traditional low country pastimes.”
The Kiawah River Agrihood near Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy Peter Frank Edwards.
Kiawah River Broker-in-Charge Chris Drury says, “Kiawah River offers the rare opportunity to live in a waterfront community. The community seamlessly complements wellness by offering a sustainable lifestyle with farm-to-table amenities, outdoor educational activities and much more.”
Resident Dana Berg says that being able to walk among the animals and have fresh eggs every day is a special experience. “The community share program is awesome,” she says. “The fresh vegetables, fresh honey and goat cheeses and more are delicious and are delivered right to your front door.”
“The daily beauty of everything we have access to never gets old,” says resident Lindsay Cobb. “The eggs are simply amazing and the access to fresh vegetables is so unique.”
Kiawah River Chief Environmental Officer Jeff Snyder has witnessed Kiawah River transform from a pure farmland and private hunting ground to a sea islands agrihood. “It has been a pleasure working in the community, teaching others how to harvest their own vegetables, plant seeds, and support the local farms,” he says. “I feel so honored to contribute to the preservation of the land while supporting the future of Kiawah River and its residents.”
A 10-acre farm near Richmond, Virginia, the Chickahominy Falls agrihood offers housing for residents who are ages 55 and over. Texas has numerous agrihoods including Harvest Community, which is a 1200-acre, 3,200-home project near Dallas.
Agrihood Benefits
A 2018 ULI report applauds agrihoods because they are inspired by a “growing understanding that development centered on food-production spaces can produce multiple benefits for individuals and communities while enhancing real estate performance.”
Agrihoods may be advantageous for developers because they typically require less land and maintenance than golf courses or swimming pools. As for economic impact, agrihoods attract tourists from cities and area restaurants.
The Kiawah River Agrihood near Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy Peter Frank Edwards
Besides giving residents reliable access to food, agrihoods may save family farms and can keep farmland in production. They may also be more appealing than starting one’s own farm. And food shipping costs are eliminated.
On the downside, agrihoods require capital and water, are management-intense, risky and involve experimentation. Sustainable agriculture is challenging and difficult work. Weather, pests, predators, poor soil and insufficient staff are all part of the mix. Some agrihoods struggle with residents who randomly pick crops and some who don’t carry their workload share. To remedy this issue, certain agrihoods have hired full-time farmers to oversee the process.
Agrihood development benefits include promotion of health, social interaction, a good environment benefits, employment and a strong local economy. Factors involved in the model include land, food, financing, programming, communication, housing and design and people.
Harkening backing to colonial-era practices, agrihoods offer a modern dynamic with food-production spaces that vary. They may involve community farms, demonstration farms, small-scale/accessible-scale farms, edible landscaping, vineyards, orchards/olive groves, community gardens, rooftop farms, senior centers, retreat centers, and farms or gardens at churches, schools, public lands, and corporate campuses. As well, controlled-environment agriculture, such as greenhouses, warehouses, and shipping containers may be involved, along with other areas or venues.
The Kiawah River Agrihood near Charleston, South Carolina. Courtesy Keen Eye Marketing
This story about the growing popularity of agrihood living was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Bantam chickens can make a wonderful small flock. Keeping three or four bantam hens increases self-sufficiency for anyone engaged in small-time poultry-keeping. Bantam hens, notorious for setting and brooding, make excellent surrogate mothers for many species of domestic poultry, including chickens, ducks, pheasants and turkeys.
They make perfect birds for those living on the grid, as well as anyone wanting to live off the grid. They are nature’s perfect incubator, egg turner and chick brooder, all built into one convenient, dependable unit. Best of all, they require no utilities or power to operate. They are one of the most convenient and trouble-free ways for a homesteader to increase their small production or laying flocks. Fertile eggs, from the best-producing birds in another flock, can be set under bantam broodies as a low-cost and highly successful way to increase the flock.
These little marvels of nature make capable, ideal mothers and can be used to hatch and incubate eggs from other types of poultry. They even take care of the babies after they hatch. Bantam hens are notorious for going broody, sometimes two or three times in a year.
Choose almost any well-known breed of standard-sized chicken and chances are you’ll find a bantam version that has been developed as its counterpart. Bantam hens are small, usually less than half the size of their full-sized cousins. As miniature versions of much bigger fowl, you can keep them in a smaller coop or run.
Because they have often been raised as pets, many bantams maintain a generational predisposition for friendliness and curiosity around humans. As such, they’re generally easy to maintain.
Because of their much smaller size, feed consumption is also much lower than with standard-size fowl. Some breeds, such as Silkies or Cochin bantams, are well-known for wanting to set on eggs and hatch out a family. Other breeds—Old English Game, Japanese and Belgian bantams—often exhibit high tendencies for broodiness and excellent mothering skills as well.
To give an idea of the difference between standard-sized chicken breeds and bantams, look no further than the example found in Cochins. According to the American Poultry Association’s Standard of Perfection, fully mature, standard-size Cochin hens should weigh 8 1⁄2 pounds when fully mature, and a rooster should weigh 11 pounds. On the flip side, a Cochin bantam hen should weigh 26 ounces and a rooster should weigh 30 ounces. Some breeds will be a few ounces heavier or lighter. Even so, most bantam hens can successfully incubate four to six larger eggs while setting.
Besides being curious, personable pets and wonderful mothers, many bantam chickens make decent little layers. While maybe not the egg producers that a Leghorn or Australorp might be, many breeds of bantams will lay three or more eggs per week during the spring and summer months. Some birds will even keep laying into the winter (but in most cases, this is an exception and not the rule.)
broody bantams chicken
Hens & Roosters
Most breeds, once they start laying, will lay small eggs with high interior quality and strong shells. These eggs are wonderful for home use or selling. Even with their small size, many customers find these eggs to be of desirable quality and will buy them on a repeat basis, if you have them available.
Bantam roosters are often known for their endearing and often inflated egos and attitudes. What they lack in size, they make up for in personality. Bantam roosters will try to defend their perceived territory against much larger males, without hesitation. They love to crow and strut around, letting the world know that they’re in charge. If you keep a bantam rooster with your hens, you can raise a few new “banties” every year and increase your brooder flock as well.
Bantam chickens tend to be clutch layers, meaning that they lay a clutch of eggs, often 18 to 20, and then go into a broody state and set on the clutch to incubate and hatch the eggs. If a person keeps the eggs gathered and removed daily, this will slow the tendency to set but not for long.
After laying her eggs, usually over a six- or seven-week period, nature will take over and the bantam hen will go broody. She’ll flatten herself as far as she can and spread her little body out as she sits in the nest, assuming a position to allow her to cover as many eggs as possible and keep them warm. This flattened position also makes her less visible to predators if in the wild—nature’s way of making sure she and her babies are safe.
She will lay claim to any eggs laid in the same nest by other hens and quickly roll them beneath her, with her beak. Once broody, the bantam leave the nest for only a very few times each day to eat and drink and then return to her duties of keeping the eggs warm. She may become very protective, make soft gurgling warnings or squawks, and peck any individual who should have the audacity to stick their hand into her nest to try to steal her eggs.
Despite all the theories and folk wisdom about breaking a broody hen from her desire to set, it can be nearly impossible to deter a bantam hen from going through the complete brooding and setting cycle, even if all eggs are removed daily. The process is hardwired into their brains at a cellular and molecular level. If you are keeping these hens as broodies or surrogates to hatch and raise the eggs of your other poultry breeds, this is exactly what you want and need.
One of the most interesting phenomena of broodiness is how infectious it is in a flock. It doesn’t take long after one bantam hen starts brooding and setting before another hen also becomes broody and joins her, often in the same nest box. This makes for a very good situation when the hens are being kept for the purpose of brooding new stock, as this means more eggs can be set and hatched.
Once the eggs hatch, rarely any squabbling or fighting over the babies occurs. The two hens will work together and use their natural mothering tendencies to nurture and raise the babies as a team.
mmphoto/Adobe Stock
Why Use Bantams Chickens?
Some breeds of larger fowl also have tendencies toward broodiness. Standard Cochins are one of the most reliable. A larger hen is also able to incubate a larger number of eggs than a bantam. However, for reliability and repeat broodiness, bantam breeds such as Silkies, Cochins, Old English Game and Japanese are hard to beat.
From the 1920s into the mid-1950s, government-funded poultry-improvement programs recommended that poultry farmers cull hens with a tendency to go broody and set, to increase egg production. A broody hen doesn’t lay eggs once she fully enters her brooding cycle. Consequently, such hens were often removed and met their fate in the stew pot.
Over the decades, the genetically inherited trait of broodiness was bred out of many standard breeds. Because bantams have traditionally been kept as pets instead of for commercial production, many breeds of bantams never lost this valuable trait.
Small Housing
Bantams don’t require much room. A small flock of three to six bantams can live very comfortably in a coop with floor dimensions no bigger than 4-by-4 feet, and a pen or yard no bigger than 4-by-8 feet in size.
Waterers and feeders should be of a design that the babies can have easy access but not fall into water too deep for them and drown. One or two nest boxes just above floor level are ideal. Placement near the floor will ensure that baby chicks can get back in under mama hen to keep warm.
Make sure the nest box is wide enough for two hens to spread out comfortably. In hot weather, excess body-heat buildup from two hens sharing a very small nest box can cause heat stroke in one or both hens.
If you are keeping a small flock of bantam chickens for raising baby chicks, wire mesh securely fastened around and over the run is best. You don’t want a situation where small chicks can escape through larger holes in chicken wire and be lost to the elements or predators.
Make sure that your pen is very sturdy and the wire is securely attached so marauding neighbor dogs or wild animals such as raccoons can’t break in. Small holes no bigger than the diameter of a quarter will allow rats and weasels to enter. Both can and will kill baby chicks, as well as adult bantams. Before building the coop and run, pour a slab of concrete 3 to 4 inches deep to prevent these animals from burrowing in through the soil.
Keeping bantam chickens can be a great addition to any backyard. They require less space and feed than large fowl breeds and are known for their friendly personalities. Bantam hens are notorious for going broody, too, which means they make excellent surrogate mothers for other types of poultry. They’re nature’s perfect incubators, egg turners and chick brooders.
Overall, keeping bantam chickens can be a fun and rewarding experience for anyone interested in small-scale poultry-keeping.
Best Broody Bantam Chickens
Most bantam breeds will exhibit broodiness at some point. However, a few breeds are almost sure bets for going broody. Some hens may not exhibit this desire until their second laying season. This is common. As hens become older, their setting and brooding desires tend to become stronger. Older hens often make the best mothers. Here are a few breeds to consider.
Silkie
These fluffy little chickens, with their soft downy feathering and loving, calm dispositions, come in several colors, including white, black, blue, gray, paint (mottled or speckled) and others. The quintessential example of a broody hen, they’re probably the most reliable setters. They make wonderful mothers, have calm dispositions and are perfect for families with small children.
Cochin
The bantam version of this breed is every bit as reliable for purposes of brooding and setting as Silkies. They have calm dispositions and are inveterate setters and brooders. They are a sure bet for use as surrogate mothers for other fowl. These little fluff balls, with their feather shanks and thick feather coats, come in several colors, are calm and gentle, and are also perfect for families with children.
Old English Game
These small, alert little birds, with standard feathering and noticeably larger tails and drooping wings, come in several colors and patterns and are a showy bird that you will be proud to own. Not quite as docile as a Silkie or Cochin, they are very dependable setters and make excellent mothers. Because they can be a bit flighty and roosters a bit aggressive at times, they may not be suitable for young children.
Japanese
With large tails, shorter shanks and wings that also appear to droop, these birds make excellent mothers, and the hens get along well with other breeds. They come in several colors and are beautiful conversation pieces that you will be proud to show to your friends.
Belgian d’Uccle
Besides being living showpieces, this personable, gentle, feather-legged breed makes for wonderful setters and mothers. Be aware that many owners of the birds say they tend to not go broody until their second laying year.
This article about bantam chickens originally appeared in the September/October 2023 issue of Chickens magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Do raccoons eat chickens? Of all the wild predators, the raccoon is the most likely to visit your coop and the most likely to do a great deal of damageto your chickens. For most owners of chickens, the raccoon is their birds’ main predator, second only to domestic dogs.
Raccoons are characterized by a mask of black fur around the face and eyes, a furry brown body and a fluffy tail with alternating black and brown rings. They can grow rather large, topping out between 15 to 40 pounds, depending on how well they’re fed, of course. They have long back legs and short front legs, making them look hunched over when on all fours.
You can find these native North America mammals in nearly every town, city and suburb. Opportunistic foragers and skilled hunters, raccoons prefer to make their homes near a water source, feasting on fish, crawfish, frogs, snails and other aquatic life. But they’re incredibly adaptable.
They’ll turn over garbage cans to dine on trash and scavenge for scraps. If motivated and hungry, they may even enter a home or other human dwelling in search of food.
Do Raccoons Eat Chickens: Calling Card
Raccoons are incredibly destructive hunters of chickens. Do raccoons eat chickens? Yes. These crafty animals will hunt solo or expertly coordinate an attack in a small family group. They’re fabulous climbers, and their front paws are deceptively dexterous. They can open latches, undo locks and open doors.
Raccoons are also strong. They can (and will) tear apart chicken netting or wire. When all other attempts fail, they’ll thread their arms and hands through small openings and ruthlessly grab at—and tear off—any part of the chicken they can reach. Raccoons are creative and smart and will do anything within their power to get your chickens.
Expect to find quite a scene of carnage following a raccoon attack. Here are a few telltale signs.
dismembered adults or chicks
dead chickens found where they were killed
dead chickens with entrails pulled out.
multiple dead birds
dead chickens with missing heads (or the heads of dead chickens dispersed throughout the coop)
dead adults with only crop and/or breast eaten
surviving birds with broken wings or legs (where the raccoon reached through gaps in housing or fencing)
surviving birds with head or neck wounds or bites near the vent
chicken body parts, such as legs or heads, or other pieces of torn flesh in or around the water fonts
broken eggs/shells in or near the water font
usually whole flock killed, with majority of the bodies left on site (and not carried away)
bags of feed torn open and contents dispersed
attack usually occurring at night
Do Raccoons Eat Chickens: Your Flock’s Defenses
Provide your chickens with the best and safest housing you can afford to build and, given that raccoons are skilled climbers, build tall fences. Put roofs on any outdoor runs, and close up gaps in housing. Walk the perimeter of your coop, run and any other enclosure and look closely for any weak points. If they’re there, raccoons will find them.
When choosing mesh for your coop, always purchase heavy-duty hardware cloth over chicken wire (which is flimsy and easily torn by a resolute raccoon). Line windows, doors and roofs on any outdoor enclosures with 1/2-inch hardware cloth.
Raccoons aren’t great diggers, so they’ll rarely try to dig under fences or coop walls to get to chickens. However, they have an advantage over other predators in one area: the front door. Most importantly, lock up your flock every night.
Because of their nimble paws, raccoons can open locks and latches that other predators can’t, so firmly fix knobs, locks and bolts on any coop doors or windows. Slide-bolt and hook-and-eye latches are too easily popped open by raccoons and shouldn’t be used in a coop.
Instead, use clip latches or spring-loaded hook-and-eye closures (the ones that require an opposable thumb to pull and release). When it comes to keeping out raccoons, no type of lock is overkill to protect your chickens. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
A Mustelid Menace
chicken predators mustelids raccoons
Weasels, minks, ferrets, fishers and martens are just a few among the small carnivorous mammals considered part of the mustelid family, commonly called the weasel family. If you’ve never seen the damage they can do to a flock, you would almost think they were cute.
Animals in the mustelid family tend to smell rather pungent as well. Their powerful anal scent glands release a persuasive repellent odor. These little carnivores are nosy by nature, very active and constantly moving around on the hunt for prey.
As with other predators, whether or not your flock is vulnerable to these carnivores depends on your location. Most of the hunters in this animal family are rather small, so chickens aren’t usually their first prey of choice. Because of their svelte frames, these little guys can squeeze themselves through surprisingly small holes (about the size of a quarter) in wire mesh and openings in the coop, and they can dig under enclosure walls or climb fences.
Mustelid hunters are a good incentive to keep your coop clean. They’ll likely be attracted by rodents and decide to stick around to make a second meal of your flock.
Mustelid Calling Cards
Unlike other predators who kill or take one bird at a time, animals in the weasel family tend to kill or injure several birds during one attack. They also prefer to suck the blood of the prey animal, rather than consume large amounts of flesh. Consider that a mustelid mammal may be the culprit if you see some of the following after an attack:
chickens killed and collected in small piles (weasel, mink)
bites on the back of head and neck (weasel)
only the head or neck eaten or bitten off (weasel, mink)
bites around the vent and/or intestines removed or visible (fisher, marten)
bodies tucked away to return to later (fisher, marten)
small birds, such as chicks and bantams, entirely missing (mink)
lingering odor (all mustelids)
Your Flock’s Defenses
Secure small openings and weak points, and keep a tidy coop and storage area. Stop weasels at their point of entry by securing corners and gaps that are larger than a quarter in size. Use hardware cloth with 1/2-inch openings to line windows and as fencing in the run. Store feed in predator-safe containers, and keep the coop clean to reduce or eliminate any rodents, thereby not attracting any mustelids.
Many of the mustelids are cautious around humans, so they’ll keep their distance where there is noise and light. Lock up your flock nightly. These predators are most likely to attack after dark.
This article about do raccoons eat chickens originally appeared in the September/October 2023 issue of Chickens magazine. Click here to subscribe.
A closeup shot of grass and soil covered in mild snow. By Dalton Overlin/Wirestock
What do farmers do in the winter varies by the severity of the weather. While there are always winter farm chores that have to be done, the list can expand in a mild winter. With more available outdoor time, chores that would normally have to wait until spring can be started early.
Since the grass isn’t growing and it’s far too early to start planting the garden, there’s a window of time during mild winter weather to focus on “would-be-nice” projects that often get passed over for more time-sensitive and mission-critical tasks during busier times of the year.
What Do Farmers Do In the Winter – Mild Weather Projects
Here are some personal examples of projects for mild-weather winters.
Opening Access – I enjoy clearing walking trails through the wooded section of my farm and opening up access to special trees and neat locations that otherwise require a bit of bushwhacking to reach. But of course, just-for-fun projects like these are pretty low on the priority list during spring, summer, and fall.
In a normal winter, reaching the woods is difficult because of snow depth. The snow also prevents me from cutting down brush and sapling trees at ground level. Mild weather is a great opportunity to cut new trails.
Grafting trees. Photo by yanadjan.
Grafting Practice – Mild winter weather opens up options for practicing grafting fruit trees. Many wild apple trees are growing in an old livestock pasture on my farm, and I’ve been hoping to use them as a training ground for improving my grafting skills. Accessing the pasture isn’t easy when there are two feet of snow on the ground. It’s similarly difficult to make delicate grafts of scion wood onto branches when it’s 10 degrees outside and you’re wearing thick winter gloves. But with warm temperatures and practically dry ground, I have no excuse not to head outside and conquer all types of grafts during winter downtime.
Pruning Fruit Trees – Pruning non-wild fruit trees in my orchard can be difficult in bad winter weather since accessing the trees at the right time of year (before they leaf out) is always a challenge; most winters, by the time snow melts enough to make pruning feasible, the trees are already waking up for spring. Mild winter allows engaging in corrective pruning.
What is a Mild Winter?
Exactly what constitutes a mild winter will vary from region to region. Maybe it means temperatures are warm enough to prep garden beds a month or two earlier than usual. Perhaps it means diving into “spring cleaning” while it’s still winter. Maybe you can cut up and haul away a tree that fell during a storm. Or maybe you can tackle routine fencing maintenance that would normally wait until spring. The effects of a mild winter, and the ways you can capitalize, will vary widely depending on your specific situation.
Hopefully, these ideas will help farmers make a list of mild winter projects. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that certain projects are only done at certain times of year but if you’re enjoying a mild, quiet winter and cutting a woodland trail beckons… why not take advantage? Favorable weather should never be allowed to slip by unused on a farm.
Is raising chickens something you’re considering? If so, here are five reasons you’ll love raising a small flock of hens.
1. Raising Chickens for Farm-Fresh Eggs
Raising chickens in a small urban or suburban backyard is farming on a small scale. If you’ve already been buying eggs from a local farmer, you know backyard eggs are exceptional. The yolks are deep orange from eating greens and they’re higher in omega-3 fatty acids, while lower in omega-6. When you gather fresh eggs from the nest box each morning, they’re still warm. And, while you’re not likely to see a hen laying an egg (a girl likes some privacy), you will hear her egg song every morning.
2. Making New Friends
Chickens are lovely companions, of course, and they can be a gateway to making human friends. Flocks in common are exciting icebreakers, sparking endless questions to ask a stranger or acquaintance.
“Did I hear you say you have chickens? So do I! What breeds do you have?”
“Oh, I have an Australorp, two Wyanodttes (silver and golden), an Easter Egger, a Buff Orpington, a Polish, you know with the big hair … What about you?”
People who’ve always wanted to keep chickens will talk to you, too. For someone who wants chickens, all it takes is getting to know someone who’s taken the leap into chicken keeping to boost their confidence.
“Yes, you really can raise chickens! Let me tell you how.”
We chicken keepers might border on enabling, but we’re the antidotes to naysayers who disapprove of raising chickens.
3. Raising Chickens Equals Having a Maintenance Crew
Your new flock of chickens is a maintenance crew that won’t mind working for its every meal—because when you’re a chicken, everything’s a meal and it’s always lunchtime somewhere.
Backyard chickens will help you clean out the garden by turning soil and pecking away edible scraps. These dedicated foragers will scratch through what you dig up from the ground, spreading soil and cleaning out grubs and other pests. If you bag grass when you mow, they’ll spread and turn it in the compost bin, or they will forage through and eat the trimmings if you leave them on the lawn.
4. Appreciating Our Food
Raising chickens inspires respect for the animals, their intelligence and their actual value as food producers. With the time, feed and water required for their bodies to produce an egg, grow new feathers, bathe and preen, and clean up pests, esteem for their seasonal abundance and off-season time off becomes a natural understanding. These are invaluable lessons of the day-to-day needs of the animals that produce what we eat. Appreciating the origins of our food is a gift often lost on urban dwellers.
5. Joining A Movement
Chicken keeping still isn’t mainstream, but it used to be, and it’s likely to be again. For now, you’ll be the weirdo in the neighborhood or the honorable crazy chicken lady, but that’s part of the fun. People seem to be increasingly reluctant to participate in the abuse of battery hens with their purchases, and they seem to be more aware of the energy it takes to transport our food from one place to another. The average distance our food travels is 1,200 miles from its origins to our grocery stores. Raising chickens, whether for eggs or meat, is activism. Quiet, cooing, clucking activism.
This article about raising chickens was written for Chickens magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
A cured egg yolk recipe is perfect if you’re wondering what to do with egg yolks. It’s a great addition to your recipe book when eggs are in season and abundant or to stretch end-of-the-season eggs just a bit longer.
A Cured Egg Yolk Recipe
Some people find that a salted cured egg yolk has an umami-like taste that is similar to Parmesan or mature gruyere cheese and we can certainly see the similarities both in taste and texture. They can be grated over pasta or sliced and added to meals that need more depth and saltiness.
Yield: 6 egg yolks
Ingredients
6 eggs
2 cups salt
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (more, as needed)
Cured Egg Yolk Preparation
Pour salt into a bowl and make a small well for each egg yolk.
Crack the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. (Save the whites to make pasta dough, meringue or drinks.) Gently pour the egg yolks into the wells and carefully cover with salt.
Cover with a loose-fitting lid or beeswax cloth, and leave in the fridge for a few days.
Remove the egg yolks. Gently brush the salt off and wash them in apple cider vinegar. Dry them until they are completely dry. This can be done by hanging the eggs in cheesecloth in the fridge for a week, putting them overnight in the oven at 120°F or in a food dehydrator for an hour.
Store egg yolks in a sterilized airtight jar for up to one month.
Heirloom Skills Book Review
This recipe comes from Heirloom Skills – A Complete Guide to Modern Homesteading, written by Anders Rydell and Alva Herdevall. It was recently translated from Swedish to English and published in America. This is fortunate for us This book, without a doubt, has held my interest more than any book has in a very long time.
I’m partial to the topic of traditional living because I also write about heirloom skills and I find it fascinating to learn about the methodology of other people, especially people from across the globe.
In this book, Rydell and Herdevall write about chicken-keeping, raising bees, growing vegetables, food preservation, flower arranging, DIY beauty products and herbal medicine. They also go on to teach how to make sourdough bread, how to compost and how to keep ducks. There is even a chapter on beer and hops. This book is packed with great how-to instructions, delicious recipes, and plenty of colorful and helpful photos.
This recipe has been shared from Heirloom Skills with permission from Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
This cured egg yolk recipe article was written for Hobby Farms magazine online. Click here to subscribe.
Ripe limes are tasty, but you may have an abundance and can’t use them all at once. For those occasions, preserving limes is a lot like preserving lemons. Consider making a jar of these limes to have on hand.
You can preserve ripe limes and use them in a variety of ways, such as in soups, simmer sauces, vinaigrettes and marinades. But even more commonly used, it’s the preserved lime rinds that are put to work, not the juice or pulp.
How to Preserve Ripe Limes
Yield: 1 quart jar
Ingredients
8 to 10 fresh organic limes
3 to 4 tablespoons coarse kosher salt, more as needed
Preparation
Scrub limes clean. Unless you are certain that the limes you are using are free of food-grade wax, it is worth taking the additional step to remove any wax that may be present on the fruit. To do so, put the limes in a colander in the sink and carefully pour boiling water over them.
Trim off the ends of the limes, and cut them into quarters lengthwise.
Generously sprinkle salt in the bottom of a clean quart jar and pack in one layer of sliced limes. Repeat the salting and layering method until the jar is full. Push down on, and gently smash the limes as you fill the jar so that some of the juice releases and there is no space between the slices, leaving 1½ inches of headspace from the final layer of limes and the rim of the jar.
Sprinkle one final layer of salt over the last layer of limes. Through this process, enough juice should be present to submerge the wedges. If not, juice another lime and pour the juice over the jarred slices until they’re completely submerged.
If you have a small fermentation jar weight, add it to the jar to keep the limes completely submerged under the brine.
Wipe the jar rim clean with a dampened paper towel or clean lint-free towel and add the canning jar lid and tighten on the ring.
Store the preserved lemons at room temperature, ideally between 60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, and keep out of direct sunlight. The limes will keep preserved if they’re kept under the juice-salt brine.
How to Enjoy Preserved Limes
The preserved limes will have a potent citrus flavor but be saltier. You can decide to rinse the limes off before using or use them as-is, depending on what it is you’re using them for. For example, if you’re making a marinade, you could certainly leave the salty lime as they are. But if you are stirring the rind into a salad or rice, I’d recommend rinsing the lime off, removing the pulp and only chopping up the rind portion of the lime. It’s totally up to you!
Preserving Ripe Limes -Notes
To alter the flavor of the preserved limes, consider adding one to two teaspoons of dried hot pepper flakes within the layers, or a pinch of whole black peppercorns. Shove a couple of whole bay leaves within the sides of the jar or while layering limes and salt or incorporate a couple teaspoons of coriander.
If you do not have a glass jar weight, you can improvise by using an easily removable small food-grade glass dish that fits inside the jar to keep the layers submerged under the brine.
You may substitute fine sea salt instead of coarse kosher salt if you prefer. The measurement will remain the same.
This recipe has been adapted from WECK Home Preserving (2020) with permission from Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
This article about preserving ripe limes was written for Hobby Farms magazine. Click here to subscribe.
