05-24-2008, 07:28 PM
As Pam mentioned, hens do tend to share nesting sites and if you feed near the sites they will stick around. I don't think wild chickens would do well in a cage. They like to roost up high at night but don't go far. If you feed these chickens they will most likely stick around.
If you put a nesting box on the ground, a mongoose WILL find the eggs. I have a small chicken house on stilts to foil the local mongoose. I found putting a real egg in the cage to encourage laying worked better than a golf ball or plastic easter egg (tried both). I mark the egg, leave it in the nest and remove all new eggs. Since hens like to share nesting spots you can get several eggs in just a few days. If not removed every day one of the wild hens will sit on the collected eggs and start brooding. I also have a couple of domestic hens that lay wonderful large brown eggs.
In addition to the hen house I have a doorless dog crate lifted off the ground filled with straw that several wild hens were using but I didn’t collect the eggs soon enough and now one of the hens is brooding. Should have chicks in about a week (eggs take 21 days to hatch).
Chicken feed can be expensive. I use layer pellets for the calcium and only put them out if my hens come to the door to be fed. Otherwise the doves and wild chickens would wipe me out in no time. (My hens prefer scratch but it doesn’t have that much nutrition.) I let my domestic chickens roam. That way I know they are getting a good variety of insects etc. and if I’m not home to feed them, I know they won’t go hungry. Water is also important. I have a couple of water feeders and the wild chickens use them as well.
Mites can also be a problem. I occasionally spray the nesting cage and the hen's vent areas with pyrethium(?) if I see bedraggled tail feathers.
If you put a nesting box on the ground, a mongoose WILL find the eggs. I have a small chicken house on stilts to foil the local mongoose. I found putting a real egg in the cage to encourage laying worked better than a golf ball or plastic easter egg (tried both). I mark the egg, leave it in the nest and remove all new eggs. Since hens like to share nesting spots you can get several eggs in just a few days. If not removed every day one of the wild hens will sit on the collected eggs and start brooding. I also have a couple of domestic hens that lay wonderful large brown eggs.
In addition to the hen house I have a doorless dog crate lifted off the ground filled with straw that several wild hens were using but I didn’t collect the eggs soon enough and now one of the hens is brooding. Should have chicks in about a week (eggs take 21 days to hatch).
Chicken feed can be expensive. I use layer pellets for the calcium and only put them out if my hens come to the door to be fed. Otherwise the doves and wild chickens would wipe me out in no time. (My hens prefer scratch but it doesn’t have that much nutrition.) I let my domestic chickens roam. That way I know they are getting a good variety of insects etc. and if I’m not home to feed them, I know they won’t go hungry. Water is also important. I have a couple of water feeders and the wild chickens use them as well.
Mites can also be a problem. I occasionally spray the nesting cage and the hen's vent areas with pyrethium(?) if I see bedraggled tail feathers.