I'm thinking about getting hens for seeking out coquis in the daytime. I have a huge clump of bananas pretty near my house that is infested, and I don't think I can clean it up with spray -- too many hiding spots.
BUT I don't want roosters, so I don't want to buy unsexed chicks or even take a chance on mistakenly sexed chicks.
I've never bought chickens before and have no clue who sells them.
I live in Papa`ikou and ideally would want a Hamakua side source ... lord knows there are plenty of chickens in the camps nearby.
I feel lucky that we happen not to have roosters nearby and don't want to change this most pleasant lack of crowing by stupidly importing one that will go wild and be impossible to catch in the gulch.
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Aloha KathyH,
Some friends of mine in Laupahoehoe occasionally sell adult hens for around $6 to $8 each or so. I don't know if they have any available or not right now, but I could call and inquire.
The other option is to hatch eggs in an incubator or give fertile eggs to a setting hen. You then end up with approximately fifty percent roosters, but you can give me all the roosters as soon as they start to crow. Chicken soup ALWAYS cures crowing. Chickens are easy to catch at night, once they go into their roost and sleep you can pretty much just reach in and grab them sometimes they don't even wake up. If you have a chicken coop and keep the chickens in it for a couple weeks before letting them out, they will always go back into their coop at night.
If you get the County sprayer it can put out a lot of lime. We've knocked out some pretty fierce infestations with that big sprayer. You could try that until you get the chickens busy.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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I don't know if they are available on the Island, but a variety called Sex Link are all hens. Or rather the male chicks are a different color than the female chicks. Other wise, its a gamble. When we get new birds, a dozen, it seems as about two or three are roosters.
We have had several different types and the best all around variety has been the Barred Rocks - good disposition, large brown eggs, not very aggressive.
Also, you don't need a rooster for the hens to lay. The hens will lay longer, over their life time, if a rooster is around, but they don't need one to lay.
And remember if you just want eggs for your family, three hens will provide plenty of eggs.
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Pahoa Feed and Seed will take orders. When they get enough requests they get a shipment from the mainland--not sure which breeder. Many breeds can be sexed at birth. A few months back I got Rhode Island Reds and Bared Rocks.
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/ and http://www.ideal-poultry.com are two sites you can go to for breed info.
Jerry
Art and Orchids B&B
http://www.artandorchids.com
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Aloha KathyH,
I called my Friends (they are Quakers, so the capitol "F" is appropriate) and they do have some adult hens available should you be interested in purchasing them. I'm not sure of the exact breed they have available right now, though. They generally have mostly araucanas which are the chickens which lay light blue or green eggs. They have had some brown egg layers lately too, either Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Reds as well as various crosses. Several years ago they did have the Sex Link aka "Red Star" chickens. We had a Red Star hen and she was a great little critter. She was named "Hendini" though, since there wasn't a fence made she couldn't get out of.
Sometimes Del's brings in chicks although they sell out quickly when they do. Probably the easiest way to get chicks is to mail order them and they arrive in a box at your Post Office. Murrey McMurrey is one of the standard mail order hatcheries. Here's a link to a page full of hatcheries:
http://www.feathersite.com//Poultry/BRKHatcheries.html
The last hatchery I got chickens from was Valentine's Hatchery in Florida. Brought in some Cuckoo Marans hatching eggs since I wanted some hens who laid really dark brown eggs.
http://www.vhatchery.com/
Lately, though, I've just been getting a dozen or two fertile eggs locally and running the small tabletop incubator. Saves on shipping costs since most of these will be meat birds.
We keep the mongoose out of the chicken coop by building them up on metal post legs. The hens can jump up the three feet to the coop door and the mongoose can't. We also have dogs which chase the mongoose out of the back yard. One of our dogs ignores the chickens, the other one tries to herd them into a group all the time. Usually that works until the guinea fowl charges the dog and then there's critters every which way.
The County sprayer has about a hundred and fifty feet of hose so if you can get the sprayer fairly close, then you can pull the hose the rest of the way. It sprays out about sixty feet from the end of the hose so between the hose and the spray itself, the County sprayer does have some range. We used it last week and Sunday night to cut back some frogs around here.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Saw this in craighlist about chicken:
free chickens/roosters
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: sale-443893370@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-10-08, 4:54PM HST
we have over 200 chickens/roosters............you come and catch them and they are yours..orchidland . keaau.email to toulalou@hawaiiantel.net (808)966-7270
canhle
canh Le
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It just occurred to me that chickens as a coqui control may not make sense. Chickens readily go to roost at night and don't wander about feeding after dark. Coquis will start calling in daylight, but mostly are calling in trees at night and hiding during the day. Is this like releasing mongoose to catch rats?
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The chickens eat the coquis during the day while they are trying to sleep under the leaf litter. Chickens scratch around looking for bugs and tasty things. Fortunately, their idea of "tasty things" also includes coqui and centipedes. Yay! I've seen chickens catch and eat small mice, too.
KathyH, you will need someone with a tow hitch to pull the County sprayer. It can weigh over a ton when it is full of water, too, so a half ton or bigger truck is best. Also the hoses are very similar to the type firefolks use on house fires so you need someone to maneuver the hose around while someone sprays and someone to man the machine or to drive the truck along. We have at least three folks when we spray and that works pretty well. In some instances we can use the short hose and put most of it on the trailer so one person sprays while walking near the trailer, one person monitors the machine and points the flashlight and the third person drives the truck slowly along as the road edges get sprayed. The last time we sprayed, we positioned the truck in one spot and laid out about 200' of hose then thoroughly saturated the area within reach of the hose.
The lime does leave a white/grey dusty look to the leaves for awhile until the rains wash it off. Usually within a week or two you can't tell the plants were sprayed. The lime is good for the soil, generally, too since our soils are typically very acid.
You don't necessarily need a coop for chickens, that's just if you are keeping them as a domestic sort of bird. You can keep them as "feral" chickens and just let them nest anywhere although it will be harder to catch them when you want them and you won't get as many eggs since they will lay them all over.
My friends have been working on a "yard chicken" which is a cross between araucana, red shouldered Yokohama and lakenvelder, I think. It is a smaller long legged chicken good for foraging around the yard and hopefully able to run from mongoose faster. One hatched out of the last batch of chickens, a small dark one although if it is a hen, my neighbor wants it. If it is a rooster and the folks we got the eggs from don't want it back then we will eat it. We are getting another batch of eggs from them in the next day or two and will run the incubator again.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Another good addition to the poi chicken, are Banti and Wild Jungle Fowl. They are survivors. Roosters, I think are good to have around if you have free range chickens here. You get used to them - much lower key than coqui. My roosters chase mongoose and protect the hens. I have actually noticed, other than in springtime when it seems that rooster testosterone is in full bloom and some fight and are at times not too kind to the hens, that hens and roosters have a positive interaction. They become companions for life. I will never forget when one of my roosters, named Bruster, sat down on the ground near the house with something very wrong with him. I tried to help with what I knew, but in the end it didn’t matter because his closest hen, who was not sick, sat down with him and did not perch that night, as they all normally did. Sat very close to him, touching him. He passed away the next day. The guy can’t be all that bad if she felt like that. Roosters are part of chicken life. And a smart hen knows that.
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If the dang things would just not crow at night, I'd have several roosters around. They take good care of the hens, finding bugs for them to eat and chasing away anything they perceive as dangerous. They are also pretty and fun to watch. However, they crow in the middle of the night and wake everyone up.
Given a choice between roosters and coqui, though, I'd take roosters. They only crow occasionally instead of incessantly and they taste good, too.
Right now we are having a difficult time finding a source of fertile eggs for the incubator. Anyone know of a fertile egg source?
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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