re: #197 ckkatz

One of my suburban neighbors tried raising chickens a couple of years ago. They got a dozen chicks and thought it cool to let them graze across their 1/4 acre.

A month or so in, I noticed that were only about 6 and they were spending all their time huddling in their coop. Shortly thereafter, they, and their coop suddenly disappeared. The next time I saw them, I asked about the chickens. They claimed an owl had gotten 6 of the chickens in one evening. And then came back a week later and got the rest.

I guess that not everybody is cut out to be a subsistence farmer. And these neighbors certainly did not have the skills. :/

Since chickens tend to be diurnal, chances the predator was a hawk.

Anybody considering pig and milk cow husbandry, should be aware of what pig shit smells like and the milk cow has to be milked *every* day. And the cow should be bred maybe every year to “freshen” her milk production.