Search Results for: label/chicken/2011/04/making-it

622 results

The Rat of the Land

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Animals
27 Comments
...in and, unsurprisingly, it revealed the presence of rats in and around our chicken coop. I lock up the chicken food at night but the coop still seems to be a hot spot for rats. I’ve long had a suspicion that Los Angeles probably has more rats than Chicago and New York but there’s no hard evidence to prove this thoughtstyling of mine. Unfortunately, it turns out that scientists have a hard time researching urban rodents for a number of reasons. Mat...

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The Best Way to Get Bees For Free

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Animals, Bees
5 Comments
...haphazardly, upside-down, in a large plastic pot that was half filled with chicken litter. I intended to throw the box out at some later date. Then, a few days later, as a neighbor was telling me about his favorite climbing roses, Kelly called me from the porch, saying there was a”bee situation” going on in the back yard. I ran up the stairs and behind the house to see one of the awe inspiring miracles of nature: a hive moving into their new home–...

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Who’s Visiting Your Garden While You’re Not Watching?

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Animals
16 Comments
...same direction. That raccoon pic is another reminder for me to recheck my chicken coop’s fortifications. And the rat is telling me to lock up the chicken food at night. Reviewing these images has given me a less adversarial feeling about our mammalian visitors. They are just so damn cute, especially the skunk. Next up in my CritterCam experiments will be to see who is visiting the bird bath. I’ll need some help from readers for that, since I don’...

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Root Simple’s New CritterCam

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Animals
8 Comments
...t time? (We’ve seen them two times in the backyard). Are rats visiting our chicken feeder? When does a broody hen get up to eat? What critters are hanging around the chicken coop at night? Use the camera’s time lapse function to look at shade patterns in the yard. I’ll share the results on the blog over the next year. The first night I used the camera I pointed it at the grape arbor where I know rats visit. The resulting images, that I strung toge...

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