Aloha from hawaii!

[HIfarmpickles]

Hello, and thank you for adding me to the forum.

I've been looking for awhile but just got around to actually registering. We have an inherited flock of the sorts of odd birds who arise when breeding is entirely uncontrolled. Somewhere around sixty hens (australorps to silkies and blends with the truly wild local hens) and around thirty ducks and twenty geese.

Our birds all run wild with minimal intervention from humans, chickens and ducks feed free range but the geese don't seem healthy on foraging so I'm careful to supplement them with feed.

As is likely clear from this post, I know very little about tending waterfowl. And am realizing that I need to learn more, so that's why I'm here.

Mahalo!

 

[chrismahon]

Welcome to the forum HIfarmpickles. That does sound a rather haphazard setup you have, but if it works on the land you have that's great. My neighbour's 6 chickens run free range most of the year, but even over two acres they need supplemental grain. They are penned in now (for 3 months) because the adjoining crops are high enough to let a fox up during the day without breaking cover. Afraid I know nothing about waterfowl so I won't be much help to you I'm afraid.

 

[HIfarmpickles]

Thanks for your reply!

We have found that penning or cooping the chickens entices predators, mongoose and wild dog. The chickens are safer when free to flee. Wild chickens roam the island anyway, they've just bred with our domestics and made them a bit tougher.

Our birds are here primarily to keep insect populations low in the coffee fields, and they have range of about 20 acres though they tend to keep to smaller territory by choice.

 

[Icemaiden]

An interesting use for chickens!
Do they lay their eggs anywhere that you can find them?

 

[HIfarmpickles]

We have about 10 laying boxes, and get about 6-12 eggs a day, depending on the hens (right now we have a few broodies hogging the boxes).

It's sort of a perpetual egg hunt, enjoyed by both adults and children on the farm, we have one hen who lays only in the trash can, and we're always finding secret egg stashes in boxes or truck beds.

Recently, we were all very surprised to discover that the first hatchlings from a nest one of our ducks was tending were not ducklings but chicks, and of that same nest - a duckling was adopted by a goose. Maybe this is a normal thing for a mixed flock, but I honestly just think these birds are crazy.