This is so funny... when I read your title I thought Williams Sonoma catalog!

But I still prefer buying chickens already slaughtered. I don't care for snakes and I probably couldn't kill something I raised.

Those things are called 'chicken tractors' around here. You can move the chickens to take advantage of their uhmm insect removal and fertilization benefits. I don't have one but think about making one. Eggs from chickens with a varied diet are so much better. However I think I might have the same problem as bumblebeez.

I've had chickens for a number of years. Please, if you want chickens, don't opt for one of those impractical, overpriced coops! I'll send directions no charge.
Mabel

Bumblebeez, don't kill the messenger, just eat the eggs!

Mabel, no doubt a very overpriced item! Not looking to buy, just looking and they're prety darn cute. Obviously I'd have no use for one, I've already heard the Mister!

jude

Mabel, I'm with you, my chickens are currently living in the old milkhouse, with a refurbished dog kennel as a run to keep them safe. Funny, kind of, it used to keep the dogs in and now it keeps the dogs out!

Bumblebeez, I can't kill anything, whether I raised it or not. Dad told me it was a "weakness" I'd have to learn to overcome, but I still stop and move turtles out of the road, and I stop for squirrels and possums. I have to hire someone to do slaughtering for me. Funny for someone who raises beef cattle and meat chickens, I know.

Still, I'd rather raise them myself, at least I know they were treated kindly, fed well and finally met an end as quickly as I can possibly arrange. I also know that there are no antibiotics or other chemicals, including the arsenic/benadryl/prozac that they found in chicken samples according to the news last week.

I kind of like snakes, especially the blue racers that help keep the mouse population down, although I have my Dad's old fat and spoiled cat at the farm to do that.

Annie

Jude, saying I don't care for snakes, is hmmm, a vast understatement. That a alone is enough for me to never have chickens. Plus we have tons of buzzards and hawks around an that would traumatize me too if one got carried away.

I should be a vegetarian actually, I have all the right ideals, I just like meat too much!

Last year in a shrub next to the house, I spotted a birds nest at eye level. I looked at it closely to see if it had eggs yet it strangely seemed to be moving....a black snake was slowly crawling in and out of it! It was horrifying!

Putting my hand under a chicken only to find a !!!

I would love to have chickens, and plan to one of these days, when we finally get to move to Tahlequah. I know I could have them in my back yard here, but I don't want to go to the expense and trouble of building a coop and run for them here, just to tear it down again in a year or so. Then I'd have to relocate the chickens and my cats when we move, and moving the cats will be all the fun I can stand. Oh, and I have nothing against snakes, but I wouldn't want them to eat my eggs or my chickens, just my rats and mice and slugs.

Sally

Bumblebeez, don't kill the messenger, just eat the eggs!

Mabel, no doubt a very overpriced item! Not looking to buy, just looking and they're prety darn cute. Obviously I'd have no use for one, I've already heard the Mister!

jude

Sorry about the double post, but since I'm here I'll add my opinion of snakes. I really, really, really don't like them, either! Real, in pictures....it doesn't matter.

I haven't had a problem with snakes here, the chickens seem to think they are big worms and eat them. Michigan has only one venomous snake, the Missasauga rattler, and I've only seem them a couple of times so my snakes are all relatively harmless.

Snakes might try to eat a baby chick, but mine stay in a brooder (an old metal 50 gallon watering trough with a homemade plywood lid), it's snakeproof, pretty much. If a mama hen has chicks, no way will a snake get close, snakes can only get into the nests for eggs when there's no hen there. Small song birds, all bets are off.

In my nearly 57 years of being a "farm kid" I've never had a snake in the hen house and I've certainly never reached under a hen and found a snake, my girls would eat them!

Bumblebeez, it's kind of odd, but I think I could actually be a vegetarian, although I love fish and I want beef about twice a year. I could go without eating chicken for the rest of my life and never miss it. Elery would also prefer fish and we eat beans at least two or three times a week.

Hmmmm. No, now that I rethink that, I eat a lot of eggs and I like milk and dairy products, although I'm not crazy about cheese. I do think that, as a general rule, we eat way too much meat but since I raise beef, it's probably a good thing, LOL.

Annie

Annie, we have lots of snakes here. Not long after we built our house, I was walking down the driveway (it's long, concrete) at dusk and saw five snakes, ALL Different!, on the driveway or nearby grass.

Last summer, we had a snake lay eggs in the wall of the garage. And then last year there were the copperheads all around the exterior of the house. A baby right next to the garage.
I think I saw a snake almost every day last summer.

This summer has been reasonably snake free although last week there was a huge black snake in the grass, but not near the house.

The road we live on is in the country surrounded by undeveloped land and I will not walk out there in summer evenings as I know I'll see snakes on the road.

Bumblebeez, if I knew there were venomous snakes I'd probably not like them either. That type is a danger, the snakes we have here are more a farmer's boon than a bane.

The constrictors like blue racers do have teeth, although they don't have fangs and if someone is silly enough to pick one up incorrectly it will bite, like all wild creatures do. they have some sharp teeth and can inflict a pretty painful bite but they are not aggressive and will get away from people whenever they can. They run (slither?) rather than fight but they can eat an awful lot of pests!

They do lie in the road when the pavement is warm and get run over at an amazing rate, and I see fewer and fewer snakes and turtles all the time.

Annie

Snakes:

1. I wish we had snakes here in NY. Too many chipmunks and squirrels.

2. Rubber snakes don't work in the garden. Traps do.

3. I have had snakes a few times. Really, they taste like chicken.

dcarch

dcarch, I've also eaten snake, I had a "rattlesnake basket" near Devil's Tower on a road trip once. Deep fried chunks of rattlesnake, I didn't really think it tasted like chicken and it was kind of stringy in texture. Really, it kind of tasted more like rabbit, I think, but it was relatively bland.

You know, though, I HAD to try it, I'd never eaten it before. (grin)

Annie

This reminds me of a Top Chef episode where they were handed closed boxes, and led to believe there were live snakes inside the boxes. The looks on those chefs were priceless! The really didn't want to open those lids.

Sally

I'll probably be sorry I posted this....but I have lived in this house for 40 years. It's an area of double deep lots, so lots of grass and shrubbery and gardens. I have had deer in my yard, raccoons, 'possoms, ground hogs, turkeys, Canada geese, an eagle, osprey,.....but have never seen a snake in my yard!
No "chicken carts" here either....but lots of organic herbs....but the bees are strangely missing.
Linda C

Well...I have all them,chickens,need a new chicken house but Im married to a builder whose allergic to bee stings,I have herbs growing in garden,and I have a bunch of fruit trees here that the way it looks its gonna be a bumper crop,so I only need part of W.Sonoma although I do like thier catalog..So do you understand where Im at ???married to a builder will I get a new chicken house ????who knows, doubtful.

Few bees here either - I guess that wild honeybees are essentially gone. My wild strawberries are in full bloom - hoping that they get pollinated. Teensy tiny little berries take forever to pick but they're really delicious.

Bulldinkie - the saying in my family is 'the cobbler's children have no shoes' and the cabinet-maker's daughters have no cabinets. My sister is working on this problem - she just finished a 12 week intensive course in cabinet-making. I am chief-assistant. Maybe we'll build a chicken-house?

Now the experts are saying that the chemical that is used to treat seed corn against root worm is one of the big culprits in the killing off of the bees. When Bayer first came up with clothianidin they assured all the powers that be that there would be no harm to the bees because the seeds themselves would be coated and buried underground when planted. Ummmm Hmmmm. Except that it didn't work, the coating is rubbed off during shipment, packaging, planting, etc.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (May 30, 2003): "Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clonianidin residue in nectar and pollen." [In the same report] "The fate and disposition of clothianidin in the environment suggest a compound that is a systemic insecticide that is persistent and mobile, stable to hydrolysis, and has potential to leach to ground water, as well as runoff to surface waters."

"Clothianidin is highly toxic to honey bees on an acute contact basis (killing 50% of tested populations at greater than 389 mg/kg). It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen. In honey bees, the effects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects in the queen."

So, thanks to big agri-business and their "better living through chemicals" mind set, they are contributing to the death of the pollinators the farmers need for a crop.

Anoither culprit could be high fructose corn syrup. Studies have shown that bees fed HFCS have compromised immune systems and cannot fight off infections. So, in the interest of saving money and using a cheaper alternative to feeding the bees in the winter time, HFCS instead of honey, it appears that beekeepers are contributing to the demise of their own hives.

I've been doing my homework, you see, because Elery wants to put some bees out at the farm this year. Although I am allergic to bee stings and probably shouldn't actually handle the bees, I'm excited, but I want to make sure we do it right.

Annie

Any one with any sense and can read labels can see that pretty much all insecticides are toxic to bees. But, of course, that doesn't matter to big business agriculture. $$$ is all they're interested in.

Sally

I have an insecticide free yard with a huge Meyer lemon tree, lots and lots of bees and organically grown herbs.....plus I have seen several preying mantis egg cases and even a lizard or two.
We used to have gopher snakes but I haven't seen any for a while.