I'll take one of your questions. Do you have nest boxes in a coop? The way a lot of folks (myself included,) have "trained" chickens is to keep them confined to the coop until they are used to laying in the nest box. The chickens will naturally seek a quiet, private area, usually out of direct sunlight to lay eggs if available. Your nest boxes should should offer these amenities. Once the birds are used to laying in the nests, they will usually return to the coop during their daily outings to lay. How old are these hens. Getting them used to the nest boxes is easier when they are first starting to lay. If they have been laying all over the yard for a while, breaking them of bad habits may be more difficult. I'd start by confining them to quarters for a while. Put an egg or two (or even golf balls) in the nests to give them an idea of what the nests are for. Wayne

I'm fixing to go out and get more sweetbay leaves for the still eating sweetbay cats [I know that "fixing" isn't the proper word here, but sometimes I like to type like I talk :)] even though they look big enough to pupate to me! Here's one of them - Sherry

Ta da!! It's a HUGE female polyphemus moth! I had put her cocoon near the back of the cage, away from the door, but she must have scooted to the door right after she emerged from her cocoon. So, I moved her back, and I put a measuring stick in the cage next to her - her wing span is somewhere between 5" and 6" - a female luna moth emerged, and her wingspan is only 3" although her abdomen is real big. The poly's comb is actually stringlike, much thinner than it looks in the above picture, and her abdomen is huge, looks like it's full of eggs. I'll be most interested to see if she gets a suitor tonight! Polys aren't as common as lunas in this area, so she might go beggin' - let's hope not. I tried to get a picture of her while her wings were open, but the pictures were so blurry, I deleted most of them. I'm still learning how to use this camera, but here's a half way decent picture I got of her with her wings semi-opened. She has a lot of red on her topside, typical of the polys in this area - they're not brown and orange here, but brown, orange and red - And here's the cute little (comparatively) luna - Sherry

I found this post after I had posted on the "pets" forum the following: "We have a pup, 2 1/2 months old, weighs 8 lbs. We live in the middle of woods in a very rural area. She loves being outside and is gradually exploring further and further from the front porch. We have all kinds of wildlife here, but my main concern are the owls and hawks. Are they a danger to an 8 pound pup? I can't seem to find a definite answer online about this, varying opinions everywhere. We have barred owls and great horned owls, which are pretty big. We also have red-tailed hawks. At what size do we not worry anymore about the pup? We also have seen racoons, foxes, bobcat, and have been told we have coyotes, but I've never seen one. I'm not as concerned about those because they pretty much stay away from the house. Our property is big but is fenced with field fence all around." All the answers on that were "be concerned". I'm seeing both sides to this here. So I guess to be safe I'd better keep a close watch until she gets to be around 15 pounds, which should be in about 6 more weeks.