Ken Clark

Yes, I've already started reducing the raccoon population. They were getting into the garden to go after something - not vegetables yet, maybe voles or toads. I'll definitely want to trap for foxes.

What breeds of chicken have people tried? The funny thing is that most of the world seems to free-range chickens, but the US doesn't. I know I won't want to have anything to do with cornish cross.

So what we've decided to do at this point is first, try again introducing the quail. But this time, instead of putting out adults that someone else raised in captivity, we're starting with 100 day-old chicks. We'll feed them with initially with commercial mash, but pretty quickly move them to the weed seeds and insects they're going to find at the farm (they'll be kept at our house for the first six weeks.) After the first six weeks, we'll move them to an enclosure out at our farm for another 4-6 weeks, transitioning them from the enclosure to the wild. We'll do our best to provide extra cover options and we'll provide supplemental feed from the game feeders over the winter, like we did last winter. I think we'll just plan to do that every year until a population survives.

Next, we're planning to try guineas in the spring (thanks Shawn - another farmer I talked to here mentioned them too. I hadn't really heard of them until the two of you mentioned them.) Guineas are supposed to be pretty well suited to free-ranging. We're debating turkeys, since they're big enough to fight off some of the predators, and the heritage breeds aren't too far from wild. (Thanks Jay for the suggestion.)

Finally, once the guineas are adults, we're looking into breeds of chicken that are recommended for free-ranging. Don't know if we'll ever pull the trigger on that, because we'll have to give a lot of extra thought to a fox-resistant coop arrangement.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to trap out the raccoons, and just plan to do it on-going. As long as the buggers are bothering our crops/livestock, I can legally take them out. I'll have to keep an eye out for fox, I'd be surprised if they aren't there. I think fox, area dogs, and coyotes will turn out to be the real problems. I suspect Tyler's right, and even working to keep the predators down, we'll lose most or all of the chickens each year if we try that. But we may end up doing it every year anyway, because the free labor dealing with bugs and weed seeds will end up being worth it. As it is, we're spending much more buying and running equipment to deal with the weeds than the chickens would cost.

Would turkeys work? I'd certainly be willing to consider them. The only problems I could see is that turkeys supposedly like to eat vegetables too(!), and keeping them on our property. The wild turkeys don't seem to care too much about property boundaries. Of course, the pheasants didn't either.

I'll look into turkeys a bit more. For some reason I thought they'd be even more of a problem, but I'll check.

According to various sites on pheasants, there's nothing to change. Here's our Michigan DNR:
"After their introduction from China in 1895, it didn’t take long for ring-necked pheasants to become one of Michigan’s most popular wildlife species. Because pheasants thrive in a mix of cropland, hayland, grassland, wetland, and brush, populations exploded in southern Michigan. Much of the farmland in the 1940’s and 1950’s provided outstanding pheasant habitat. At that time, farms had small fields from 10 to 20 acres in size surrounded by brushy fencerows and diverse crop rotations."

Cropland, hayland, grassland, wetland, brush, 10-20 acres with brushy fencerows and diverse rotation - we're the best plot of land in the area, checking all of the boxes. Most of the land in the area is rented, herbicide cleared to just dirt, and planted to monoculture crops. We have year-round forage and cover. 12 acres is a bit small for pheasants, however.

But quail is an even better match, and would be the native bird to fill that niche. I spent over $100 and about three hours of my time driving to pick up the quail. We have what's supposed to be ideal match for quail. We had a nice, mild winter, and I provided supplemental feed all winter. No sign of them now.

Chickens fit that niche about as well. I can get them mail-order for half the price of the quail, with no wasted travel time. If they survive the summer, they eat lots of weed seeds and insects, and we get some chicken for the freezer in the fall. If they don't survive, they eat lots of weed seeds and insects, and we're no worse off than we were with the quail.

Thinking about it some more, I should word this question differently. I have some ecological niches to fill on our organic farm. There should be some ground birds that eat weed seeds and insects, but there are no birds filling that niche. It's too important a niche to leave unfilled.

I introduced pheasants, but they didn't stick around. We hear them calling frequently, but not from our fields. I introduced northern bobwhite quail last fall, but there's no evidence that they are still there. They may not have survived the winter, or they may have wandered too. The farms around us are a real wasteland for natural weed/bug eaters.

So what would you do to fill this niche? The deer will browse the pasture, so that's covered enough. What should I get to eat the weed seeds and insects? If not chickens/ducks/pheasants/quail, then what? I'm willing to go through some trouble to help make it work for them, but I'm much more interested in filling empty niches than worrying about whether a particular animal/species survives in any particular year. In the natural environment, not all animals survive, and if we lose all of them to predators by October, they still will have served their purpose. What should I introduce to fill the ecological hole?

I'm thinking more in permaculture terms than in homesteading terms. If you have a guild missing a member, you attempt to fix that problem. If you fail in your first few attempts, that doesn't mean you give up. You have to figure out a way to fill that hole. The pheasants didn't work out, the quail didn't work out. What should I try next?

Muscovy ducks? Anyone know anything about them?

Thanks for the responses! Looks like we'll be sticking with the wild critters and vegetables then.

Ken

Ample shelter from sun is no problem - there are trees overhanging our property from the woods next door. I could rig up water. And we certainly could make special trips. We do that for spring planting and some other times. But my concern was that since we aren't going out there that much, there would be a good deal of mayhem they could get into.

What about things other than mammals? It would be better to have something that likes pasture, since we have it, but there are plenty of weed seeds and bugs out there, and I could also rig supplemental feeding for ducks/turkeys/geese. Anyone know of some kind of poultry that could manage with weekly visits? The other nice thing about that is that we would just slaughter the birds in the fall - no need to worry about winter that way.

We've tried the wild animals - deer are out there of course, and I harvest one most years. We put pheasants out there and they promptly took off to neighbors fields. We put in northern bobwhite quail, but I don't think they established. There are woodchucks, some raccoons, and a few rabbits too. I'm just looking for something a tad more reliable than those.

Thanks,
Ken

I have 12 acres of land about 20 miles from my house. Part of it is our organic vegetable farm, part of it is being rotated into some field crops, part of it is just being left as pasture for now. I could fence part of this land in if needed.

But the problem is that we're only out there once a week. That works OK for vegetables and fine for our bees, but I'm wondering if it there are any animals we could keep out there on that schedule. We'd want them out there for meat and weed control, and because it seems a bit of a waste to have that much land without some animals on it besides woodchucks, raccoons, and deer. (Already hunting those.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Ken in Michigan