Exhibition Poultry Magazine Jan-Feb 2024 Back Issue

From the Editor . . .
I’ll talk about the weather and chickens be- cause it is really on my mind. Drought busting is ongoing, and we will get a bit more help with that tonight. I am so grateful for the rain. But next week’s polar vortex is certainly going to be a challenge, even for us in the South. Most of my birds have been out free ranging for the last few months and thankfully they put themselves up at night and there have been no predator losses. That really helps with my workload. Only my bantams are in breeding pens and their chicks, and the weekly hatches, are keeping me busy. I have been running lights in my chicken pens 24-7 for two years now. It is the best thing I have ever done to keep nocturnal predators at bay. No racoons, possums, coyotes, or owls have made an appearance since. A six foot fence, and a good guard dog keep the daytime predators away. At night the large fowl come in to the light and find a place to roost. They sleep when they feel like it, sometimes with their head tucked under a wing. Not sure why but all my birds are switching to winter breed- ing instead of spring. My bantams are the most fertile they have ever been and they are all lay- ing liking crazy right now. The large fowl are keeping us well supplied with eggs, since I don’t have any breeding pens set up with them.