Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

In a push come to shove moment: your personal safety is worth far more than the life of any pet. But: Pillow cases can be pressed into use to transport chickens, in a pinch. If things are looking dicey, keep your chickens hungry. If they free range, they will come to the scratch can if they are not already stuffed. You can stuff an amazing number of birds into a single crate.
 
I have several large animal pens, foldable to flat. Some are large enough to transport a couple 1/2 grown goats with comfort. I've bought them at auctions for reasonable prices. Easily fit 15 big chickens in one. Just a thought. Have a few cat/dog ones of various size...some from roadside trash pile. Keep your eyes on the prize! It's because I take or pick up...various animals for farm buy/sell.

The scrap fence pieces can be made into a fast cage....think tomato cage on side, add ends. Place cardboard in bottom to keep legs in. While I hope you never need to evacuate for fire, or such, these are quick containers. Even a clothes basket, add top. ☺️
 
We live surrounded by forest and open grassy pastures. I would hate to lose everything to fire. With 3 horses. ATM 17 sheep, 5 LGDs, and 15 chickens, they wouldn’t all fit in a 16’ stock trailer made for 4 large animals. That would be a gut wrenching decision.

I like @Mini Horses suggestions on chicken transport. And @Lazy Gardener — I would have never thought about pillow cases!

Hopefully you will never have to flee a fire. I will be praying for you.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions! I do have a couple of mid-sized dog crates but wasn't sure how many would fit- I'm more worried about them not letting me catch them. If I was given enough time to prepare (such as a few hours of Level 2) I could probably round them all up. If I had to, I suppose we could throw them into the travel trailer and just figure on spring cleaning afterwards, lol. I hope that I will never have to evacuate, but living where I do it's a very real danger every year. One thing I had figured was that if I was only able to grab a few, not all of them, a rooster and 2 hens would be enough to build the flock up again. Also, there have been several stories here of people having to leave their animals (everything from horses to cats) behind, and the animals were able to survive either unscathed or with very minor injury, and were waiting for the owners when they came back.
 
Britesea said:
Thank you. Everything is good today, and the weather is a bit cooler with no fire watch so far. The Sycan fire, which was the closest one to us at this time is something like 80% contained and they feel confidant about putting it out soon.

I planted my Tepary beans this morning. Looking forward to seeing what they do for me. Supposedly I should have no trouble getting a dried bean crop out of them by early September (first frost is usually mid-to-late September). I'll wait until this evening to plant the green beans.
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Aaaaaa Tepary beans, man I forgot about those. We had some in our garden in the Illinois Valley a very long time ago,
 
On a more sober note, the oldest rooster, Duke, lost a fight with Goliath and is limping. He's been hiding somewhere on the property during the day. I'm afraid we're going to have to retire the old boy.
 
Britesea said:
On a more sober note, the oldest rooster, Duke, lost a fight with Goliath and is limping. He's been hiding somewhere on the property during the day. I'm afraid we're going to have to retire the old boy.
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Unfortunately, Old roos become a liability. I've found that their chick making days end at about 4 years of age. Seems my roos can't hit the target after that age. Perhaps, they might last longer if they had eye glasses, or perhaps the hens wore saddles!!!
 
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