Like many have said, keep them cool & well watered in this heat. I did have six red Sexlinks & six black Sexlinks to start the year out. Game camera showed two different raccoons got three chicks in the 2'x4' brooder pen at 1 month of age by breaking through the chicken wire after digging under my pole barn sliding door. At 3 months of age and being moved into the large pen, found one dead inside. Next afternoon heard commotion from the chicken pen and ran down to discover a huge black snake wrapped around a half grown hen. Looked like a black basketball. Come to find out, there were two black snakes living in the insulation I had in the ceiling of the chicken house. Last month, I found two partially eaten chickens outside of the chicken pen, raccoons again. They tore through the chicken wire that I had wrapped around the cattle panels that I used for the outdoor run. So, I wound up with five living laying hens, eight dead raccoons, four dead opossums, & three doubly dead black snakes 5 1/2, 6, & 6 1/2 feet respectively. I just purchased six Isa Brown peeps from TSC last week.....Here we go again.
