Chicken update
I expect this to be long, so click to
My time and projects can be summed up by months so far this year. Jan - Snow removal. Feb - Building cabinet for Rozi and starting syrup production. Mar - Full syrup production. April - Work on carriage house, dismantling an interior support wall and re-framing it much stronger while adding a couple doorways. May - Chickens, and building a chicken coop. June, chickens continued, then kids got out of school.
So that's the short version.
Did I read that right? Chickens? Yes, Rozi and I ordered 20 chicks for egg laying. 21 arrived (5% chance of error, so they were hedging their bets). We gave 4 to a local friend who was helping us immensely with advice, as she raises all sorts of fowl. Leaving us 17 of four different breeds. 6 NH reds, 5 Americaunas, 2 Barred Plymouth Rock and 4 Cuckoo Maran.
The Barreds and Cuckoos look like kissing cousins. The Reds are an offshoot of the Rhode Island Red, so most people are familiar with what they look like. The Americaunas are funky looking variety of color and fluffy feathers, but what makes them really special is that they lay "easter eggs". Each chicken has a dye "duct" at the end of her passage, and she colors they eggs as she lays them. No way of knowing what a particular chick may lay. Blue and green are the most likely, although purple and pink are not unknown. We can't wait to see what we get. :-)
They were all born on 5/4/2011, so on the 4th of July they will be officially 2 months old. Chickens take 4+ months before they start laying eggs, so we'll be half way there. We left them inside as long as we could stand it. Also as long as it took us to build them a weather tight structure outside that we felt comfortable having them in. It was a *lot* of work, but we kept making long range choices that should ensure strong, healthy chickens for a lot of years to come. Each choice cost more and took more time though. Right now we are at about $1200+ for cost. We could have bought one for a little more, pre-assembled, but it wouldn't have the features we built in (like insulation for the winter and a linoleum floor for easier cleanup). Thus, that ate up a lot of time in May and June. We finally moved them out about 3 weeks back (6 weeks old at the time).
It was quite the relief to get into the spare bedroom and start cleaning it out from the mess they left behind. Now, we aren't the Beverly Hillbillies, with them running wild around the house, leaving a mess and pooping wherever they wanted. We had them penned in a plastic "play pen" I built, about 4x6 footprint and about 2' high with chicken wire on top to keep them inside it. However, what we didn't realize is that chickens leave "dust" behind. It's kind of like a very fine powdery dander. They leave a *lot* behind. Especially 17 of them in one room. I attacked it with a shop vac the day they moved out. The upstairs still have a faint chicken smell.
Another distraction was keeping up with their size changes. Much like kids outgrowing clothes, the chicks kept out-growing the food and waterers we provided for them. Very small chicks need very small troughs to eat out of. Then they kept pooping in them, so I raised them up a bit on a platform. Then the hopped up into them. So I put a chicken wire cover on them that they could put their heads through, but were hard to stand on. Then they started tipping them over as they got more energetic. So I added wider bases to them. Then I was having to fill them four times/day, so I finally built a much bigger version with a top on it to keep them from pooping in it and I only had to fill that once/twice day.
On the water side, it was worse because they kept filling their water with the wood chips we used for bedding. So I got a 1 gallon commercial waterer, but it also sits on the ground, so I had to build a base for it. My first base (octagonal) was too short, still got filled with wood chips. So I added a couple 2x4 supports. That helped, but it took too much room, so I added a second layer of 2x4 supports (now the waterer was 8" off the ground). That was much better for a very long time. They used to hop up to drink. Then they started pooping in the water, because their butts were the right height while sitting on the base I built. So I added a 3" spacer under that. Much better, but eventually they grew more and started pooping in the water again, so I added more spacers. Until I was hitting the top of the enclosure. However, now they were drinking so much I was having to fill it every 24 to 36 hours. So I was going to need something bigger soon.
I have to say a lot of thought went into what to do for food/water in the real coop. All these problems needed to be solved for the long haul. As the chickens would only be getting bigger and stronger. Right now, I was able to re-purpose my water base as it was the perfect size and shape to hold a 5 gallon waterer. I only have to fill it once/week at this point. The feeder took me a *long* time to build. Not sure the design is perfect, but it's working and can hold about 35 pounds of feed at a time. So it only needs to be filled every couple weeks.
Since we rushed to get them out, we hadn't added a chicken door, nest doors, feeding/watering doors, storage cabinet doors, painted the outside, finished the drip guards along the roof, added trim to the inside, insulated the roof... As you can see, there is still a lot of work left to do. However, now we want to start letting them outside as well, so we had to pound in stakes and put up chicken wire. Right now it's pretty flimsy and only 3' high in most places, but good enough to put them out in as long as they are closely watched.
Rozi is taking some vacation time, so we mostly built the chicken door, but have to add a ramp and get it hinged in place. Who knows, maybe we can even get it painted in the next few days.
My time and projects can be summed up by months so far this year. Jan - Snow removal. Feb - Building cabinet for Rozi and starting syrup production. Mar - Full syrup production. April - Work on carriage house, dismantling an interior support wall and re-framing it much stronger while adding a couple doorways. May - Chickens, and building a chicken coop. June, chickens continued, then kids got out of school.
So that's the short version.
Did I read that right? Chickens? Yes, Rozi and I ordered 20 chicks for egg laying. 21 arrived (5% chance of error, so they were hedging their bets). We gave 4 to a local friend who was helping us immensely with advice, as she raises all sorts of fowl. Leaving us 17 of four different breeds. 6 NH reds, 5 Americaunas, 2 Barred Plymouth Rock and 4 Cuckoo Maran.
The Barreds and Cuckoos look like kissing cousins. The Reds are an offshoot of the Rhode Island Red, so most people are familiar with what they look like. The Americaunas are funky looking variety of color and fluffy feathers, but what makes them really special is that they lay "easter eggs". Each chicken has a dye "duct" at the end of her passage, and she colors they eggs as she lays them. No way of knowing what a particular chick may lay. Blue and green are the most likely, although purple and pink are not unknown. We can't wait to see what we get. :-)
They were all born on 5/4/2011, so on the 4th of July they will be officially 2 months old. Chickens take 4+ months before they start laying eggs, so we'll be half way there. We left them inside as long as we could stand it. Also as long as it took us to build them a weather tight structure outside that we felt comfortable having them in. It was a *lot* of work, but we kept making long range choices that should ensure strong, healthy chickens for a lot of years to come. Each choice cost more and took more time though. Right now we are at about $1200+ for cost. We could have bought one for a little more, pre-assembled, but it wouldn't have the features we built in (like insulation for the winter and a linoleum floor for easier cleanup). Thus, that ate up a lot of time in May and June. We finally moved them out about 3 weeks back (6 weeks old at the time).
It was quite the relief to get into the spare bedroom and start cleaning it out from the mess they left behind. Now, we aren't the Beverly Hillbillies, with them running wild around the house, leaving a mess and pooping wherever they wanted. We had them penned in a plastic "play pen" I built, about 4x6 footprint and about 2' high with chicken wire on top to keep them inside it. However, what we didn't realize is that chickens leave "dust" behind. It's kind of like a very fine powdery dander. They leave a *lot* behind. Especially 17 of them in one room. I attacked it with a shop vac the day they moved out. The upstairs still have a faint chicken smell.
Another distraction was keeping up with their size changes. Much like kids outgrowing clothes, the chicks kept out-growing the food and waterers we provided for them. Very small chicks need very small troughs to eat out of. Then they kept pooping in them, so I raised them up a bit on a platform. Then the hopped up into them. So I put a chicken wire cover on them that they could put their heads through, but were hard to stand on. Then they started tipping them over as they got more energetic. So I added wider bases to them. Then I was having to fill them four times/day, so I finally built a much bigger version with a top on it to keep them from pooping in it and I only had to fill that once/twice day.
On the water side, it was worse because they kept filling their water with the wood chips we used for bedding. So I got a 1 gallon commercial waterer, but it also sits on the ground, so I had to build a base for it. My first base (octagonal) was too short, still got filled with wood chips. So I added a couple 2x4 supports. That helped, but it took too much room, so I added a second layer of 2x4 supports (now the waterer was 8" off the ground). That was much better for a very long time. They used to hop up to drink. Then they started pooping in the water, because their butts were the right height while sitting on the base I built. So I added a 3" spacer under that. Much better, but eventually they grew more and started pooping in the water again, so I added more spacers. Until I was hitting the top of the enclosure. However, now they were drinking so much I was having to fill it every 24 to 36 hours. So I was going to need something bigger soon.
I have to say a lot of thought went into what to do for food/water in the real coop. All these problems needed to be solved for the long haul. As the chickens would only be getting bigger and stronger. Right now, I was able to re-purpose my water base as it was the perfect size and shape to hold a 5 gallon waterer. I only have to fill it once/week at this point. The feeder took me a *long* time to build. Not sure the design is perfect, but it's working and can hold about 35 pounds of feed at a time. So it only needs to be filled every couple weeks.
Since we rushed to get them out, we hadn't added a chicken door, nest doors, feeding/watering doors, storage cabinet doors, painted the outside, finished the drip guards along the roof, added trim to the inside, insulated the roof... As you can see, there is still a lot of work left to do. However, now we want to start letting them outside as well, so we had to pound in stakes and put up chicken wire. Right now it's pretty flimsy and only 3' high in most places, but good enough to put them out in as long as they are closely watched.
Rozi is taking some vacation time, so we mostly built the chicken door, but have to add a ramp and get it hinged in place. Who knows, maybe we can even get it painted in the next few days.