The chickens are here! 12 beautiful Road Islands Reds. They have been here for 2 days now. One of them laid an egg (brown), we are well on our way to self sufficient living off the grid now! (ha-ha) Hailey and Elijah are working on their names. Hailey has named six after female characters in Little House on the Prairie. She has prided herself on being able to catch and carry them. They are eating,scratching, and pecking. Gideon calls them "kichens" so he talks about the "kichen eggs" in the "kichen poop". (translation: chicken coop) We're working on that. :-)
Here is the "kichen poop" Ben made. He did it from scratch, after researching many different options. It his first real building project. We are very proud of him. He painted it to match the rest of the things in my yard. These 4 bins you see - is where the nests are. They go in and lay their eggs, but they don't hang out there, and we collect them through this door. The bin on the far right is a storage bin for food. We keep it in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. We feed them a corn meal mix, kitchen scraps, and will get them some calcium (ground oyster shells) which helps them digest stuff. The bottom is raised off the ground and lined in chicken wire, we sweep under it and clear it out from the outside. We'll compost the droppings and use it in the garden next year.
This is the opposite side; a shot of the chicken door and the people door into the fenced area. We have it fenced and covered to keep the birds in and the dog, the kids, and our "pet"d Hawk OUT. We feed an water them outside and encourage them to get lots of fresh air and sun. They have bars in the top of their coop to roost on. You can't see from these photos, but there are windows on both the ends to help ventilate the house.
This is the length of their run. As you can see we have it beside the house, next to the garden. It allows us to keep an eye on them. Dot (the family Boston Terrier) has gotten in twice and given the girls a good run. She got a hold of one, because when I retrieved her the second time, she had a big red feather hanging out of her mouth as she panted and collapsed on the deck. I missed the photo opp. I'm hoping she will settle down soon. She can go under the house and loves to spy on the them from underneath. But I try to keep her out, we will put up some kind of barrier. We are afraid she can break through the fence - not to mentioned it is less than sanitary under there!!
Here is the "kichen poop" Ben made. He did it from scratch, after researching many different options. It his first real building project. We are very proud of him. He painted it to match the rest of the things in my yard. These 4 bins you see - is where the nests are. They go in and lay their eggs, but they don't hang out there, and we collect them through this door. The bin on the far right is a storage bin for food. We keep it in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. We feed them a corn meal mix, kitchen scraps, and will get them some calcium (ground oyster shells) which helps them digest stuff. The bottom is raised off the ground and lined in chicken wire, we sweep under it and clear it out from the outside. We'll compost the droppings and use it in the garden next year.
This is the opposite side; a shot of the chicken door and the people door into the fenced area. We have it fenced and covered to keep the birds in and the dog, the kids, and our "pet"d Hawk OUT. We feed an water them outside and encourage them to get lots of fresh air and sun. They have bars in the top of their coop to roost on. You can't see from these photos, but there are windows on both the ends to help ventilate the house.
This is the length of their run. As you can see we have it beside the house, next to the garden. It allows us to keep an eye on them. Dot (the family Boston Terrier) has gotten in twice and given the girls a good run. She got a hold of one, because when I retrieved her the second time, she had a big red feather hanging out of her mouth as she panted and collapsed on the deck. I missed the photo opp. I'm hoping she will settle down soon. She can go under the house and loves to spy on the them from underneath. But I try to keep her out, we will put up some kind of barrier. We are afraid she can break through the fence - not to mentioned it is less than sanitary under there!!
1 comment:
What fun!! It's my dream to own chickens one day and have my own eggs. Something that I have always wanted to do but that has been more of a passion lately. Maybe someday soon. :)
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