Hypnotized by Chickens - Video

One of my favorite things to do in the yard is watch the chickens do their thing - it is hypnotizing and calming. Sometimes when I am stressed out from a long day, I will just sit there and watch them enjoy the simple life. Here are a couple short videos of some Ameraucanas and a Barred Rock in the run - Notice how the "pullets" still cheep, so awesome.

Tomato Hornworms in the Vegetable Garden

Today I noticed the tomato plants were being eaten by something, after looking a little closer I found 2 large tomato hornworms.  They are actually really cool looking - if it wasn't for them devouring our tomato plants I would not want to get rid of them.  If I were to let them live and eat our plants they will eventually turn into a Gray Hawk Moth, an equally creepy looking - giant moth.
Looking really close it looks like they have tiny eyes along their side, I'm not sure but I think these may be the spiracles?
Creepy and awesome!

Since we can not let these hornworms live, we decided to feed them to our spoiled hens - Here is the video (caterpillar lovers beware!!):

Hen Updates and the Most Tiny Egg Ever!!

Hello, it's been a while...
Our hens have grown into excellent layers and we now get between 4-5 eggs a day (since we are down to 5 hens).  Unfortunately we lost one hen to a dog and we are now down to 5 - but we plan on getting more in the fall.  On with some photos!

One of our Barred Rocks' layed her first egg and it was Tiny!

The Girls Love their Pallet Roost!!

Chickens are Laying

Our chicks started laying!!  Well only one of them at first.  The top bird Joan, started laying, and Gretta was not too far behind!  They are the ones that are the "alpha" if you will.  They both compete for the top rung on the roosts and are always keeping the other girls in line.

So we have two birds that are laying a steady supply of one egg a day each.  Blue, brown, blue brown alternating.  It is exciting to get up in the morning and check the nesting boxes for eggs, and then again in the afternoon when the kids get home from school.

The chickens have all gotten so big, I think it is only a matter of time before they all start laying.

I hard boiled the first few and they tasted great!  The yolk was a dark, almost orange color and the whites nice and firm.

Now that Joanie has been laying for a week or so, she has started to have an egg song.  We heard this loud squawking coming from the run.  It almost sounded like a goose honking!  It was. so. loud.  Then she goes into the coop and lays in the nesting box.  Hmmmm.  Google tells me that this is common, whew!

She didn't lay right away, but within an hour we had an egg!

So now when we hear that awful honk/squawk I get a little giddy because I know breakfast is on it's way!

Building the Chicken Coop - How we did it - Part 3

After installing almost all of the OSB and the main double doors I made the large nesting box door/lid. I started with only two hinges but ended up installing a third in the center after we finished painting.

The inside after the walls and door were finished.

I left a section open in the front of the coop for the summer time heat, and also cut a piece of OSB to cover it during the cold season.   I stapled some heavy gauge wire in the window opening and in the ventilation gaps near the roof. Next I installed the window with a couple small hinges, and put silicon around the glass on the inside of the frame.

Next step was to raise the chicken run.  For this I decided to lag some 2X4s into the existing 4X4 posts and wrapping it with heave gauge lathing wire (since "chicken wire" is way too thin).

 I also raised the gate and added a second 'dutch' type gate above the existing one.  This way we can just open the top gate to throw some scratch and treats without the hens running out.  I reinforced the top frame and ended up replacing the 2X4 header that is in this picture with a 2X6.

The kids couldn't wait to get their hands on that red paint!  But first we painted a couple coats of white primer to help protect the wood and make the red more... red.

You can see in this picture - I added a small vertical-sliding door with a pulley system so we can open/close the door without having to go into the chicken run. Overkill? yea.










I built a small two-pole roost in the coop, you can also see in this photo, I installed the winter board to close up the front (sorry, it's a bit blurry).

I used silicon and expanding foam on the large cracks inside and then we all took turns painting 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of thick semi-gloss exterior paint on the floor to keep the moisture from absorbing into the wood. 

A view into the nesting boxes... Those are going to be some happy hens!
 

There are a lot of big hawks that like to hang out in our eucalyptus trees so we decided to install some UV resistant, marine-grade aviary netting over the run, in this photo you can also see the finished run gate.

This is by far one of the most enjoyable projects I have done and is one of many we have planned.  There were a lot of little things I still wanted to do like add white trim boards along the edges of the exterior and around the door to give it that barn look, but it really isn't worth the extra money.  Functionality is key... Instead I focused my attention on self watering cups fed by a 5 gallon bucket and a solar panel/battery/light system - I will write separate posts about how I installed both of those things.

At the time of writing this we have already had our chickens for a month and so far the coop has worked out perfect.
Feel free to ask me any questions about this project!

Better know a chicken

A few of the birds are starting to become easier to tell apart, so they are getting names!
Roll Call!!!

This big gal (who, I swear to Xenu, thought was going to turn out to be a rooster) stands out the most, with her alpha like mentality and flecks of white on her breast - I named Joan.  After one of my most favorite actresses; Joan Crawford.  (That chick didn't take no guff!)

The other Ameraucana (who, for what it's worth, lasted way longer then I had mentally predicted.  She was a little mangy and was definitely the runt of the group) is a little chatty.  She consistently vocalizes the most, and has a distinct bravado not unlike a vaudeville singer.  This little spitfire, I thought should be named Ethel.  Like Ethel Merman. 

Of the Barred Rocks, there is one that stands out.  She has more white then she does black and she is long and lean and the most skitterish of the four, hence the blurry pic.  Winny named her Chickafella.

One of the other barred rocks has a crooked crown, it kind of goes to one side then flips and goes to the other side.  We shall call her, Royal. (Crown Royal, get it?  See what we did there)


The other two Barred rocks are indistinguishable so for now they will remain nameless.  Unless we can find some way to tell them apart.  Maybe like a bell or something?  No, not a bell. Some string or an anklet maybe?

With a chick chick here, and a chick chick there...

Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a .... well you get the point

Looking at the Ameraucanas in the sun, I noticed how the black feathers had a green iridescent quality.  They are absolutely beautiful.  Other colors flecked throughout, purple in some light, these birds are nice to look at.


The hen house has been getting some modifications!  We did a lot fine tuning once the girls got here.  It did not help that the overnight lows were just a hair above freezing! 

I felt bad not having a heat source, so I took some old terra cotta pots and put them in the oven.  I made a little area in the corner of the coop with some cinder blocks and put the hot pots on top of the blocks to add some warmth. When the pots cooled, it went back into the oven (I did this in the middle of the night, mind you!)  This little system was not going to work past one night, we needed a lamp.

We added more bedding, some garage door weather stripping, and went out and bought a heat lamp (with some chicken treats and scratch!)  Those poor little dears were piled on top of each other trying to keep warm!

Next Noah made a little outdoor table/roost out of a pallet and some scrap wood we had laying around.  The chickens absolutely love it.  They are always under it, scratching around for bugs, or hopping up on the flat top and flapping up to the roost.

Noah installed a solar panel on the roof.  He then installed the battery, charge controller, and switch right inside the door in the coop up high enough that the birds can not get to.  Then he made this light fixture to run off of the panel.  The system will be able to provide enough power to run the light, and with left over voltage so that when the heat of the summer is in full swing he can add a an in-ceiling fan to keep the girls nice and comfy.  My biggest concern is the heat, which will be here before we know it.  The summers here can be stifling.  Dry and hot.  However, that is a bridge that we will cross in a few months.  For now we will enjoy the cold weather while it lasts, us with our warm blankets and heaters, them with their  heat lamps.

We made use of the kids old play oven and put it in the run for the little chicks to enjoy.  They like to climb in and sit in the narrow space on the bottom shelf, or hop up on top and get a great view of the yard.

Every morning they cant wait until the door is open to get out into the run!

We finally got the chickens!

So, now that the coop has been finished enough to actually house some fine feathered friends, we felt it was time to visit the chicken farm and ask some questions before we actually brought any hens home.  We saw some Barred Rocks and Easter eggers still in the brooder.

There has been unseasonably cold weather recently and it looks like it will be here for a good week or two (frost on my aloe!) so we are just going to have to wait to have to wait (darn the luck!) for the barred rocks that we wanted to be able to come out of the brooder.

Frost on everything!  I thought this was California?

We have not equipped the coop for any sort of heat source.  The chickens we want are about 2 1/2 months old.  So plans were made to come back in a few days and get those birds!

It took a bit longer then that.... did I mention that this is procrastination ranch?

Delays aside, we did it!  We decided on four Barred Rocks and two Ameraucanas.  They were all around the same age (hatched late Sept/early Oct) and were young enough that they would grow up around us.  The kids could hardly contain their excitement!

Getting use to their new home!

Come on out ladies, we're here!

We emptied the bags carefully into the coop and watched as the little gals ran around.  They took to the food and water right away, no problems!

I noticed that one of the Ameraucanas was the smallest of the group.  Other then that I could not tell them apart at all!

The four Barreds all looked the same to me, but I figured that their personalities would come about as we all spent more time together.

Out getting some sun :)

This was it, our first step towards our little homestead.  What we had talked about and planned for years was coming to fruition.  It is a nice sense of accomplishment, we put our minds to something and made it happen. 

Something that was surprising; the chickens were still cheeping!  The little noises I had been expecting to hear coming from the yard was not the bok bok cluck, but rather a tiny high pitched kind of squeak!  It was the. cutest. ever.

I don't call it Procrastination Ranch for nothing

So.... Little is getting done, and my gung ho spirit up and went gung ho right out the front door!  I guess life gets in the way a little bit while you are busy living it.  I have a theory that lack of a disposable income lends a big hand to this.  It's hard to do stuff while strapped for cash.  So head down, doing bare minimum, getting by.  We painted on the inside, and Noah fitted the winter wall in.

Little bits have been done to the coop, paint here, adding wire there, ect.  Coming along, however slow, it's coming.  Also, I have to admit it is a little daunting when I think about it.  I have never really owned any type of farm animal.  I have read many articles, blogs, books, publications on the subject but read and doing are very different.  What if they all die?  What if one gets sick?  What if I have no idea what I am doing?
BAH!
See, I need to get over it.  Also I need to make friends with someone that owns chickens...

The front is a slow work in progress as well.  I am focusing now on the small lawn I want, seeing as how the glads popped and are long gone.  So I put my birthday present to good use.  Oh, did I fail to mention my super sweet birthday gift from my dear husband?

Pretty sweet, huh?

Anywho, so I have been pulling up as many weeds as I can (that stupid Bermuda grass is totally lame) and hauling them out with my wheel barrow.  After all that is gone (almost there!), we are (and when I say we, I mean Noah) then going to place some drainage, and sink a well.  Over the well we plan to put a false/decorative well.  I might turn it into a planter or a fountain, not sure yet.
Then we are going to spread some seed (yes, seed!) and keep at it until it takes.

 We have painted the outside, it started off this horrible pepto pink color, but after a few coats, it ended up not being that bad. I know for a fact that the coop is going to be done sometime in the next three weeks.  Then we are going to go pick out some birds!

Already!  Lets go get them birds!!