I've been asked if our eggs taste better than grocery store eggs.
Initially, I couldn't tell the difference, but after exclusively feasting on fresh eggs, I definitely noticed one day, when I had a store bought, organic egg. I'm still not sure if it's psychological, but to me, the store-bought eggs taste fowl... there I go again. At a restaurant, it's hard to order anything with egg, unless it's baked. So, now I'm an egg snob.
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Don't tell the HOA, but three more chickens are calling my Palais des Poulet home. There I was, all innocent and inquisitive at the local farm store. I was simply gathering information, as always... so how did I end up with three pullets in the trunk?
It's simple. I want more eggs. I don't want to bother raising the birds. They had the birds and I had seen them grow at the farm store, free-ranging for the last couple months. I had to pay $20 each for them, but avoiding the diaper stage is priceless. My only other option for getting pullets was CraigsList and, knowing me, I'd end up with three roosters. The established hens are unhappy with their new housemates, so we've (okay, my husband) has been monitoring the pecking order. Hopefully, things will settle down and peace will be restored. One of my next, first, important projects is putting some fencing up so the little buggers can free-range within the confines of their own chicken yard. Stay-tuned for that and um, don't tell the coyotes... or bobcats... or the HOA. Cheers! Today we suffered a major setback in chicken rearing and had to say goodbye to one of our feathered friends.
This morning, our favorite "hen" cock-a-doodle-dood the neighborhood awake... again. For a couple weeks, I was in denial. There couldn't possibly be a rooster in the henhouse! The odd noise we were suddenly hearing at 6:30am must have come from somewhere... anywhere else! It will go away. Next morning. "Son-of-a-biscuit, it's definitely a rooster. But which one? As long as it's not the Silkie..." Next morning. "Moo-ooom, that chicken woke me up!" "Quick, go see which one it is!" "It's definitely Daisy." (The Silkie) For another week or so after, I listed and re-listed the little cockerel on Craigslist. He's adorable and so fluffy! There were no takers. I couldn't bear to leave him anywhere sketchy, so I did what anyone in my situation would do. I took "Daisy" to my dad's house. He knows lots of farmers. Good-bye Mr. Daisy. The End. I put the "ladies" in their new coop while the paint was still drying. That's how desperate I was to get them in. They were happy to be in a new place, but were very confused at dusk. They hunkered down in a corner the first night.
The second night, a few of them found the nesting boxes to be accommodating, but they couldn't figure out how to get down. I had to lift them down and scare them out into the chicken run. After three days of this, they figured it out and now, they are happily enjoying the scraps we take out to them each day, pecking through the pine shavings and doing other chickeny things. I love having such a well-designed coop. It's all about being lazy at the right times. Hey dad! Thanks for building a chicken coop with me! What an amazing summer project. Remember, "I HELPING!" I'll be honest, we had no idea what we were doing. Fortunately, my dad is THE most patient person on earth, so I'm still alive, but just barely. I had our chicken coop plans drawn out and he had to interpret them. I can't draw 3 dimensionally. We started the project with about 75% of an idea of what we wanted the finished coop to look like and we talked over a lot of scenarios while we worked. The spare wood ran out quickly, but having it saved us lots of time and money. I knew the whole coop would have to be painted, so we decided that the inevitable imperfections gave the chicken palace "charm." Hopefully, the photos will tell the story. Chicken's are dirty birds! We kept the chicks in our laundry room and as they continued to grow, their bird dust/ dander was getting thicker everywhere in the house. I could feel it between my shoes and the floor. The kids had it all over their feet and socks and my husband was having serious allergic reactions. I didn't want the chicks in the garage, so they found a new home in our garden shed. I then had to use a wet towel to mop the laundry room from top to bottom. The birds were still under the warm, red light in the shed. They lazed around in wood chips and tried their best to kick the chips into their water and food dishes. As the weather warmed up, it was fun to watch the chicks run around in the yard. We could catch them easily and they liked to stick together. I used some spare vinyl-coated, wire fencing to make a little run. It gave them a chance to pick at the grass and dig for bugs. The day came, when even the circular run was getting cramped and the birds took it upon themselves to fly out and explore the nearby forest. The coop was well underway, but nowhere near being finished, so I used a plastic poultry fence to make a larger run under our deck. It wasn't pretty, but it was nice to give the birds some more space. After a couple months of carrying six chickens back and forth to their run every day, the novelty wore off and I was desperate to finish the coop.
We've had the chicks for three weeks now and they're about four weeks old. They are funny and love to lay against each other when they drift off to sleep. They look so snuggly! All they do is eat, sleep, poop and peep, so they are pretty low-maintenance. I scrape out the wood shavings in their brooder about once a week and more if necessary. I lost the thermometer that I'm supposed to be keeping track of their environment with, so I've been watching how close, or far they stay from the heat lamp. It's almost mid-June and in true Seattle-weather fashion, it's about 50 degrees and rainy outside. If the weather was warm and stable, I would consider putting them outside, but we don't have a home for them yet anyway... I still haven't told my H.O.A. that I'm going to have birds. I'm assuming chickens are allowed, but there might be a limit to how many I can keep. I'm not super emotional about the birds, but after all the time and energy that's gone into keeping them, getting rid of any of the little buggers would break my heart. I'll be crafting a coop together in a couple weeks and hopefully around that time, the chicken run will be in progress as well. The coop will be nearby, so I can keep a close eye on the birds from inside my house. The kids love to say "hi" to the birds, so we've had to make sure there's no mouth-to-bird contact (no kisses!) We also wash hands before and after touching the chicks. The birds are figuring out their pecking order, which has been interesting because the bossy chick (our Sicilian Buttercup- the one with the black spots) is also the wimpiest. She'll jump behind her friends to hide from danger, but she'll harass them to control the food dish and nock them sideways to steal a treat. They grow larger every day and are about 1/3 bigger each week. They should be out of the brooder and into the coop in another five weeks. They should begin laying in October. Maintaining the chicken space inside our laundry room hasn't been too bad. I learned quickly to keep everything dry after spilled water on the pine shavings and poop made my nostrils burn with the strong smell of ammonia. I immediately removed the wet bedding and the store-bought waterer. I used two small, heavy mugs for the water and they stayed much cleaner. Now onto the coop update. With my rose-colored glasses on, I dragged my family up to my dad's house to "get started" on the chicken coop. I started with the basic layout from a cute Saltbox Designs coop, (as detailed in my Week One post,) but tweaked it and then tweaked it a little more... until I was fairly confident that I had a well-designed, thought-out, adorable and most importantly, functional coop.
Knowing that my girls will have a large, 400-square-foot, covered run, I made the coop small and cozy with a covered lower level. Of course, I wont know how I did until the first rain fall. Will the coop stink? Will the birds freeze in winter? Will their food attract unwanted visitors? Time will tell. We didn't come close to breaking ground on the coop, but instead... My dad fashioned a 3x4 foot brooder box out of scraps in his garage. I am so happy the birds have a such a nice little condo before they get tossed out into the real world. The birds could easily hop out of their plastic boxes, so this one is 2 feet deep and I've got a window screen we're using as a lid. (Thanks dad!) Long story short -> I bought baby chicks! Trouble is cheap! I was surprised to learn that it only cost $47 to get started with keeping chickens. Here's the breakdown. Buff Orpington chicks $2.89 each White Leghorn chicks $1.09 each Waterer $6 Feeder $6 25 lbs. bagged food $4 "Scratch" (cracked corn) 32 cents Thermometer $4 Heat light bulb $7.50 Wood shavings $6.50 ***Two Days Later*** I seemed to have misjudged my experience caring for birds. I've had pet birds since I was 10. Malachi was my little blue parakeet that lived for a long, long time. I also had cockatiels (not my favorite). My grandpa had an African Grey which was the coolest, smartest bird ever and I still tell stories about "Hubert." I got "Ferd" our little green lovebird, when I was in college. She was a piece of work. I'll just leave it at that. And we have a 12-year-old, Hahn's Macaw that we've had since she was a baby and she could live to age sixty. So, I guess you could say that I have an extensive avian history. I just never really thought if it that way. Hopefully, my experience will serve me well. I can already tell that the plastic box that the birds are in, will be outgrown in a couple days. Even after having the chicks for only two days, they are noticeably bigger. Today, I need to figure out what their next living arrangement will be. We have all but the two Buff Orpington's named. I'll share the names soon. It's apparent that I'll have to come up with a system that takes advantage of the chicken compost, and soon, because as I've been warned by... everyone... "chickens poop A LOT." *** Day Six ***
I've been a "chicken farmer" as my husband calls it, for six days now and I've learned a lot. Most important fact so far: When the wood shavings get wet with poop-water, the smell gets nasty. Keep the wood chips dry if possible. The birds were cramped in their plastic crate, so we just added another crate and split them up. The crates are clear, so they can all see their bird friends. And we regularly switch birds/ crates. The two White Leghorns and Buff Orpingtons look exactly alike at the moment, but we named them all anyway. Chicken Names White Leghorns (light yellow) "Flip-Flap" and "Princess-Pecks-A Lot" Buff Orpingtons (darker yellow) "Buffy" and "Stella" Sicilian Buttercup (speckled) "Buttercup" Silkie Bantam (white with black skin) "Daisy" And that concludes Week One with chicks! I went to my dad's house today, dragging along all my extra wood from other projects. We took a look at what spare lumber he had, looked at a doghouse on his property and perused my favorite coops on the internet. We settled on an adorable style from Saltbox designs. We were concerned about how well the coop would hold up in the winter, as well as the size of the run. Our run needs to be attached to the coop and extend beyond it. The Saltbox coop is around $700, but I'm hoping we can used spare wood and not break the bank here. We took a ride to the feed store to do some more coop research, but as soon as I got in there, the red, incubator lights sucked me in and I saw all the chicks and that was it.
The fact that I was (am) clueless about raising chickens, despite doing months of research caused me to hesitate, but not by much. I got the White Leghorns because they were so darn cute and the Orpingtons because they're, like, sooo popular (flips hair). Both types are cold hardy, which is a concern of mine because I get a lot of snow at my house. They are also good layers. My dad stood by, only a little concerned about my husband's reaction when I'd be bringing chicks home. We put the chicks in a plastic box and decided to build the coop another day. The birds will be indoors for another 10 weeks anyway, so we've got TONS of time. (Famous last words.) |
AuthorChickens. Because, why not? Archives
July 2019
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