Chickens In The Garden

Yesterday was a beautiful day (today too, but it's windy). I let the girls out in their grazing pen and Jon and I moved them over to the garden to get to work. They had so much fun digging through the straw, leaves and newspaper from last year. I might not even till this section... might just plant right in it. I want to extend this bed, which will have to be tilled, of course. Also, I want to add composted manure. Hmm... might have to till the existing bed after all... 

The bluebirds are back. Well, actually they never left. This is the female of the pair that made their home in the wall of our three-seasons room last year. She sat there nicely while I took pictures. 

April Pics

 I finally trimmed back the monster butterfly bushes (in the back).

I love my bunny welcome sign.

Damn woodpecker. 

Lovely daffodils

Bonfire this summer?

I still love my little chicken coop!

Pretty Ruby

Not the best pic, but Sutton has lovely coloring.

Madison keeping watch.

Chicken Coop Addition Plans

This is our current coop and pen set up:

This was right after we brought the first girls home, so of course there is NO grass left in there now :) The pen is a 12x7 dog pen. We built a small pen last year, but now that we have the four girls, it's too crowded and there is a bit of bickering at times. 

My first idea was to get another dog pen, attach it to this one and let them out in there for limited times so they can graze. I'd have to put a hole in this coop to attach it (Hubby says absolutely not.) or replace this one with kennel panels so I can make two doors. One inside, and then the existing door open inside. Make sense? Sorta? 

The pink would be the kennel doors. This way I could open and close the inner door to let them out on the grass. Obviously not to scale, just a visual idea :) 

Or, some people have taken old trampolines and turned them into chicken tractors. I found lots of trampolines on Craigslist for under $50.

The bottom is wrapped in fencing. You can either do a makeshift gate or make a tunnel to connect it to the pen. If I did that, again, I'd have to make a hole somewhere. Or try to herd them to the trampoline. I think it'd be easier to move the trampoline, it gives them shade and protection from hawks. Chickens can be trained to go to certain areas, but there's a high risk of escape for this set up.

This chicken owner made a "chunnel" / chicken tunnel out of wire.

And there is one last option. When I had my horses, we had a lean-to that blew down. Well, actually blew out of the pasture, across the yard and landed near the barn. Thankfully no one was hurt, just destroyed the lean-to. We still have most, if not all, of the pieces. However, some were horribly bent and it's really not usable for anything. I need to look at it, but we *might* be able to use part of the roof section to make a chicken tractor.

Before:

After:

Without looking it up, I want to say this was 12x20? We still have the fabric sections, but obviously they will blow away in high winds. If we were able to salvage some of this, I would have to wrap it in wire, use some of the fabric on top for shade and really secure it. I think this would be a potential eyesore too. It's hard to hide a big white tarp. The trampoline would blend in and of course the dog kennel would look fine.

Snow!

5 inches of snow last night.

The chickens said "Heck No" and sat inside clucking at me.

Sprinkles peeked out.

And still said "Heck NO!"

They did come out later, after it stopped snowing and the sun came out :)

Yay Sutton!

Sutton, the last hold out, is now laying eggs :) So all four of my girls are earning their keep!

Yay Sprinkles!

Sprinkles is officially a "hen" now! She laid her first egg over the weekend :) Right on schedule too. Most pullets start laying around 20 weeks old. I had her figured at 19 this week.

Sprinkles' first egg inbetween two from Ruby.

Her first one was laid in the nesting box. I found another one today, but it was laying next to the waterer.

Zucchini...

Would someone please remind me next year that I do not need 7 zucchini plants... Not counting last night's harvest, I have harvested over 42 lbs of zucchini. Some has been given away, some has been made into zucchini relish, most is in the freezer and a few have been made into zucchini fries (yum).

I am getting a few peppers now, sweet banana peppers and one green bell pepper. It would have been two, but the one had a big hole in it. Jalapenos are almost ready. I cannot wait to make cowboy candy (candied jalapenos).

Sweet corn and pole beans. Can you see how the pole beans are climbing up the sweet corn?

Vegetable plot - Marigolds are doing well, tomatoes are almost as tall as I am.

Vegetable plot

Pumpkin is almost ready... This is the compost bin transplant. The seed came from one of those small decorator pumpkins. I never knew how much pumpkin spread... this thing is huge! Two pumpkins on it so far, but tons of flowers. I just hope we'll still have some for Halloween!

The chickens enjoyed some pen time while I checked out the garden.

Connor just loves his tractor...

Fruit Ice Pops

We're going through a heat wave right now and I want to do everything I can to make the chickens comfortable. Short of running fans because there is no electricity out there. I've been adding ice and electrolytes to their water.

I found this idea on Fresh Eggs Daily . I made fruit ice pops for the girls with mint, strawberries, blueberries and watermelon.

Ruby and Sprinkles were the first to check it out.

Then everyone kind of ignored it.

Ruby came back to check it out, finally drank some of the water melting off the cubes.

Sprinkles wants to know where the good stuff is.



   

When I went back a few hours later, the plate was empty. Sometimes chickens aren't too sure about new foods and act like you're trying to poison them. They'll get the hang of it!

New Additions!

On Friday, I received a call from the woman I get my chickens from. She needed to find a home for one of her girls. She had a pen that was attacked by a dog and had spent around $100 to save this chicken's life. This chicken had just had stitches taken out and needed to go back outside. Here's the kicker... she was given a very strong antibiotic (Baytril)* and now her eggs cannot be eaten. Ever. My friend sells eggs, so that would not work. This chicken lays white eggs, all of mine will lay brown. So, I drove over and picked up that chicken and another.

This is Thea - She is a 2 1/2 year old Appenzeller. She is missing tail and back feathers from the dog attack, but they will grow back.

In the first pic, that is Ruby behind her. Ruby is only one year old and quite a bit bigger than Thea. However, Thea has experience on her side and stands up to Queen Ruby. She stares her and Sprinkles down, it's the funniest thing. She can nearly flatten her crest/bonnet and I think it freaks the others out.

And this is Sutton. She is a 13 week old Speckled Sussex. She is the same age as Sprinkles, the Barred Rock, but quite a bit smaller. Sutton gets chased quite a bit and hangs out in the coop most of the day. I lock her in a crate overnight in the coop because I don't want her to get cornered and attacked. Hopefully I won't have to do that much longer. She's very sweet!

Sprinkles, Thea, Ruby

Ruby, Sprinkles, Thea, Sutton

* Some people say that there is a withdrawal period for Baytril. However, it is banned in the US for meat and egg production birds because it's possible that it may cause resistance to human antibiotics. I cannot take that risk for myself or my family. She has not laid since the attack. If she does start laying again, her eggs will be discarded.

Pics From The Weekend

New sign on the chicken pen:

I got it at Target on the Easter clearance. It had a stake for a yard sign, which I took off. It was originally $10, I got it for $2.50. I sprayed it with sealer and will remove it before winter. It's not quite what I wanted for the pen, but it's cute.

Surprise in the compost bin:

I checked out the compost bin this weekend and found a pumpkin vine. I plan on taking down the compost bin this week anyway. This just tells me that it's not getting hot enough. I threw in pumpkin hulls in the fall. It should have killed whatever seeds the chickens didn't eat. I will just throw the chicken manure across the back pasture. Rabbit manure can go right on the garden.

Sprinkles, 9 weeks old

Sprinkles is settling in nicely now. I haven't seen any signs of more predators. We still don't know what it was that killed Splash.

The woman I get my chickens from has ordered 5 Speckled Sussex pullets and 5 Easter Egger pullets. They should be ready to come home around July so I will get one more of each to complete my flock.

And Then There Were Two...

I lost my beautiful new Speckled Sussex pullet today. My mother came out today and when we left around 10:30, all three were fine. When we got back around 1:15, I didn't see anyone. I didn't think much of it because Ruby might have been laying and the grass was so tall, I figured I just couldn't see the babies. I went out a bit after 1:30 to check on them, and saw the feathers...  Best we can figure out is that something snagged her through the fence, slashed her neck and side, then she fell out of reach and it left. Ruby and Sprinkles were quite freaked out and hid for hours.

We do have raccoons here, but I've never seen one during the day. We have opposums in the area, but I've never seen one on our property. Our neighbor has a cat that he lets out, but I don't know if it would go after the chickens. The hawks could not have gotten in the pen.

*sigh*