ICE Cold

The other night it got down into the teens! Our thermometer read fifteen degrees. That's cold for us. There was a sheet of ice over the pond.

I could see the fish hovering near the bottom motionless. I tried to break up the ice sheet some and it was about a half inch thick.

Chicken on ice

Officially it was nine degrees but it didn't get that cold here at the house.

Chickens are pretty weird sometimes. Yesterday when the pond was frozen they went down there to drink.

Blondie walked onto the ice and stood there drinking water while her feet were submerged in ice cold water.

She didn't seem to notice it at all. She stood there for five minutes without any noticeable reaction, like it was summer. Weird.

Coop renovation

The weekend before last we built a new coop for the chickens.

The old one was only meant to be temporary anyway and it was difficult to deal with. I didn't expect the chickens to start laying yet and there wasn't really a spot for nesting boxes.

This one is a easier for them to access and they have a nest box area contained inside the coop. It's the part on the left. Those boards swing up on a hinge to the right. They have been laying there already. They can go underneath the nesting area too, so if I don't let them out at daylight they've got somewhere they can go to get down off the roost.

They seem to like it so far.

It's all repurposed scrap material. Building out of scrap makes the job go really slow. Hunting pieces that will work and then having to go to plan B when you don't have the right material will double the amount of hours in a build. That and having four chickens and a dog right in the middle of the construction zone. It also rained about four inches the first night after I started the build so it was a mud bog the entire time. Never fails...

El huevo primero

The first egg came on Dec 19!

It was only about 3/4 the size of a normal egg. We think it came from Blondie.

So it's been a little over 18 weeks since they arrived.

I didn't expect any eggs just yet, not until next month. None of the others are laying yet, that we know of.

On the right you can see how small the yolk is compared to a normal egg.

La rubia

New Coop

Tractoring the chickens through the yard gets tiring fast.  Especially when the weather turns cold. And chickens get big fast.

So we've had to come up with a permanent coop location for the girls. Zone 1 is the perfect spot if you can do, because you will probably be making at least one trip to the chicken coop per day.

We've identified a place on the west side of the house that will probably be ideal since there is a door there as well. The exterior wall of the house where it is joined by a fence gives us two walls already in place. It's a pretty big area that is already fenced in and not really being utilized, so it's the best solution.

All of the materials are re-used from other projects, except for two posts I had to purchase for $16.

Inspection

At present, the coop is only about 4'x6' but eventually we will extend it to the left in the photo. So it will likely be about double the area. I am also going to put in a screen door so that we can access it.

Not a whole lot phases the chickens. They put up with the dog fairly well, but sometimes they let her get themselves upset. But not too much.

They hardly even move when you want to shoo them to another place and then they come straight back to where you moved them from.

Now they are about 4 months old and they cluck. So I guess that their gizzard is formed now. I'm not sure how much they've needed it. All the green in the yard has died off from the cold. They pretty much stay near the coop all day.

Nearly complete

The coop has water and a food dispenser now and so hopefully I won't have to make as many trips out there as before.

A couple of months from now they should begin to lay, so we are really looking forward to that.

If you want to buy some chicks, go to Meyer Hatchery.com.

They will send them through the mail in only a couple of days. It's seems a little weird but it's completely safe and the best way to go outside of physically going and getting chics locally.

Chickens 6 wks

The chickens continue to grow and they are now 6 weeks old.

Just six weeks ago, little peeps.

They have a mobile coop called the Chickshaw!

Chick update

L-R Blondie, Cleo, Chi-chi, back Baby

These chicks are growing like weeds. Maybe because that's what they eat all day, I'm not sure.

In the morning they go outside in an enclosed run. We bring them back in in the evening.

3 weeks ago

We still haven't determined what kind they are yet.

Mobile chicken run

Chickens

Jet lagged from Cleveland 

Chicks arrived on the thirteenth of August from Meyer Hatchery. The post office called at about 6:30 a.m. and left a cryptic message that I was somehow able to decipher. The post office is very nearby and I drove around there at around 8:30 to pick them up.

The people at the post office were pretty tickled with the little peeps chirping through the box and actually checked my i.d. before they handed them off to me.

Pit Bull & chicks

Their home for now is in the garage in a kiddy pool. There is a coop already made that they will move into once they are big enough.

I wasn't very keen on ordering chickens through the mail but it turns out that it is so commonplace that it works well enough.

We ordered six pullets or hens. They are mixed brown egg layers so we don't know exactly which kind they are yet. I believe that one is a Buff Orpington.