01 Apr 2013 | 12:10 AM PDT | Posted by Tricia Fawkes | Category: Projects And Crafts
In my day dreams I saw a house with a huge vegetable garden, fruit trees and of course pet chickens. Those were my dream expectations for this house. When we first moved in it wasnt necessary just the house and the yard that jolted my creativity, I had to convince my husband to want chickens. Finally one day two years ago he said yes!! It was late spring, we mail ordered a tiny coop and "borrowed" four old layers from a friends farm. I admit, we had no clue what we were doing. The hens were consistent layers and they were so patient with the kids but the coop was way to small. So we found a local man who built us a big coop with a built on run. Having a bigger coop meant more chickens!! We purchased four utilitarian layers from Share-care that were at the point-of -lay and then things just snow-balled from there. Our kids have been selling most of the eggs and using the money to buy more chickens. We currently have 18 laying hens and 7 chicks. The 7 chicks were purchase at the chicken swap a month ago and have been living in a purple kidddy pool in the garage under a heat lamp. They are growing fast and I cant wait to get them into the coop with the others! We have lost 5 in the last two years; two to predators and three to old age but the lessons that are kids have learned about responsibility, death and even organic food have been priceless.
This is a side view of our coop, in the winter Rick puts corigated plastic around the run to keep the heat in and the rain out. Above the entire fenced in "compound" is a series of twine and flagging tape, very unsitely but usefull at keeping the eagles/hawks away.
Inside the run. We now have 10 brown utilitarian hens and 7 heritage breeds. We call the heritage hens "wild" chickens as they take a while to warm up to you and if there wings are not clipped they can really fly! Each hen has a name given to them by our children. The names range from Darth Vader (an un-friendly black hen) to Turbo, to Eagle (who was sadly carried away by and eagle) to turbo. Oh and of course there is Pecker, named because she pecks a lot....lol
Chicks in the kiddy pool.
Chicks enjoying the sunshine.
Kids enjoying the some snuggles. The baby chicks are not so small anymore!
