Voyeurism: Not Just For The Crazies!

OK. We have a lot of chickens. And by a lot, I mean we're down from our all-time summer high of 75 to a much more manageable 20 laying hens. Which means we have a lot of eggs too. The layers laid more in the summer (more light, better mood, more food, ya know - all the things that would make me happier too), but now that we're entering winter and the days are getting shorter our eggs are kind of in short supply. We only get 12 a day now!
And the average person would say, "My, your cholesterol must be through the roof eating all those eggs!" Well, don't worry - we hatched (he he. Get it? Hatched?) the perfect plan for egg liquidation: A trip to the hardware store, some plywood, paint, ice packs and and a camping cooler and you've got a shanty-town roadside egg store! We started a couple months ago (but, remember? no internet for so, so long...) and I'm totally hooked on the roadside egg stand. I mean, this is better than reality TV. (Well, it has to be since I gave up watching The Bachelorette after Ali chose Roberto instead of the obvious choice Chris from Cape Cod. What was she thinking? Anyway.)
Seriously though, Saturday we wound up with four dozen extra eggs so I put them out about 8:00am and went shopping. And they were all gone when I got back about 12:00! We sold out. Doors closed - out of product. And, get this: people are actually dropping off empty egg cartons now! We have repeat customers! Satisfied, loyal, repeat customers that have to be surveying our house constantly just waiting to pounce on the egg stand! Not once have we had someone take eggs without paying - and people can be trusted to make their own change! We actually put money in the jar to start with so people can make their own change and the system is working!
I can't profile our customers yet, but I have seen this one guy in a small dark car stop for eggs twice now. I'm considering setting up a command post to monitor the purchasing a little closer 'cause, you know, a "sign-in" sheet would just be creepy.
Todd and I both agree there's only one way to address this demand for eggs: We need to buy more chickens!

Taking One For The Team Chicken

Scene: Our house. Saturday morning, 7:30am.

It's no secret Todd likes to sleep in on the weekends. And I am so a morning person. So, early Saturday morning, I get Colt in the backpack and we headed out for some early morning chore duty. We fed the goats, horses and cows and got on the 4-wheeler and headed to the bottom of the field to the broiler "hoop coop." Because, remember? Every good story starts with "I had the baby on my back."

(For those of you not familiar with the hoop coop, it is a 10'x12' tarp covered, domed enclosure that the chickens live in. It has an automatic waterer fed from a five gallon bucket mounted on top and we're able to feed them through a PVC tube which extends outside the coop. We pull the coop on to fresh grass every day.)

I move the coop and realize that, although their 5 gallon bucket is full, there is no water in their automatic waterer. A definite sign of a clog. The reservoir is open on the top, so I figured a leaf dropped in there and covered the 1/2" hole for the tube which feeds the waterer. I climbed up to look. Nothing clogging up there. So, we went in to the coop (remember....10'x12', tarp covered and chocked full of 25 psycho chickens - 5 of which I'm certain are roosters). I unscrewed the tube where the reservoir attached to the waterer and sure enough - no water coming out.

And this is where it gets bad. I'm not sure exactly what possessed me to perform the following action: I stuck the tube in my mouth and started mouth syphoning the chicken water. Before I could really reflect on what a terrible decision that was, a HUGE chunk of slimy nastiness got sucked in to my mouth with a rush of equally terrible, barf-inducing chicken water. It had the consistency of a tapioca pudding ball, didn't taste good at all, and I gauge was about the size of a marble. I retched and retched and couched it out, then barfed a little. Thank goodness I hadn't eaten breakfast yet or that could have been a real mess.... Water was spewing from the line, so I put it back together and water rushed in and all the chickens gathered around for a drink. Nasty. Nasty. Nasty.

Here's what I've learned:

1.Rule #1 when I started studying chemistry: NO MOUTH PIPETTING. This applies to real-world settings as well.
2.Chickens can survive at least a day without water. I'm projecting they could have lived another day without it too.
3.It pays to sleep in on the weekends. And, in case you were wondering: chickens eat barf.

Seriously!

This was the series of events that played out last night:

Arrive home from work, put baby in back pack and head to barn. Turn out goats, which start to meander in the "runway" to the field. Release angry, penned-up donkey who blasts, bucking, towards the field and encounters wayward goats. Donkey kicks goat and runs off. I shepard the (unhurt) goats to the field. Pile chicken feed, bucket of straw and bucket of shavings on 4-wheeler and drive to chicken coop. Hit brakes too hard and dump entire contents of straw bucket down my right boot. Remove boot, swear, shake out straw. Step in cow poop with socked foot. Swear again. Open lid to egg-laying box. Turn, pull goat off 4-wheeler. Nesting box lid smashes into my forehead. Swear, rub head and realize I have just rubbed chicken poop on my forehead and into my hair. Swear again. Swear again. Pull goat off 4-wheeler. Pull goat off 4-wheeler. Open nesting box, chicken jumps out. Cow chases chicken (in futile attempt to squash it) into neighbor's yard. Smash fingers in lid. Swear. Collect eggs, refurbish nesting boxes.

Enter coop to feed chickens. 10 escape, goat runs in and eats chicken food. Pull goat out. Comes back in. Pull goat out, comes back in. More chickens escape. Herd all but six chickens in. Pull goat off 4-wheeler. Fill chicken water and spill ~2 gallons into my other boot.

Return to house where all six chickens have destroyed my herb garden. Chase chickens. Repeat chase. Give up and vow to re-plant herb garden next year. Consider chasing chickens from vegetable garden, but give up and decide to turn on news while preparing baby's dinner. Colt gets a hold of the remote, bites it, and the TV screen goes entirely blue, flashes "No Signal" message over and over.

Attempt to feed Colt. Resulted in full-on meltdown complete with a mashed potato and applesauce facial for baby. Bottle him and off to bed.

Seriously. No more Todd working late..... I am obviously severely under qualified for this farming thing.

The Hoop Coop Works!

This week was a big week for our laying hens. They finally graduated from the brooders to their hoop coops! They are just shy of 5 weeks and are quite a bit bigger than when they came home. Most of their chick "fluff" has been replaced with realy feathers. They still have a little fluff on their necks and although they're outside, we are still keeping the lights on them at night.

We had a little bit of work left to complete on the coop before it was ready for the birds. The tarp, which proved to be an engineering feat, was the last thing to go on. We couldn't decide how to lash it down, or whether or not we should use more than one tarp. We chose to go with just one tarp and leave the very front end exposed. We will totally enclose the coop this fall in preparation for the winter, but for now seems to be working just fine with one end exposed. We used small pieces of trim screwed through the tarp on the bottom and back. We used some Gorilla Glue to tape the tarp down below the nesting box hinge so water doesn't drip on the ladies while they're in the roosting boxes. The end result looked pretty good!

The Barred Rock hens have gone from almost all black (when we got them) to the traditional black and white flecked. The Buff Orpingtons have remained their original color, but have gotten their adult feathers in.

We chose to move the coop to the garden, which is laying fallow right now. There is a little grass growing in the garden (which will be nice to have the hens eat up) and the chicken manure will be great for the vegetables this year. It's a win-win situation! Plus, it is still close enough to the shop that we can string an extension cord for the lights at night.

It seems during the evenings and nights they huddle up close (to be expected), and during the day they enjoy milling about the coop. For now, they are completely confined to the coop. They have enough room and food.

The automatic waterer is working like a dream! A five gallon bucket sits on top of the coop and feeds the red waterer when it gets low. This keeps a nice, fresh supply of clean water for the birds and is completely low-maintainance.

The dog is very interested in what's going on with the chickens. And maybe not in a good way....?

"Hey Son, Do You Want To Go Pick Up Some Chicks?"

Taken out of contex, perhaps a little disturbing. But, really, we went and picked up our broiler chicks night before last. We have been waiting patiently for them to come in. They were supposed to arrive 5 weeks ago with our order of laying hens. They arrived at the store, but shortly afterwards nearly half of them died. The store called to explain things and said there was a person who only wanted 12 and would take the half order if that was OK with us. I said OK, figuring that if half of them died when they got to the store there was probably something wrong with them anyway. They assured us our order would be filled that week, but have been waiting (somewhat patiently) for nearly 5 weeks now.

It turned out to be perfect timing though because just three days ago we were able to move our laying hens out of the brooders and into their outdoor coops. This alleviated space in the brooders for the new flock. Instead of having two brooders both full with chicks, we're able to leave one empty and when the shavings need changed we just rotate them over to a clean one and clean out the dirty one. It works better I think.

The broiler chicks are adorable! They look like little Easter chicks - yellow colored and tiny! They'll grow quickly I'm sure.

Hey! Look who wants to help feed and water the chicks! I don't think guard dog is what Griz has in mind...

Jump. I Dare You.

Our laying hens (minus one, which we think might be an un-laying hen (also known as a rooster)) are now 4 weeks old and getting a little it seems, restless? I guess I can't blame them: there's nothing like sharing a 5'x5' living space with 23 of your closest friends which includes the kitchen table (two long feeders), the faucet (two self-filling waterers) and one bathroom (the floor) and being totally unable to turn off the lights!! Come to think of it, I would really hate being a baby chicken. The grow light (which keeps them warm until they develop feathers) has to stay on all day and night in order to keep the brooder at the proper temperature.

Now that they're a little older, they're starting to develop grown-up chicken feathers and have recently started the game of "Ooohh...let's perch on top of the water tower so that when she opens the lid she'll be startled. And then, when she reaches for the feeders let's lunge at her hands like we're going to bite!! Hehehehe." Really. I swear they've plotted this plan and ran through it over and over. (What else do you do all night long when you can't get a wink of sleep because no one will turn off the light?)

Anyway, since they've started doing that whole perching on the water tower thing I've just been waiting for one to jump out. And, I'm so NOT in a hurry at 6:00 in the morning that I have time to chase a wayward chicken around the shop for fun, right? Wrong. Well, the other day when I went in there, I moved the lid to access the food and waterers and left it ascew while I filled the waterers. Big mistake. I came back and there was a Buff Orpington perched on the open end of the brooder! I didn't want to make any sudden moves because I just knew she'd jump off and run wildly around the shop. So, there we were: locked in a stare down for nearly a minute while she contemplated the consequences of her actions. I could sense (by the feverishness of their peeping) that the other hens were trying to coax her back down, and my stare said nothing more than, "Jump. I dare you." And I think, after serious deliberation and weighing her consequences, she decided to jump back into the brooder. Or, maybe it was my stare down. Either way I'm staging a fishing net next to the brooder because I think they're on to me.

Coop This!

Todd has been working on building our "hoop coops" for nearly a month now. They're a revolutionary design that allows the chickens to be on fresh grass every night. They are hoop shaped (hence the name), made with rigid square hog panels set on a light weight wooden frame. A tarp covers the hoop shape to provide protection from the weather.

The back end has two wheels mounted to the frame so that when the end with the door is lifted the coop can be wheeled to it's new location with fresh grass. They are totally enclosed and will serve as the chicken's house at night time, while they are allowed to free-range and forage during the day.

The bottom is wrapped in small mesh chicken wire to prevent anything from reaching in a grabbing the chickens.

This is Todd's patented design for their feeding system. It's a 3-inch PVC pipe the runs from outside the coop (near the door), down at a 45 degree angle and then flattens out and runs about 3 feet down the side of the coop. The top of the flat portion is cut out so the chickens can access their food from there. Genius, don't you think? The PVC cap is removable from outside and you just dump a scoop of food down the chute.

This particular hoop coop is designed for our broiler chickens - those are a breed of chicken we will be raising soley for meat. They mature in about 2 months and never lay eggs. We have 25 broiler chicks arriving next weekend and this summer will end up in the freezer.

The other coop is designed exactly like this one, only it has a roosting box with six roosts connected to the backside. It is for the laying hens, which have already arrived and are currently in their "brooders". They'll stay in the brooders under lights (to stay warm) until they are bigger and have feathers to keep them warm.

Cuties, aren't they?