Things I’d change about my chicken coop/run set-up

Posted by louisa on Friday 26 October 2012 in chickens | 8 comments

This is probably more a pensive “avoid this next time” post than an actual to-do list, though I am going to try to come up with solutions in case I actually get enough energy to act.

The “lips” of the frame around the body of the coop and nest box

Our coop (which we bought flat-packed) is built around frames, if that makes sense, which means we have a 3cm lip around the bottom of the coop’s floor. If it was flat, without the raised lip, I could simply sweep the woodshavings off the edge into a bucket, but because of how its built, I have to shovel everything out instead. I think it would be easier to clean if I could sweep them straight out.

The problem is exacerbated in the nest boxes because not only has the lip being built up further, I don’t have space in which to maneouvre a shovel or brush. I line the nest boxes with newspaper before adding straw to make them easier to clean out but again, I think it would be easier to get properly clean if there wasn’t the lip.

Possible solutions
For the last couple of winters, I’ve been talking about fitting a fake floor in the main body of the coop, which would rest on the lip and have a layer of insulation under neither. I still might do this: I doubt it would be that much work and would have other benefits too (see below).

The nest boxes are a tougher problem to solve since there isn’t enough head room to add a fake floor. Not sure how I could solve that one.

Grooved flooring

The “frames” are covered with tongue-and-groove type wood, rather than flat single pieces of wood. It looks nice but the grooves in the floor collect a lot of dust and again, are a bit of a pain to clean out.

Possible solution
If I was fitting a fake floor as mentioned above, I’d use something smooth for the top/actual floor so it would be groove-free. If I don’t fit a fake floor, I could just fit a sheet of heavy-duty plastic over it instead.

Coop is really a bit big for the chickens we have/want

When we got our girls, we wanted flexibility so went for a slightly bigger coop than we thought we’d need. This coop officially can house about twelve birds, but I think ten would be pushing it. We don’t have enough room in the run for that many though, so our max is about eight, though we’re choosing to keep it at six for now. Having extra room in the coop isn’t a bad thing most of the time, and because it’s raised off the ground, it’s not taking up floor space (and is providing good shelter), but in winter, I think they’d benefit from it being a bit easier to keep cosy.

Possible solutions
The suspended floor would reduce the size a tiny bit. I could also add a fake ceiling underneath the peak of the coop (although still ensuring there is adequate ventilation). I think it’s fine for six though: if we were going to keep less than six, I think it might just be easier to replace the whole thing.

Ickle egg

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 17 October 2012 in chickens | 0 comments

We had our first egg from the new chickens yesterday – not bad for day two!

I’ve paired it up with one of today’s lays. As you can see, it’s smaller than the eggs we normally get – a pullet egg rather than a fully grown up hen’s one – but otherwise it’s perfect. It was laid in the main section of the coop rather than a nest box – there wasn’t another one there this morning but I’ll check again shortly, in case she’s not an early layer yet.

The new trio are settling in well. There are still some pecking order disputes to settle – snap at combs and pulling on neck or bum feathers – but it doesn’t seem too vicious when I’m down there, and there is no visible evidence of blood being drawn (from the combs) or feathers pulled out. I will keep an eye on them, of course, and I’ve added extra feeding/drinking stations so there is less contention around those places.

They’re getting used to me as well as their coop mates. They’re getting more comfortable with me holding them, and stroking them, and they’ve started following the older girls’ lead of eating seeds out of my hands. (It took our original girls about a week to get brave enough to do that.)

My big goal for the moment is getting them all to go to bed inside the coop, of their own accord. The older ones slept outside for most of the summer as they have done in previous years so they’ve needed some reminding of it too but they seem to be getting the hang of it again, and leading the new girls in too. Up until now, I’ve been having to lift them off the outside perches and place them inside (if they’re already snoozy), or push them in through the pop hole before dusk if they’re more awake. With the colder nights drawing in, I’d much prefer them to do that themselves – hopefully it’ll only take a couple more days of training.

Once that’s sorted, they have to get used to the furry members of the household – they keep freezing when they see Lily-dog in the garden at the moment but she very much wants to make friends!

Do you have any chicken “settling in” tips to share? Any early egg anecdotes?

Five things

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 16 November 2011 in chickens, frugal, making | 3 comments

ONE. Two of the chickens are in moult – Ginger the Black Rock and Ms Mauve, an ISA Brown. There have been a lot of feathers about in the coop and run but neither have gone too bald (… yet?). Both have lost their tail feathers so look strangely round and last week both lost neck/head feathers, but Ginger’s have pretty much grown back now, so only Ms Mauve is left looking bit funny.

(I’m not keeping them/her in a separate run from the rest of the crew during the moult, just some of the others had just wandered outside of the run while I was taking photos. She followed shortly afterwards when she realised that there were leaves to scratch in out there, weeeee!)

TWO. Sticking to chicken related things, we’ve discovered that if chickens eat achocha, it taints their eggs like onions or (wild) garlic. I’ve been feeding the chicken some of the many, many achocha fruit we’ve had this season in an effort to get through them before the frost turns them all to mush. They weren’t sure about them at first but now om-nom-nom them up. We discovered the tainting issue – which isn’t unpleasant, per se, in savoury food but definitely there – on Monday, just after I’d taken them the remains of the entire 15ft tall wall of achocha to pick through. Monday’s eggs have been quarantined so they don’t accidentally get used for a dessert!

THREE. One of the reasons why I’ve not been writing much here is #NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. All my spare (and not so spare) time has been sucked up by that, so not only have I not been blogging much, I’ve not really been crafting or playing either. But on the plus side, because I’ve been so focus, I’ve written over 60,000 so far and I’ve not been idly browsing the web or eBay so I’ve saved money by avoiding temptation. Woo!

FOUR. Despite #NaNoWriMo getting in the way of my crafting, I have had a couple of evenings off from writing (when I was too exhausted/distracted to write the day we found Kia and after a busy day in the garden at the weekend) and I’m only about four rows off finishing the back of one of my crochet tops. If I hadn’t been writing, it would be long finished by now – and I’ve got an idea of how I can make another one which is just as nice but even quicker. Because I don’t already have enough WIPs…

FIVE. A little paranoid perhaps but I’m rather aware how quickly we’re getting through our wood pile. I cut a load of wood on Sunday but we’ve already nearly got through the ones for the “big” stove in the office. I think we might start using the central heating more until the winter properly kicks in, so we can see what it holds: I’m worried about racing through all our wood supplies now, then finding ourselves without heating for a fortnight during a super cold spell like we did last year (our boiler broke at just the wrong time). I much prefer our free heating from wood than our expensive gas, but I think I’d rather have a few weeks of expensive warmth than risk having no warmth at all!

What’s going on in your life this week?

My kindling cutting “helpers”

Posted by louisa on Sunday 2 October 2011 in chickens, wood stuff | 3 comments

I had some company while cutting the kindling this morning.

Lily was taste-testing each stick as it came off the axe.

“Mmm, bit of a woody flavour.”

And a few minutes later, after Lily had gone into a sulk because she’d heard the fake camera click of my phone (she HATES all cameras for some reason), Lime the chicken came to see what was going on too — the first time she, or any of the chickens, have visited the top level of the garden, which is three flights of stairs away from the chicken coop/run.

She watched me chopping some kindling for a bit but she was more interested in John cutting wood in the woodstore though and spent ages stood behind him, head cocked to one side and making the occasional clucking noise, as he sawed up some logs. She seemed to have no interest in any of the many edibles on that level, just wondering what us crazy humans were up to. :)

(Appalling camera phone pics, sorry for the quality.)

A year of keeping chickens – 12 things I’ve learnt

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 28 June 2011 in chickens | 11 comments

As I mentioned in my blog birthday post the other day, it’s just about a year since we got chickens too – it’ll be a year on Thursday to be exact but what’s a day or two between friends? ;)

Before we went to buy the red four, I hadn’t had much hands-on experience with chickens – I’d read a lot of course, and gone on a LILI course (which was very good – although I think I asked about ten times as many questions as everyone else), but aside from that, I was new to birds.

Things I’ve learnt in the last year

1. ISA Browns are awesome for first time chicken owners

We got the girls from Edward Boothman near Silsden – he advised us to get the ISA Browns as they were good first-timer birds, and how right he was. Sure, they’re not the most exciting birds to look at but aside from Lime’s badly timed moult last winter, they’ve been incredibly easy to manage, are friendly and very productive. If we had more space, I’d prefer more variety but here I’m tempted to stick with good old ISAs – even their fellow hybrids, the Black Rocks have been more temperamental: Blacks here is pretty friendly most of the time but together, her and Ginger bicker like sugar-rushing eight year olds.

2. In comparison, the pure breeds are a PITA

I am very prepared to accept that we had bad luck, or did something wrong, but compared to the ISAs, the two pure breeds we’ve had – a Minorcan and a Leghorn – have been pains in the bum. The Minorcan died during her second night here (although I do think I did a lot of things wrong) and Buff the Leghorn was very flighty (so hard to health check etc), took ages to start laying (albeit possibly because she came of age over winter) and was noisy (because she was easily stressed) before her untimely demise earlier this month.

They were both very pretty and I do like the idea of supporting traditional breeds rather than the generic egg machines we have now, but they were a lot more expensive, more effort and not an efficient member of a small team.

3. Chickens poo all sorts of different shapes & colours of poo

This is one of my favourite/most visited sites on the internet these days. Oh the variety!

The chickens don’t like it when I talk about their poop on the internetz.

4. Our coop is a bit too big for our space/requirements