Chickens have arrived!

Howdy All,

We got our chickens finally! Here they are when they were small, and we first got them. We ordered them from Dare 2 Dream Farm, who (delivered!) us 6 chicks, a box, a water bottle, a food dispenser, food, and shavings for their bed. Unfortunately one was sick, and died a couple of days after we got them, but the company nicely replaced her for free!

We purchased:

2 Rhode island reds,
2 Easter Eggers,
2 Plymouth barred rocks

Here is a video we took of our chickens doing their thing: usually pooping, especially in their water bowl, which we have to clean out every 2 hours! (if you see nothing below, you can follow this link: Chicks!)

 Two weeks later, and our little chicks have gotten a lot bigger! We took them outside a couple of days ago, to let them see what the big wide world was like, but they didn't want to leave their box. We let them loose inside our enclosed veggie garden, thinking that they would be safe (which they weren't)!

Eventually we coaxed them out, and here they are, among the buckwheat and winter rye that we planted for the winter to revitalize the soil.

So cute! Poop my little darlings! Poop!

Flint is so curious about our little chicks, that he just loves to stare at them and lick his lips..... hmmmm. Eventually he snuck into the garden, and tried to either play (hopefully) or eat (unsuccessfully) the chickens! We caught him in time before he did any permanent damage to the chicks, other than psychological.

Hope you enjoy pictures of our chicks! We will update soon, as they get bigger!

 M & N

Chicken Coop Construction Part 3

Howdy all!

Another (slightly late) update on our chicken coop! We mostly finished the inside of the coop, which is great since we got our chickens last week! We mostly buttoned up the coop so that little creatures can't get into the coop and raise havoc with our little darlings, who are still too young for the coop, and are comfortably napping under their heat lamp in my office : )

The chicken's opening into the yet unbuilt chicken run. Here you can see the track that will hold the sliding door, which we will close in the evenings to protect our little egg makers.

The sliding door in its track way. The green wire is what will open/ close the door.

The door way in it's track. The two pieces of wood are two halves of a 2 x 8 that I cut in half, left over from an old bunkbed I made.

The green wire runs through a pulley at the top of the coop and then runs through a hole in the side to allow easy opening/ closing.

The finished door! I tried to get the entire system in one photograph, but the coop is too small !

The end of the green wire, in the closed position. When we finish the run, this will be on the outside.

The green wire in the open position. It works like a charm! 

We also added the plexi glass to our custom chicken shaped window. The little circle you see in the middle isn't a hole, it is a reflection of the flash off the glass. We secured this with little penny nails, the same way you would with a picture frame.

We also placed screens over the vent holes for the coop. The mesh you see was left over from another project, and is a nice heavy weight, fine mesh.

The wire mesh installed inside the chicken coop. I secured it to the coop with nails on the bottom and sides, but did not use any nails into the roof, because I didn't want to puncture our nice little roof. I will (eventually) attach this to the roof with some high strength epoxy.

The chicken coop as it looks today! Still need to add the trim around the corners, which will cover the edges of the chicken wire we will be using for the chicken run. 

Chicken Coop Construction, part 2

Howdy All,

Here is part two of our multi part series on the construction of our chicken coop. We did alot of things this past week!








For starters, we put the permanent foundation blocks on. We did this to raise the wood up from the dirt, which would eventually start to rot the legs.
















The new foundation raised the height of the nesting box, so we may need to raise up the dirt below it so Nicky can reach the eggs easily,

We also cut out some openings for our custom chicken shaped window. We are going to put a sheet of plexiglass behind it, once we finish painting.

We also finished the roof! This is a good thing since it is supposed to start raining soon. We put down a layer of tar paper, and then used some awesomely aged cedar shingles donated from my parents.Mostly I based my roof on this video (as well as some clarification from my Dad, the architect):
http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/video/install-cedar-shingle-polycarbonate-roofing-shed.aspx

Here you can see Mike  putting the tar paper on top of the plywood

Here is a view of Mike finishing the roof. Didn't fall off once!

We also cut out the opening for the chickens to leave the coop, into the (as of yet) unbuilt chicken run. We hope they dont mind!

We also started our first coat of paint. Here is Nicky painting the body of the coop.









We still have a little bit more to do, and will post an update soon!

M & N

Chicken Coop construction, part 1

We have finally embarked on our long-awaited backyard chicken adventure! After many delays, we decided there's no time like the present and so spent the weekend working on the coop. Our hope - fresh eggs by Christmas, and fabulous compost in spring, and maybe even new feathered friends for Flint :)

Even though it has become incredibly easier to buy pre-fab chicken coops online, we went with the home-grown variety, with Michael designing the plans and most of the weekend spent building it ourselves from the frame up!

It began with these plans:

Plans agreed upon, we headed to Home Depot and spent a good chunk of change (thanks to Dorothy!) on lumber and building supplies.

Step 1- build the floor:

Step 2 - build the frame:

For this part, since the posts are 8 feet tall, we moved the operation to the future site of the chicken coop, in the far corner of our yard. Our neighbors are already beginning to ask questions, but we hope to win them over with offerings of fresh eggs :)

Step 3 - up go the walls!:

We finished the main structure and built the roof all in the first day, and got it into place with the help of my Aunt and cousin - thanks guys! 

Step 4 - roofing and siding:

The next day we manhandled the roof onto the coop (not an easy task), and secured it all into place. Michael is drilling the roof onto the posts, below I am busy sawing wood to complete the siding.

Step 5 - finishing touches:

Here I am designing the chicken-shaped windows to go on the side of the coop, yes, our coop will be very stylish indeed :) 

Next steps - finishing the exit hole and ramp for the chickens, decorating the coop, building the enclosed run, and finally, getting the chickens! :) See you soon!

Misty morning

A dripping misty morning at the farm, full of possibility :) my favorite.

Hello, Grasshopper

A first in our garden! Can anyone identify this monster grasshopper? found on our (sadly crispy) grape vines, about 4 inches long!

or how about this one, sorry for the blurry pic, i think it was gray, with black stripes on its legs:

Before and after...

A quick taste of before (move-in May 2012) and after (summertime 2013). yep, we've been busy!

Howdy All!

Howdy All!

Welcome to Nicole and Michael’s blog - A Menagerie on the Farm!

We decided to start this blog to share with our friends and family our adventures in urban gardening in Los Angeles, California. We hope you enjoy our stories, our strategies, our recipes, and our
on-going battles with weeds!

We bought our house over a year ago, and found a large yard with nearly nothing going on. In fact, we bought it especially because of this massive yard. We had lots of weeds, two large birds of paradise (which we later hacked out), as well as a massive (and poisonous) Oliander tree (which we also hacked out). We found a large concrete slab, which we still haven’t figured out what it was for - a shed? a bomb shelter? we are takings votes :) We found an orange tree, and a beautiful yellow rose bush.

We did a lot of hacking and shoveling and digging over our first year here, spending many hours toiling away. But as always with gardening, things are never quite done!

Our goals for our garden are to maximize the amount of vegetables that we grow, so that we eat locally
and decrease our carbon foot print. We are moving towards organic vegetables, we never use pesticides or herbicides, although still **rarely** use fertilizers. One of our goals is to stop using fertilizers; we currently have 3 compost heaps which will replace our reliance on chemical fertilizers. In an effort to save money, we also want to decrease the amount of young plants that we purchase from home depot, and grow more plants from seed. Amazon and Burpee are great online sources for seed purchases! We also want to grow more heirloom plants. In addition to the veggies, we are also planting California natives, butterfly and hummingbird attractors - yay for native habitat!

Our goals for ourselves are simple: Get in shape by being more active (and eating healthier), and
get in better touch with nature.

In the future we plan to build a green house, and a hen house. Churn our soil to help break up the clay
and oxygenate future roots. Expand our veggie garden so that we have more room for gourds, squashes and zuchini. Eventually replace our water sucking lawn with California natives.

The adventure on our "Farm" (and with our menagerie of pets!) is just beginning...

We hope to see you in the future!

Mike and Nicky.