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 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