A full dozen — chickens in the coop, that is. (Not eggs in a day… Yet.)
But first, some coop modification updates…
With any DIY home project, you’re never really done. Case in point, I still have no baseboards and we’ve been in our house for over 8 years! Turns out, the same goes for a chicken coop.
When we got the coop finished in a rush prepping for the “old guard” that came with Atlas back in the summer, there were some things that we knew would need updating/finishing by the time the new residents would move in (and for the winter weather).
One – windows. We just cut holes in the man door and side of the coop and backed them with hardware cloth this summer, knowing that the girls would be fine with the summer temps. But, that just won’t do for winter. we do have some ventilation in the upper eaves, but these holes will be too much to allow the girls to stay warm in the winter. My very clever hubby saved the boards that we cut out, and we rigged them with hinges and closures so that we can have them either open or closed. It now seals up quite nicely, allowing the chickens to build up some body heat and not have the drafty wind.
Two – roost poles. We literally slapped a pole across the midsection of the interior when we built this coop. It has worked great for the existing 6 grown chickens (I can’t call them “layers” because we have yet to get an egg from the 4 Black Star pullets – but that is another story :-)!). We knew that adding the 6 chicks into the mix for winter would require more roosting space. So, Jerry and I put a layered roosting area for them – 45 degree slope with 3 roost poles. The 6 grown chickens have been doing nicely here – all of them snug in nicely on the top roost at night and they have been happy cluckers. They even hang out inside lately during the day with all the wind and cold that has been blowing through lately.
And, now we can get to today’s exciting news… We now have TWELVE chickens in the coop!! The chicks are now 12 weeks old, and with it getting colder we were really wanting to get all of these ladies together so that they can keep each other warm at night AND so that we are not moving the chicks in and out each morning and evening. Not only is it a major hassle, we just really didn’t have a good place to have them outside when there was rain. They are getting big enough that it was too cramped for them in their UHaul box contraption in the garage 🙂 Now they will be able to choose whether to go out in the rain or stay in the coop.
Today turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL day as we gear up for the cold front that is coming through later this week. Some call it a “polar vortex,” but I grew up calling it a “cold front.” We took advantage of this late this afternoon and brought the chicks into the hen yard area again. Everyone seemed much more at ease this time, and once the big girls went in and got settled on their roost, I showed the littles how to get in and let them explore. They ended up settling in – half of them on the bottom roost and half of them nesting in the pine shavings on the floor.
I plan to make sure I’m down there at the Crack of Dawn tomorrow so that I can closely monitor the waking and morning activities to make sure there is no unwarranted aggression from the big girls. If all goes well, they can all stay out and enjoy the yard and the sunshine together tomorrow!
Now it is time to get our waterer heater made – it’s supposed to get down in the 20s later this week, and we don’t want frozen water!
Here are a couple more shots from the farm:
Here’s hoping we’ll get eggs soon, with Dom in full-on molt we are down to one egg roughly every day from Red. So, 12 chickens and – at best – one egg a day right now. Rough time of the year 🙂