Life on the Farm – Page 3 – Crack of Dawn Farms

A Full Dozen

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.

6-20141110_185339_LLS — Littles – 3 on the bottom roost and 3 nesting 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:

Even though he has a sheltered area, Atlas prefers under the coop - even in the rain. Problem is... he keeps getting taller, so he is quite a bit dirtier crawling in and out. — Even though he has a sheltered area, Atlas prefers under the coop – even in the rain. Problem is… he keeps getting taller, so he is quite a bit dirtier crawling in and out.

Poor Dom - she's molting. Barred Rock feathers everywhere! — Poor Dom – she’s molting. Barred Rock feathers everywhere!

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 🙂

Who Doesn’t Love Free Housing?

So, you might remember me mentioning that we had started keeping the chicks inside at night. Really is the best for now – especially since it has been so cold at night. Their CamperCoop™ just doesn’t provide enough warmth for them at this stage.

We created this contraption out of our two dog crates in order to give them quarters that weren’t too cramped.

It worked fairly well, but it did have some challenges.

It did not have a way to easily hang the feeder and waterer, so we were constantly battling pine shavings in the trays.
While it has a great opening in the center that can be opened to retrieve the chicks for movement outside each morning, they didn’t exactly congregate there to be scooped up. This meant I had to call upon the smallest Lee to go inside and hand chicks out. Not exactly the most efficient operation.
Freshening the litter wasn’t exactly efficient either. (See previous point…)

So, we were on a quest for yet another home improvement project for the chicks. The general idea was to have a bigger, more-open-at-the-top space for the chicks to hang out when we needed to have them indoors.

My Mom suggested a refrigerator box. We could just put it on its side and cut the “top” off. Jerry then had the suggestion of a wardrobe moving box.

So, I got on the phone this week while waiting for the boys to get done with their Geography tutorial. I struck out at Lowe’s, Walmart was a no-go, and then I tried the local U-Haul in Springfield. While getting dimensions on the various wardrobe boxes, I happened to mention that I wasn’t using it for “traditional” purposes, and the nice man asked me what I was trying to do. It turns out that he had two shorty wardrobe boxes that someone had turned in to him after they were done with them. I asked him how much he wanted for these used boxes since they sounded like just what I needed. He said I could have them for chicken dinner. Hmmmm.

I counter-offered with a dozen eggs in the spring once the gals are all laying, and we struck a deal!

So, after getting the kids, we came home and they got busy on schoolwork while I got busy remodeling the chick housing. It’s really more of a demolition job with reconstruction since the previous housing has since been completely disassembled and disinfected.

I put the boxes end-to-end and taped them together. I ended up punching holes in the top for wire to mount the feeder and waterer. This way they both hang a couple inches off the floor and should not have so many pine shavings in them. I got them a nice layer of newspapers and pine shavings, and I found a scrap of our fence material that bent to fit nicely over the opening. It is easily removed to enable much more efficient cleaning, restocking of water/feed, and chick retrieval

The chicks are right at 10 weeks old, so in the next few weeks, we should be able to start giving them visitation in the big hen yard. My hope is to have them all happily in the big coop by Thanksgiving.

A Piece of Peace on the Farm

After getting the interior fence in, things have settled down A LOT in the chicken yard. Atlas is much happier with his freedom to run and not be confined to his crate while we are gone or cannot be watching. The chickens seem quite content – although Dominique the Barred Rock decided to take a flight into Atlas territory the first evening when we fed Atlas. She was a little perturbed to not have access to his dish, I guess. LOL!

Two of the Black Stars did find a gap in the fencing under the coop for us. I was so surprised that day when they started carrying on with their distress calls. At first we assumed they had flown out, but when we put them back in we watched them immediately go back to the gap and exit. Noted. Fixed.

One thing the Black Stars escape showed us is that our 50+ pound livestock guardian is still very much a PUPPY. He may not look so much like a puppy anymore, but he sure wanted those birds to play with. My mom says perhaps he just knew they belonged inside the fence and was doing his job. I’m going with puppy on this one.

All in all, it has been quiet and peaceful with the critters. It has made me realize how much more time I have to do things around and in the house when I am not out with Atlas on his leash worried that he’ll have to stay too much of the day in the crate. I’ve actually gotten to clean house (yay!), start – and finish – a sewing project within a week (found some neat rooster-motif fabric at Jo-Ann’s Columbus Day sale!), start making bread for our family, continue working on my quilt that I started in 2002, and take an afternoon to head to out for an impromptu trip to the Nashville History Festival!

We did have a little scare last week with the baby chicks. With all the rain we had, it turns out the CamperCoop™ was not providing the protection from dampness that was needed. The little ladies were struggling, and we were worried about coccidiosis. We brought them in for several days to dry out and give them some medicine. They are thriving again, and we are still keeping them inside at night, but have refreshed the coop and are letting them enjoy these sunny days outside.

I will really be glad for the chicks to be big enough to start incorporating them in the main chicken yard/coop. We made a Pet Porter tunnel in the garage (two of them end to end with a chicken wire pass through) to give them more space when they are in at night. They seem to have taken a growth spurt while they were recuperating… they don’t all fit in one dog crate any more. Ryan has to go in and retrieve them one at a time in the morning so we can move them out, but it is worth it for them to stay healthy!

Until next time… we are staying busy here on the farm! Here are some pics from our adventures of late (and yes, I realize I didn’t include any Atlas pics this time… these are more about non-chicken/dog projects 😉