Election Day

Posted on November 4, 2008 by jkmcintyre


Unlike ‘Merica’ these last 8 years, our chickens are lucky – they live in a benevolent dictatorship. This weekend we had made a little chicken door that would lead to the run. Crouched inside the coop with the chickens, they took out their boredom on me by jumping onto my back and pecking me in the butt while I worked. Yesterday we finished the door and roof for the run and opened the little chicken door to let them outside for the first time in their lives. Our little inquisitive Australorp stood at the edge of the door, one foot curled around the threshold. Greta managed to fly right out with a loud shriek, shriek loudly outside, and bound back inside in the space of 3 seconds. Start over. All three cautiously stepped out and within 3 minutes Greta and Libby were rolling around in the duff looking like they’d fallen out of a tree. Greta even took a nap. Funny chickens.


We sat and watched them for a long while as they bathed, and scratched, and found little nibblets, both organic and inorganic (finally some grit for their crop!!). They are getting to be real chickens now. They’ve quadrupled in size over the past 6 weeks and even have feathers covering their heads. Their personalities appear set – Rocky bold, Greta clumsy and shrieky, littlest Lib curious and friendly.

Posted in chicken coop / run | 3 Comments

Run Chicken Run!

Posted on October 28, 2008 by jkmcintyre


The chickens want very much to explore outside the coop. At first they were just peeking around us when we’d sit in the open door to visit. Then they were jumping on our hands and letting us pet them just to get a better look. Today Rocky jumped clear for the open when it was just Scott in the doorway. He caught her on the way out but it’s time to build the chicken run.

We intended to start the run during the weekend. We planned it Saturday and bought the materials Sunday, but ended up giving the coop a face-lift instead of building the run. Our neighbour Gerry has a lumber/plywood junk pile in his backyard (we’ve largely placed our chicken coop to block our view of said). Destined for the dump (when?), Gerry said we could help ourselves. Finding some decent exterior-treated OSB meant taking off the OSB siding we’d so labouriously affixed the previous weekend, but we’re glad we did. Looks smart! And it won’t fall apart right away (my bro Jamie gave the plain OSB two months of our rainy winter).

Today after Rocky-the-chicken-explorer headed out the door, we started the run in earnest. Scott and I are beginning to work well together. We struggled together over how to build the thing – both how to design it and how to put it together. That was a helpful change from me figuring out everything then him saying why don’t we just do it this other way?

We changed the design several times today before deciding the run would angle away from the coop (to avoid some shrubs while maintaining width), and that the roof would slope front to back instead of away from the coop so we can expand the run length in the future simply by adding more panel sections.

Finally and finally, we began to build. Posts in, boards up, the $$ hardware cloth finally dug into the ground and stapled to the frame. More tomorrow if no rain.

Posted in chicken coop / run, chickens, DIY | 2 Comments

Just another day in paradise

Posted on October 27, 2008 by jkmcintyre


With a day of rest after finishing the chicken coop (or so we thought – wait til tomorrow’s post), it was back to ‘regular’ yard duties at the new house. That includes admiring the progressing fall colours and working on rotting my sod. So far I’ve layed out a plot ~12’x12′. I wet the grass, laid down cardboard and covered them several inches deep with ‘junk’: chopped up greens and the dirt and decomposing matter in the compost pile I’ve inherited. On top of that I laid burlap bags from the local coffee house (Thank you C&P!). As fall progresses and the leaves fall I’ll add those under the burlap and hope the combined efforts result in compost by spring!


Meanwhile the nights get longer and colder, leaves continue to change, and to fall.

See how the rotting sod turned out.

Posted in DIY, update, vegetable garden, witch hazel | 2 Comments

A Place of Their Own: Part II

Posted on October 23, 2008 by jkmcintyre


OMG we finally finished the coop! Today we put up the rest of the siding, framed and installed the door, nailed down the plywood roof, stapled in the hardware cloth vents, and secured the plastic tarp which acts as our interim waterproofing.



Just as dusk was settling in, Scott returned from the pet store with 4ft3 of wood shavings, we spread them 5” deep over the plywood floor, moved the heat lamp out to the coop, and finally brought out the little girls. Freak out! Yes, yes, little ones, we know, totally novel and scary. They quickly adapted, immediately pecking and scratching at the bedding.


We will miss them and their antics in the den, but they looked so right out there in their new coop. We are nervous about their first night outside: Will they be warm enough? Will predators try to get into their coop? If they do, will they succeed?


If you’re curious about our coop, here is a tally of the materials we used.

Purchased:
150’ of lumber (~$60)
2 sheets of plywood for the floor and the roof (~$25)
Nails, screws, 2 hinges, 2 latches ($20)

Acquired:
70sqft of siding (mostly OSB) via kind folks on West Seattle Blog
Various pallets, some of which the coop sits on

Re-used:
20’ of lumber
½” hardware cloth for vents
cube window

Posted in baby chickens, chicken coop / run, DIY | 2 Comments