Well, we have had our little flock of chickens for two years now and it has been really a great experience. We love the fresh eggs, but most of all really enjoy the chickens and their crazy personalities. My wife loves to give them snacks. Just walking to the door of the house gets them excited and they come running to see what treat she will have for them. She has even taken to cooking for them. We have really been amazed how easy it is to keep chickens. The maintenance is next to nothing; in fact it is really far less than caring for our dog. With that said, I decided to add a few chicks to the flock. I had hopped to add a little variety by getting some Rhode Island Reds or Red or Black Sex Links, but the large feed stores have not received anything yet. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
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Work has been all consuming, leaving me little to no time to do anything around the house and yard. I have taken advantage of the longer days and warmth recently to clean up the yard and get the garden going again. With the nice weather here, our chickens have started laying again this week which we are really excited about. The fresh eggs are so much better than even the expensive organic ones from WholeFoods. I took a minute today when the sun was partially out and snapped a few pictures of the garden. This is about a week after planting. I planted a bunch of purple and white onions this year. Lettuce on the right, strawberry center and heirloom tomato left Chinese cabbage This Swiss Chard is from last year — still going strong Yellow Corn Broccoli & Kale Sugar Snap Peas Here are a couple of the girls … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
There are lots of tomatoes on the vines, but something is eating them before they ripen. I haven’t found a worm yet, but something is out there. The vines were everywhere, so yesterday I hung some fencing as a trellis and tied the tomato plants and cucumbers to them. I found a large cucumber already which was totally hidden before I began moving everything around. This past week when it was 115°+ for two days, was too much for one of my poor chickens. The other 3 seem to be doing quite well though. The fish in the aquaponics pond are really growing. Some are close to 3″ now, nearly 3x the size of what they were when I first got them. My neighbor gave me this great old lantern and ironworks which I hung in my yard. The hidden cucumber The pepper plants are taking off too now! Swiss … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
It was one year ago when I began a new project. I was going to build a chicken coop and start a little back yard flock. The endeavor quickly grew to much more than just a coop, adding an aquaponics garden and ultimately, re-landscaping the entire back yard. I really got sucked in by those backyard chickens. I was lucky to have a friend who helped with the landscape design and more so, the labor! This is what it looks like now that it is all done The fish have been in the tank for 2 days now. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
It has been a wonderful year weather wise here in the Vegas valley. Temperatures are still moderate, making it nice when working out in the yard. I got up early to get chores done today; and while I was out I picked up some trellises for my plants which are in the back corner of the yard. Have a look at how the aquaponics garden is doing 3 weeks after I had to remove all the plants and empty it. All but 2 Armenian cucumber plants made it, and those two were always in trouble. I picked up another cucumber plant this morning which I hope will do much better. Fish are on order. I expect they will arrive next Thursday. I can’t wait to see how things change once the fish are in the system. All that is left is to add the rock which will give a … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
With the aquaponics garden back together and most of the yard cleaned up, I let the chickens out to roam around on another beautiful spring day. Here you can get an idea of the lighting I put in for a little night time ambiance. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Not much happening lately. Spent most of the day at my son’s wrestling match. I did manage to get up a first light and plan a small apricot tree in the back yard. Once Christmas is past, I’ll finish off the landscaping and the back yard will be complete. Right now I just need to add the rock and fish to the Aquaponics garden, and then put some crushed granite through out the rest of the unfinished yard. Not much more than 2 days of work left. Late in the afternoon I let the girls out for a few hours. They have kept my grass at this height and completely eliminated the need for mowing. Here they are scratching around in my flower bed. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
I’ve been able to complete all electrical and plumbing for my aquaponics garden. This week the pump arrived. I ordered a Lifegard Quiet One 4000 pump rated a ~900GPH. Along with this main pump, I installed an emergency backup pump. This is nothing more than a bilge pump which is used just to aerate and circulate the water in the pond in the event of a power outage. It will run off of a 12 deep cycle battery. To make this work, I wired in a 12v relay which is powered by a “wall wart” plug/transformer I had stored in the attic from some long lost device. I found a deal on five of these relays with the pig tail plugs for $4.99 on Amazon. This is how my electrical and plumbing … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
It’s that time of year here in the Vegas valley where we have 2 or 3 weeks of wonderful weather. Time to enjoy to outdoors. I’ve spent the spring and summer working at a painfully slow pace on my coop and garden project. Seven months into it, I’ve finally finish the wood working part of my project. The coop and aquaponics pond and garden bed are built along with the patio cover. You can see the pond cover/bench seat now completed and in place above. I’ve also put grass back in the small area by my planter. The chickens have loved the addition. When I first put the grass in, I wondered what I was going to do about keeping it cut since I had given away our lawn mower. This turned out to not be a problem. The 4 chickens have kept the grass perfectly manicured. I let … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
This past Sunday we found our first eggs. It has now been a full week and I’m guessing that all four of our chickens are laying. There have been a total of 14 eggs set over the week. Unfortunately, 5 were broken. We found a couple of our girls were nesting in the very upper corner of the coop atop a bag of pine shavings. It appears that some of the eggs fell and cracked (we hope). I say that because we found one of the girls up there eating an egg. Hopefully we can break that behavior quickly. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
