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.  I stopped by an old local Tack store which had some Barred Rock chicks.  I decided since ours have been so good, I would go ahead and get three more.  The main reason I wanted some variety was so I could tell them apart.  Two of our existing girls look so much alike we can’t tell them apart.  Maybe we will get some bands to help identify them.

The new chicks were about 2 weeks old when I picked them up Friday, April 18, 2014 so they were hatched about the first week of April.   I’ve got them outside in the coop in a section I screened off so the other chickens can see them but not harass them.   The first night, they really didn’t know what to make of the little chicks and were quite chatty for a few hours after roosting for the night.  After that first night, they haven’t really seemed to pay any attention to the new chicks.

Here are some pictures of the new ones:

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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 in their favorite dust-bath spot.  The other is in the nesting box ready to lay an egg.

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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 Chard

Tomatoes

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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.

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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 finished look to the ground.   I plan on putting in a redish/brown crushed granite.

Couldn’t pass a shot of the girls waiting by the door of the run.

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Here you can get an idea of the lighting I put in for a little night time ambiance.

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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.

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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 looks:

All that is left is to buy the rock for the garden bed, then start the water cycling and add plants.   Once the water has cycled and is stable, I will add fish to the pond.   Then it will be on to finishing the rest of the backyard, some crushed granite, a tree, and that should be it.

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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 them out every afternoon for a few hours.  In turn, they keep the garden bed clean of weeds and the soil gets turned everyday along with a daily grass trimming.

The girls have figured out the whole laying program.  We are averaging 3 eggs a day.  Occasionally we get 4, sometimes 2, but most days we get 3 and they are always in the next boxes now.

I hope to soon complete the entire project.   Only a little plumbing and electrical is left along with putting the gravel in the garden bed.   I’ll begin now with the rest of the yard clean up and any additional landscaping to blend it all in.
This is the bell siphon I built which is used to drain the garden bed water back into the fish pond.

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