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]
Tag Archives: cage free
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]
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]
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]
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]
We have been waiting patiently for 21- 1/2 weeks. I peaked in the coop and today after church and guess what, there was a perfect little egg, finally! It wasn’t in the next box, but was in the pine shavings on the coop floor. I have golf balls in the next boxes, but may need to put some wooden eggs in there to better encourage the girls in. Friday evening, my son and I put grass back in the small patch by our planter. A few years ago I had pulled out the grass and turned this area into a garden. With the aquaponics garden coming, we decided to put grass back in. The chickens sure seem to love it. They spend a good deal of the day picking through it, eating the blades and looking for anything else they can find in the mix. Last month, I switched the … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
