Saturday, September 26, 2009

Hot Chicks!

After several months of procrastination I finally completed our chicken coop.  We also got chickens.  Actually, the day I finished the coop, we picked up our hens 15 minutes after I nailed the last board.  This was surprisingly fun.  For a guy that has not even built a box and can barely pound a nail without bending it, this presented quite the challenge.  There's something rather gratifying about making something with your hands.  

We got two chickens, which type I cannot remember.  We decided on Spanish names:  Susana and Carmen.  I still haven't picked them up.  They like A much better as she gives them sweet treats of corn cobs and compost scraps.  They've given us four eggs in total, which were promptly eaten for breakfast on a Saturday morning.  They're taking a break, though, and have lost a considerable amount of plumage.  Hopefully they will lay again soon.  

So here it is:



And I forgot to mention that nothing of this coop is new, except the chicken wire.  All of the wood, the aluminum roofing, the screen door, and the window were obtained second hand through friends or at the wonderful Rebuilding Center.  So, even though it doesn't look like much, I'm darn proud.  And it's still standing.  Ha!


5 comments:

  1. Very cool. Inspiring. Wish we could legally have chickens here... but the laws are pretty old fashioned about it (1970s?) out here. I hear in LA you can only have one rooster, we can't even have one chicken. Well, Ollie is an old fashioned small animal chaser, so we probably couldn't keep them for long anyway.

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  2. Loosing plumage and not laying? That could be a nutrition or light issue. We have a few that are molting, and they really do not look so hot. Normal for year old chickens in the fall. But, they are still laying, and should keep doing so until the dead of winter.

    Layers have to have the right kind of food available at all times (if you want eggs), and have plenty of light. Our ladies lay through the winter, but the coop has East and West windows, and is not shaded. It does slow down a bit, but is steady.

    I love your coop! Do you ever let the ladies wander the yard? They are great/horrible at scratching up garden beds.

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  3. Well done! You should indeed be proud, that is fine looking coop! I wish you could come build us one also!

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  4. Hey Dan,
    I recently read in a chicken keeping book that it is normal for the chickens to molt at the beginning of fall, and that many of them do stop laying during that period. Unfortunately, it began less than a week after we got them-- so I don't know if they are a little traumatized or what. They have laying mash daily, along with corn, and wander our yard for at least an hour a day. How do you help a troubled chicken?

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  5. Thanks for all the positive feedback. They still are not laying despite good sunlight and abundance of food. We'll see what happens. They do roam the garden and scratch out our beds. They are really doing a number on our compost in a good way.

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