our beautiful coop

we welcomed three new chickens to our brood late in the summer, making it necessary to expand the run area. after moving the coop earlier in the summer we lost use of the detachable run. eight chickens need more room that the coop alone would allow. luckily we saved the old kitchen cabinet doors from our remodel nearly two years ago. a little ingenuity and elbow grease from andy and jeremiah and the new home was ready in an afternoon.

more fowl business

a week after returning from iowa, we had a chicken die. much research and expert calling (thanks, misty) later, i decided she must have had a blocked vent and, because of the cold, died quickly. in all my concern, i started trying to figure out if something (disease, etc) was causing the feather loss i had assumed was molting. there was a small spot above the tail, but under the wings that was bear. the skin was not red or irritated. we have no rooster. they were too young to be molting. ??? many google searches turned up nothing until misty found a couple pictures that were exactly what we were dealing with. just in case you find yourself with the same problem, this is what it looked like:

the reason? not mites, not lice, not disease, not anything medical...just...boredom. i have one unaffected chicken who happens to be the boss of the coop and she is the pecker. solution? more protein, more room to roam in this rainy portland winter, and more time consuming food. enter, chicken bread (or, whatever you could call it to make it sound better).

chicken bread

3 C quick oats
1 C polenta or cracked corn (scratch grains)
1 C whole wheat flour
11 oz tuna (one family size envelope)
3 eggs, with crushed shells
2 hard boiled eggs, with crushed shells
2 C raw whole sunflower seeds
7 oz coconut cream

put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix. the easiest thing to do with the eggs is to just crumble the shells in your hand. for the hard boiled eggs, just crack the shell on the counter and then just smash the egg, shell and all, with your fingers. divide the mixture between five mini bread pans and bake for 1 hour at 250. be sure to spray the pans...i forgot and they stuck terribly. the girls, however, don't care. ;)

eggs!

our chickens started laying eggs about three weeks ago. i was laying in bed, about to get up, when i heard a racket in the coop. i was suspicious, so i before we left for our sign language class i sent mary out to check on the chickens. she came back in, proudly holding our first egg! we were late to class because the excitement forced me to take pictures and unearth the anthropologie egg holder i had purchased this summer.

normally, i use anthropologie for inspiration. i love their beautiful photographs and over-the-top styling, but let's face it...i'm not made of money and do not generally buy things there. this, however, was different. this little splurge was quite a necessity. ;)

since then, we have determined that at least two, and probably a third, is now laying. a baker's dozen currently sits on my counter, waiting to become something. normally the eggs get eaten as quickly as they come in from the coop, but jeremiah temporarily stopped making an "egg in a toast hole" every morning so we could reach the dozen mark.

now, if my two road island reds would stop bullying the other four wyandottes, maybe they will all be laying by thanksgiving!

chickens and coops

by about four or five weeks of age, the chickens were making quite an impact. the kids were still in love with them...and my house smelled like a barn. despite changing bedding and partially covering the aquarium they were living in, their odor was still present. over memorial day weekend andy began creating a coop and my fine feathered friends were happily settled by the next week.

as projects go in our house, a simple/quick design was put aside when andy found a picture online of a coop with a curved roof. we decided to put the run underneath, as well, making for a more compact footprint but necessitating that andy lay on his back while wrapping wire mesh around the perimeter (from the inside).

i will give a better tour later of the finished product after i paint the windows, but for now here is the construction of our chicken coop. we used a window from our house in colorado for the end of the coop along with two cabinet doors leftover from our oregon kitchen remodel.

my little chicken whisperer  :)

chickens!

we have had our chickens for almost two weeks now, and it has been so much fun for all of us. you may remember that we were incubating eggs. well, they were duds. after two weeks of faithfully turning and constant temperature monitoring, i candled the eggs only to find no air sac, no embryo spot, no signs of life. the next attempts to get new fertilized eggs were unsuccessful, so we ended up finding a farmer on craigslist who was offering sexed chicks ("90% assured AND if it crows, we'll buy it back") just outside of town. after borrowing a giant aquarium from a friend and making a last minute (chicks in the van) stop at coastal for bedding, food, and food/water containers, we finally arrived home with our brood. six, to be precise. two silver laced wyandottes, two gold laced wyandottes, and two road island reds. the kids (plus two friends who were with us that day) chose names: amidala, amelia, olivia, goldfeather, maya, and blue moon.

they are growing quickly, losing their down in place of feathers, and will be moving out to a new coop sometime in the next three or four weeks. pulp from the juicer is a favorite snack, though they love to peck around in the yard finding bugs, rocks, and whatever worms the kids dig out of the compost pile. it will be a while before we are getting any eggs, but for now they are the kids' favorite pets. :)

incubation and anticipation

there are unborn babies at my house. eighteen to be exact. eggs. being held at a temperature of 100 degrees for three weeks. everyone is very excited. even andy, who was not completely sold on the idea, is anticipating the hatchings. their unexpected arrival last thursday afternoon sent me into a whirlwind of last minute preparations. one friend brought over her incubator just before another arrived with the fertilized eggs. the first eight hours were spent fussing with the thermostat...not self-regulating. i was a bit paranoid after consistently swinigng from 100 to110 that i was going to kill all of the chicks before the weekend was over and have to crawl back to my friend and ask for more eggs. by lunchtime, i had gotten up the confidence to put the eggs into the incubator. we left to go rollerskating with friends, me a little anxious about what i would find when we returned. the temperature was holding at 100 at 5:30pm. i left for the basketball game with andy, praying the eggs would still be fine when we got home. they have stayed at 100 since i put them in the incubator! hurray! (and phew!) every 8 to 12 hours they are turned, all X's up or all O's up. andy had the kids design coops the other day...which means they drew pictures and had lots of ideas, but he will still build it the way he wants to. :) we're plotting backyard locations for early summer. with almost one week under our belt, we are nearly a third of the way until we hear the peep-peep of our new chickens! there are so many things to do and learn before they push their way out of their shells.