Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Cooped Up? Its time to get outside

Micah's chickens (Adam's really) spent the week following Memorial Day in their new home "The Chicken Palace" before this past weekend being let out to roam in their run. Two reasons for this. One, I did not have to finish fixing up the existing fence as quickly and two, just like dogs and cats when you move houses, chickens also transition better when kept "inside" for a few days to get used to where they need to sleep/eat before being let out.

Quick over: Our coop is ?? years old. It first was a school bus stop shelter and was moved by tractor back and forth 1/4 mile each winter. It then got "fixed" up by the last owner and turned into the chicken palace. Next had atleast a half decade to fall into disrepair before getting a new roof, door and chicken wire wall. *see fencing needed to the right.


Ammenities: Two roosting bars set apart to avoid pooping on each other. Water and food feeders. Next up this summer will be fixing or making new nesting boxes for eggs starting this fall. It is also good to have a closable pop door to close at night and keep out things that like to eat chickens. Since Jill's two silkies are so small and do not like to fly/jump a ramp-door was needed. Here is one of the Buff Orpingtons demonstrating. Yes they do wait in the morning for it to be opened and then try to squeeeze through all at once.

The little black fuzzball to the lower right in the photo below is one of Jill's silkies. The other chicken were this size at about 3 weeks old and now all are over two months old. Micah loves to bring them out a snack after dinner (so far avocado and rice are winners while cooked carrots and baked beans were not recieved with much enthusiasm).

Only one chicken is "slow" enough to easily be caught for Micah to pet (the golden one below). The other chickens are pretty quick to move out of arms reach and we do not run near them so that they won't become afraid of us or get stepped on.

Preview of next month's chicken update: "Am I a rooster?" and "Names"

2 comments:

Jamie said...

Violet loved seeing the chickens! Everyone she saw for the next couple days she immediately said, "I went to Micah's house and saw real horses and real chickens!" Thanks for having us over!

Lee said...

Your welcome Jamie. Micah now says "I nice" when he wants to pet a chicken. The problem that we have is none are really tame enough to catch. Only one is really slow enough and then he just points and wants to pet one that I can't catch.