Spring Projects

We are thrilled to report that a new chicken coop is being built here at Four Chickens. That’s dAhub in the picture, showing his manly side by using a saw. Most of the work is being done by our amazing next door neighbor, who has a lot of tools and actually knows how to use them. Also, this neighbor works at a place called the RE Store, a building materials salvage place, and he kindly got all of our materials there. He even got a couple of little doors for the front and back of the coop. So, the entire coop is made from recycled materials! Yahoo! This is definitely a green coop. Yesterday we had people popping in and out of the backyard, helping with the coop and/or supervising the work. I did a fair amount of supervising. I also made a beer and chip run, which was the least I could do…

We got the plans from the Self-Sufficient-Life website.

(Update:  I really, really, really do not recommend this style of chicken coop. Having the chickens on the ground level is a nightmare when it comes to rats.  Even though the coop had a wood floor, rats would chew their way through it into the coop.  They would even chew their way through hardware cloth. Ugh. I ended up hating this coop so much.)

Speaking of chickens, here are some shots of the gals. Cheep is my special little gal. She spends a lot of time on my shoulder. I call her my parrot. Argh, mateys!

It is finally nice enough to keep the gals outside. We keep them in a little cage to protect them from the predators (and from Rosie). Rosie gets quite agitated when I bring them out in the morning. She spends a fair amount of time circling the cage, clucking away. I’m not sure if she’s feeling protective of them or just wants to peck them and show them who’s boss. I’m hoping that by having them outside with Rosie for these weeks until the coop is done, the actually mingling of the chicks and Rosie in the new coop won’t be too painful. We’ll see.

And this is a close up of most of the gals. They are so much bigger than the last shots I posted! That blur on the left corner is Rosie, circling the cage.

This is Rosie settled over a hole in the backyard. Girlfriend dug a hole (well, several holes) to find worms for the chicks, and Rosie has claimed this one. I fully expect an egg in there someday.

And this is Rosie trying to run under the table to escape the paparazzi.