I have about an acre of area I free range my ladies in. Lots of grass and bordered by woods with a variety of trees. My dad tells me I need to spray the yard for fleas and ticks. Just the other day I pulled more than 10 ticks off of me from doing yard work.
I'm concerned about my flock being...
Took a vacation so I can get to work on the new chicken run and coop. I'm planning on doing this project over a long period of time.
This is where I started:
It was all overgrown with saplings that I cut back previously. There was a small building made of cinder blocks, but it was falling...
At this age they look like kids wearing their dad's business suit and it's too big. Soon they will be in the baby dinosaur phase. It's fun to watch them grow so fast.
Alright. Here are the girls at week 3. So far they are all thriving. Very active little boogers. Also much more comfortable with being handled. Also the dog, Noodles, being very interested in the babies.
I should probably clarify that when I say wood chips I mean mulch. I will have about a foot of mulch for the ground of the run. I keep saying wood chips and I think people might think I mean the little wood shavings.
Sorry for any confusion. I found Lowes has undyed hardwood mulch. It's been...
Here is the ground I'm dealing with. Their current run sits on clay/rock. They have about 10" of wood chips on top of that. They dig down to the clay and stop there. Only one hole in the run currently. They wiggle around in that.
Problem I have is back in the day they used to throw thrash in...
Once I get the run all built out it will be covered. I'm hoping to mitigate 99% of the rain on the spot. My current run is almost completely dry, even during the worst rain storm. Would you say the mix of water and poop building up underneath being the problem? I would imagine keeping it dry and...
Clove is a Golden Laced Wyondotte. I wanted to get a Silver Laced one, because they kinda look like stained glass. But they had Golden and I loved that she would have these real pretty fall/Halloween colors when she fully feathers out.
I assumed they wouldn't dig into the crusher run. Too rough on their feet. The way am doing it is using the 2x6 boards to build a base out of rocks, then cover that with a layer of crusher run. That will be the entire base for the coop and run. Then I was thinking of running a border of either...
Had a few rains since I cleared it out and the water seems to be draining excellent. We will see in the coming weeks when I have boards and rock on the ground.
Plan on taking photos as I progress for sure. I was considering a trench drain to make sure water gets out from the run area. But being on a hill and having larger rocks as a base should be good. Also the run and coop will have a roof, diverting rain away. I guess I was over thinking and over...
Got a lot of work done today prepping the new coop/run site. There was several decades of leaf on the ground. This part of the property was used as a dump and burn site. I'm digging up tons of old household items, broken glass, cans, bottles, etc.
Because of this I have decided I can't use the...
Actually, adding t-posts sounds like a pretty good idea. Problem is getting them into the ground. Not impossible...Just very difficult. But may be worth the effort. Even the auger on the tractor has problems getting caught up on rocks. The clay would be fine on it's own. But add rocks the size...