New additions to the flock

[Bethan]

Im thinking your beautiful new coop must be up & running by now. Awesome fun times. Love the pic of your 4 all together outside. They do look out for us dont they? Ruby watches me in the house & does a little chicken dance when she sees me coming outside. I expect she is hoping for treats. My girls are surviving days in the coop while im at work. No probs. No injuries. I let them into their garden for 2 hours when i get home. Summer is coming on here so longer days of light & sunshine which we all make the most of. You made reference to your chicken family, or something like that. Yeah. Thats what ive got now. Two was great but these additions have made a social change for the better. I recon Ruby & Harri would actually miss Rose & Lily if there were gone. Still only Harri sleeping on the perch but the little mess they make i clean up every day & eggs are perfectly clean. Im going to leave them to choose where they sleep if it stays ok. They may want to use the perch when the weather warms up. Id send pics but i do BYC on my phone & pics dont transfer to the thread. You might like to see my girls on my profile page. Have a safe day

 

[CHICKENTIKKA82]

Yep the new coop is up and running. Got some lights delivered from Amazon today. It gets dark here at about 4.30pm at the moment and they struggle a bit in the new house to find there way around because they are new to it. Just got some battery powered cheap click on LED lights to put on around bed time and the. Switch off when I shut them in for the night. Silly I know but practical.

All 4 girls are dust bathing today. All together. Well with a 8 inch gap between each group ha! Close enough. Also gave them all a dusting in DE powder today. Just to be on the safe side. It was going so well until my wedding ring fell out into a massive tub of powder. Took me 30 minutes to find it as I originally thought it fell into the run. Phew! Close call.

Just leaving them to it in the garden today again. I plan on separating the garden in the spring as I get tired of cleaning up poop everywhere. But prevents the flies and also easy with a hose pipe on the pavements and even on the grass.

Just before I had to leave to pick my daughter up I realised there was nothing in for lunch that was quick..... Until I remembered! There's always eggs ha ! Mmmmmm tasty.

Got some more projects coming up including a chicken swing and some outdoor perches. So I'll keep you posted and also put some pictures on.

Take it easy.

 

[Bethan]

Ha ha re the coop lights. I fully understand. When mine were fluffing about trying to get settled i confess to aiming my torch through the window trying to give them some light so they could see where the perch was. They seem to have each chosen their preferred regular sleeping possi now. Glad you found your ring! Thats something that could never be really replaced. With regard to fencing off a chicken area, yeah that works well for me. Has a few plants, 2 trees & 3 big pots in there & a bigger pot that is a frog pond ( heaps of tadpoles). They hop up on the edge & drink out of it & sit up on the pots. They seem to find it all interesting. Its easy to quickly rake over (most days) & a spray with the hose. Keeps the flies & smell down. Sometimes i leave the hose on very slow trickle on the trees & the girls play in the puddle. Oh & i have a little compost heap in there that they love to trash. I just rake it up high again for the next day. The swing you mentioned intrigues me. I suspect chickens would love that. Regards to you & your family. B

 

[CHICKENTIKKA82]

Had a bit of nightmare yesterday with all birds sick after using DE powder. Sneezing, coughing, struggling to breathe. Anyway cleaned out the coop and removed all DE. Hens are happier now. Another learning curve. The lights also became a bit of an issue. The hens don't seem to like knowing where they are going in the coop. Once they see who is sat next to them they get a bit peed off and do a bit of "get out of the way" pecking. Turn the light off and they all naturally huddle together in one corner of the new bigger coop. Ah .... Whatever! They are sorted now. Had a rough day with my daughter being very sick so nothing else done apart from got 5 minutes to add some more ventilation holes to the coop so now there is air passing higher up from one side to the other. Just to prevent any further respiratory problems.

Phew. Tough day. Hope yours was more successful

 

[Bethan]

Sorry to hear you had a bad day Chickentikka. Seems to me it can be 2 steps forward & 1 back with new projects like this. Especially kids & pets Well i messed up too. Although i said i would leave it to the girls to sort out their sleeping arrangements i founf Harri & both newbies pushing one another for space in 1 nest box. I lifted Harri out ok, she & i have bonded nicely ( had here since she was 6 weeks old) but 1 of the others gave me a hard pec & then chaos broke out amongst the girls. Ive now learned to definetly leave them to it. After all, what does an interfering human know about such chicken business? Ive read a fair bit about natural approaches such as garlic to avoid mite & other such chicken probs. Im inclined toward that type of approach myself. Haven't done anything along those lines tet. Hope your little girl is feeling better. Sooo glad its the weekend!!!! Yay!!!! And yeah, when i go looking for what to eat there are always amazing eggs. I am trying to perfect soft boiled eggs (with toast soldiers of course)