Speaking of coops, Byron and I have plans to build a much larger portable hen house soon. The old girls have been giving us about an egg a day (we suspect only one is laying but aren't sure), so we're going to try to get some pullets (young birds) and then chicks later in the spring. Chickens recognize each other, so we're not sure how introducing new hens to the old is going to work. If they start pecking each other's eyes out, we'll have to move on to soon-to-be-devised Plan B.
Our friend, Melvin, who is a long-time farmer, has given us an old trailer to use as a base for the hen house! I sadly missed the photo op of Byron coming down the driveway hanging onto the back of Melvin's tractor; supposedly it had to do with making sure the trailer behaved itself on the short trip from Melvin's farm. Nonetheless, I snapped this one:
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| The base of the hen house. Thanks, Melvin! |
About half a mile away, we have neighbors who are building a home...and tearing down an old barn. Since they didn't have a place to store their horses' hay this winter, we're letting them store it in our barn. When Byron saw them yesterday, they told him he was welcome to salvage whatever wood he wanted from the old barn! He spent the afternoon picking out 1x6s for the hen house and locust posts, which we'll use when we build a fence. And our neighbors didn't want this old table:
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| Friskies stares me down. I'm not sure what her plans are for the table, but I'm thinking a refinished top and a fun color painted on the bottom will make it a great place to homeschool. |
We have had no issues introducing new chickens. It's gone very smoothly. They're typically friendly gals.
ReplyDeleteOnly 2 (out of 10) of our hens are laying right now, but they lay pretty much daily, so we're not having to buy eggs so long as we don't cook up a dozen at once or something.