It is not sophisticated, but it works. I cut off the bottom two inches or so of a red Solo cup, punched two holes with a paper punch, and used poly twine to tie it to the leg of the work bench. It works.
When I find the right fancy bottle (ok, when I empty the right fancy bottle), I’ll try making a grit dispenser like Lisa’s, but until then, this works.
We did our chicken health check: weight, band size, vent, feet. It has been about a month since the last one. I meant to do it sooner, but it was either hot, or we were tired. I don’t want to overly handle the chickens when it is hot to avoid overheating (especially since our “feels like” temperature is consistently getting into the 100s). And since it is a two person job, doing it tired leads to grouchiness.
The chickens are growing well (Magic is the largest at 1315 grams, or 2.9 pounds). Their vents are clean, their feet look healthy, and we only needed to change out a few bands.
I did figure out how to change the colors on the series in my chart, so now the colors match the leg bands on the chickens, which really helps me to read the chart!
I’ve started to use a wooden basket to carry out ice packs and frozen gallon jugs to the coop to help keep the chickens cool. The pink plastic basket just wasn’t up to the task. My inside cat has seen the basket go out many times. So she decided to try and hitch a ride (or it was a case of “if I fits I sits”, she is a cat after all). I wasn’t fooled.
She has since regularly settled down for a nap in the basket.
So we have started using a 5-gallon bucket for the ice, and let the cat have her chosen bed. Because we are cat minions.
Our volunteer morning glories are starting to bloom in the back yard. I used to plant morning glories and moon flowers at my old houses; it is rather neat that these are propagating in their own. Especially since the seeds I planted here didn’t take!
The run rotation is still working! I let the chickens into the middle run where the scratch grains had sprouted and were about 5 inches tall. The chickens loved it.
The grain in the far run has just sprouted, and I seeded and watered the close run, which had been stripped nearly bare in a week.
