Category: chickens

Decommissioned

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop

When we added two chickens to the flock and had them separated, I put a hanging feeder in with them. When I integrated the flock I kept the hanging feeder full because I wasn’t sure the new hens would be able to use the Grandpa’s Feeder my original flock used. Turns out that all the hens preferred the hanging feeder. The advantage of the “Grandpa’s Feeder” is the wild birds and rats aren’t heavy enough to activate the lever and open the food bin. The disadvantage is that bugs can still get in. When checking feed I discovered that the entire bin was full of food riddled with holes.

Photo description: chicken feed in a Grandpa’s Feeder riddled with insect holes

One of the other advertised advantages of the Grandpa’s Feeder is that the metal grid and high sides keep the chickens from wasting food because they can’t fling it out of the container. A hanging feeder has this same advantage, so I emptied out the Grandpa’s feeder and decommissioned it, since I was only feeding bugs.

Photo description: hanging feeder filled with chicken feed

Another advantage of the hanging feeder is that I can see the food level from a distance. A disadvantage is that it is open on the top and if we get a heavy rain storm I loose a batch of feed to the wet. I’ve moved the feeder farther inside the porch area of the coop to see if that fixed the weather problem. Overall, the hens prefer the hanging feeder, and the hanging feeder is a fraction of the cost of a Grandpa’s Feeder.

Late pumpkin carving

On By CarynIn chickens

Full disclosure, I bought pumpkins before Halloween, but we didn’t get round to carving them until after. I think this might be the second year this has happened, maybe the third. Hm. I specifically bought pie pumpkins so they could nourish the chickens after carving. The large carving pumpkins are stringy and the hens don’t care for them as much. Since at least one pumpkin was going straight to the chickens, I had to give it a horrified look.

Photo description: small pie pumpkins carved with a open mouth showing square teeth, one round eye, and one eye hanging out of the socket

I hung the pumpkin up for the chickens using a carabiner clip. Last year I remembered to cut the bottom out to scoop out the seeds so the pumpkin could hang from its stem. I forgot this year, but it looks a little like the pumpkin is horrified that it lost it’s lid, or that a hen is coming.

Photo description: pumpkin hanging in the coop with a Black Star hen approaching the lid on the ground

Fun with pumpkins and chickens.

Negative volume

On By CarynIn chickens

Not that it has been awhile since I was able to fill the chicken’s dust bath, but the volume in the tire was negative.

Photo description: old rubber tire used as a chicken dust bath with the inside soil level below the tire and surrounding ground level
Photo description: approximately six gallons of dust bath mixture (wood ash, soil, and diatomaceous earth) added to the tire bath

There is room for another batch or two of dust bath mixture.

Iron in the ash

On By CarynIn chickens

My folks visited and Dad burned some of our wood pile to make ash for the chickens, since we actually had an allowed burn day. I haven’t made ash in over a year because of time restraints and burn restrictions. As we shooed the spiders and geckos out of the iron cauldron I use as a fire pit, I noticed a large flake of rust fall off. I don’t want the chickens eating that, so when the ashes cooled, I used a fishing magnet to remove the metal.

Photo description: fishing magnet covered in ashy bits of iron, more ash in the cauldron in the background

I dredged the ash with a magnet four or five times before I was no longer collecting large flakes of iron.

Photo description: iron cauldron with about two gallons of ash, and a small metal bucket with about two cups of iron flakes

There is still iron in the ash, but small enough grains that it shouldn’t cause hardware stomach in the chickens. Hardware stomach is where the farm animal eats wire or nails or some other metallic object, and the object damages the digestive tract, often leading to death.

Mesh repair

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop

In the light of day I went out to repair the rips in the hardware cloth in the chicken runs so no more skunks could slips through. I took scraps of half inch hardware cloth and wired it to the damaged quarter inch hardware cloth.

Photo description: 1/4” hardware cloth with large rip along the bottom

I found that with two layers of hardware cloth, making a spiral of aluminum wire made it easier to lace the wire through the cloth, since I didn’t have anyone on the other side to feed the wire back to me.

Photo description: hand formed wire spring shape from aluminum wire
Photo description: twisting the spring into two layers of hardware cloth

After threading the spring through the layers several times, I would tighten the loops and twist in the ends. Using this method and using smaller wire “ties”, I reinforced the rips, and secured the solid mesh over the weakened areas.

Photo description: double layer of hardware cloth installed to repair tears

I also put a layer of 2×4 no climb welded wire on the outside as protection from weed whackers. As a precaution, I have been making sure the coop is secure at night, rather than relying on run security. I do have an automatic chicken door, but I check each night that it is working, and verify it opened in the morning.

I think it was Jade that was taken down by the skunk, but it could have been Schmoo. I won’t be able to tell for sure until next molting season, since Jade has (had?) a very distinct feather loss pattern.