Category: Coop

Spring coop clean

On By CarynIn chickens, Coop

The sun has started to shine again. The spring rains aren’t done, but my eldest and I had some time to clean out the coop. Exercise and cleaning and out of the house! We put the chickens in a run with some scratch and some water, since they freak out when we mess with their coop. It worked well to have them not underfoot and not panicking.

Chickens locked in their run and out of the way

We removed all the old pine shavings and droppings, washed down the roost and sprayed it with vinegar, swept up and dusted. Then we put the roost back in, put new straw and dried lavender in the nest boxes, dusted everything with diatomaceous earth, and spread out four and a half bags of pine shavings. We didn’t spread out one the bags to see how long it would take the chickens to disperse it themselves. They did a fair job and had a low hill by the end of the day. Oh were they happy to go back to their coop!

Spring rain storm

On By CarynIn Coop

Well that was a gully washer. A right spring storm (and yes, it is January). Almost three inches in about two hours. And all those fallen fall leaves ganged up with the twigs and dammed my drainage, flooding the chicken runs. My poor wet chickens were blocked out of their coop. I opened the people door and they all ran back inside. The coop stayed dry (except for beneath the window I left open, sigh).

Covered run flooded

It took about 30 minutes with a hoe and a rake to clear the ditches and let the water drain. My Fitbit says I burned 1,000 calories. Not bad for 30 minutes.

Covered run after the water drained

I cleared the drainage just in time, since the water was almost to the bottom of the feeder and rising. I found a nice sturdy rock to put outside the pop door so the chickens have a landing spot, even if it floods again, and I pushed all the detritus against the run thresholds and packed it down to help redirect water. When it dries out I’ll have to haul in some more dirt to replace what washed away.

Captures from the outside camera

The outside camera caught most of the action. I combined pictures from 5am dry, 7:48am wet, 8:05am completely flooded, and 8:39 when I had at least found land even if it was muddy. I took pity on them and strung up a feeder inside.

Temporary inside feeder while the water receeds

Opening the extra vents

On By CarynIn Coop
Covered extra vent

I am particularly thankful for the extra vents that my husband included along the top of the chicken coop. There are six vents in addition to the vents in the eaves, and it helps with circulation especially in the summer. When I made the vent covers with the simple wooden latch, I was going for very simple just to have something to close the extra ventilation when it was cold. It is always nice when something works out better than planned. Because the latches are large, I can work them with the end of a handle, and don’t have to get a stool or ladder to get up there and close them by hand. So in our Texas “winters” when the temperature reaches up into the 70s, but then drops below freezing, I can open up everything quickly for the day, and close up just as quickly as night approaches.

Ice water

On By CarynIn Coop

Ice water is great in the summer, not so great in the winter. We’ve had another cold front bringing sub-freezing temps (again, this is not normal for Texas). During the last freeze the chicken waterer outside froze, but the inside waterer was OK. Not this time. After breaking out the ice twice in an hour I headed to the farm store for a solution.

I found a heated dog water dish for about $20! (There was a chicken set up, but the warmer and the metal waterer together was over $80.) I was again very thankful that my husband installed power in the coop, and put outlets on three walls, inside and out. The outside outlet is in a perfect place to plug in the water dish.

Heated water dish beside the feeder

I’m still quite good at freaking out the chickens, like by carrying a ladder around a corner. But I am improving because I noticed the freak out, stopped, waited for them to stop bouncing off the poultry wire and put themselves away in the coop before I took the big scary ladder in the run. The heated water dish fit where the hanging waterer was, so I moved the hanging waterer over a bit (which is why I needed the ladder).

Hanging water (red) is frozen, the heated bowl (green) is not

The bowl had a thermostat that only heats the water if it is cold enough to freeze. The next morning showed that it worked! And I witnessed a chicken drinking from the new bowl. Phew!