Little stinker. I put up the sunscreens and Sophie thought she can wiggle into the coop like she did last year (she can walk on the fabric, but not the wire). She forgot that I used 2x4s to block her entrance. So she’ll settle for looking over the edge like a gargoyle.
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.
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!
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
My folks gave me an early present: a new coop camera! Now I can pan the camera from my phone and see the roost and the isolation ward. Here is a slightly longer video at night.
I mounted the old camera outside the coop so I can see the chickens in the runs. That’s entertainment.
Critters and Craft 