First Post: Chicken Progress

Just a quick note: there will be two posts today.  I have the time, I'm goin for it!

Building a chicken coop for city chickens can either be incredibly complicated or very simple.  Ours is not at the complicated end of the spectrum but its on the way there - formal walls, doors, windows, and a proper structure and roof.  I went this route for two reasons.  First, the more sturdy the coop the better I'll sleep.  Second, I had the vast majority of the materials sitting in/choking my shop.  They are what remains of my former workshop.

First it was a foundation.

Then came walls.

 Then a proper roof.

And last but not least, The chicks!

I took the opportunity to sit with them in the fresh bedding for a while.  They are very cute in their new digs.  The windows are working perfectly.  I still have to build some nest boxes and their outside runs (coming soon).

 They have adult sized feeder and waterer and a dust bath.  The still have their chick-size roost but more are coming.  The human door is attached, the chicken door still needs to be installed. 

A couple things I did along the way:

First many thanks to the wonderful person who put her storm windows up on craigslist for free.  These are the windows you see.  I installed them backwards so they could be opened from the outside.

Second: The all of the sides and windows that are not covered by wood are covered with either hard cloth or chicken wire.  This coop is critter proof.


Third: I planned for winter now.  The walls are insulated if they aren't a window or door.  Second, I set up a way to simply insulate under the roof when winter comes. 

What do to from here?  Plenty.  I have to make two outside runs for these birds.  Both of these runs will be solid and set up for winter ahead of time too.  I plan to put plastic sheeting on at least one to help warm the coop.  Also, I have a spot reserved for nest boxes and those need to be in by late August.  And lastly...roosts.  These birds prefer to sleep off the ground and the higher the better...so I need to put in a few roosts.

So there it is:  Coop warming party will happen soon.

Second Post: The Yard

Our Yard is starting to take shape.  In the beginning, I said we had very little to go on in making our little home in the city into an Urban Homestead.  We have made some progress.

Half of our front yard is in deep shade.  We transplanted ferns from a friend's home early on.  They seem to be doing well.  We added two kinds of Hosta (variegated, and plain) and a bunch of Sweet Woodruff to the mix yesterday- about 20 Hosta and an equal amount of of the Sweet Woodruff.  These came to us from my Mother's front yard.  She has a bountiful supply and offered.  I will try to dig up some more next time I am there.

In the back yard, our veggie gardens are starting to take off and our other plantings are too.  I transplanted my peonies as soon  as I couple and both are blooming wonderfully.  We are trying to make the back yard more mower (meaning the person no the machine) friendly and will be taking up more and more bits of lawn as the summer continues.  For now we have made the peony patch bigger and added a couple Lupine and a Feverfew plant  to that.  We have also added another raised bed garden for asparagus.  We have planted a few roots of cultivated asparagus and, honestly, we'll be heading out to get some wild asparagus too. 

Our next steps are all based on managing water.   Rain barrels and  probably a wetland on the side of the house to clean and use gray water from our sump pumps. 

Coop Construction and Busy Time

Coop Construction: 
The Chicken Coop is under way and is taking shape nicely.  It is going to have a skinny human door, two chicken doors (there will be two outside runs) and a little front porch to get out of the weather. 

In general fully grown chickens need about 3 feet of coop space provided there is an outside run.  7 feet each for the outside run.  Our required max is 4 laying hens. The inside part of the coop has 30 square feet so we're good.  The outside space for birds is something like 8 feet per bird.  We will be WAY beyond the 32 feet minimum. I am ahead of myself.

The Chicks

Our chicks continue to grow and continue to feather out.  As you can see they are all doing well.  The new arrival seems to have found its place amongst the rest.  They grow even when it rains - and that means I have to get this coop done in the next day or so to take advantage of the sunny weather.
A Busy Time:

It is a busy and challenging time here in our home.  Some of the news is difficult.  I have a friend who has fought breast cancer for 14 years and is coming to the end of her war.  Obie, our beloved golden retriever will be having surgery to amputate his tail soon.  He has developed a series of abscesses need to be tended too.  One is on his tail and there isn't enough skin to close it back up.  He is nearly 14 and this makes the surgery, while still needed, more risky.  I have more work both on our little urban homestead and for customers than I ever intended to have.  All of this is to say that I intend to keep posting at least once a week, I may miss a bit.

And I Got This Call...

a voice said "there is an adolescent chicken hanging out on the play equipment at Rec Park, can you rescue it"?

I was standing in the veterinarian's office with Obie who has an infection on this tail.  Visiting the vet today was not my plan and I certainly had no intention of chasing a chicken around in a public park.  But I said I would go see.

After our vet loaded us up with antibiotics and a satellite dish collar, I loaded Obie into the van and we went on an adventure.

Turns out this little chick was not an adolescent by any stretch.  More like two weeks old- same age as my chicks.  The people at the park said he was on the play set and slid down the slide.  And now, I have are 9 chicks.

I brought the chick home and started with it in a separate box with water and feed.  Obviously starving and thirsty, it drank and ate everything it could and feel asleep.  Then the music started: peep peep peep.  Then a return from the other box: peep peep peep.  Pretty soon it was clear that both boxes knew about each other.  Then, as if to explain how this chick was on the run, it jumped up onto the edge of the box and hopped over onto the top of the other box.  I lifted the lid and let this little one join the crowd.

So far, so good.  I have seen some minimal pecking.  The Buckeye chicks are very concerned about tall dark and beautiful but are getting used to it.  This new chick also seems to have a solid set of self-defense skills.  They all seem to be settling in nicely.

I sent several emails to the various lists of people around and I am hopeful someone will come forward to reclaim their chick.  If not, well, I'll be waiting to see if we have a hen or a roo.

Growing Chicks and Changes Outside

First the Chicks:
Lots of growing and changing on all fronts.  They are learning to view humans as possible food providers and have started eating food out of our hands.  This is good now.  I expect it to be painful later on.

As you will see, their digs have changed too - they needed a bigger box and a littler change.

This whole process, according to them, was the most traumatic event ever. Oh, the peeping! Murder most fowl.  I cut the end off the new box, set up the litter, feeder and water in it and moved the chicks in there.  Then emptied the old box and cut its end off too.  I married the two boxes together , added littler and added a wooden roost. I don't know if it is too early for the roost but they are climbing all over it and seem to very interested in the change.

There is one more change coming.  I arrived home after work on evening to find the door to the office wide open, the cat asleep on the chair and the dog asleep on the floor.  The chicks were fine but it is clear that I just got lucky.  So there will be a top for their box coming this weekend.  In this case, better safe than lucky. 

As you can also see - they are really growing.  New sets of feathers everyday.  It is warmer out so the move out to the garage is coming closer (unless I get the coop done first).

Now for the Gardens:  
They are growing too.  Sprouts everywhere.  We did have one loss with the continual rain and I will be replacing our "Trout Back" lettuce today at the Growing Hope Plant sale.  It just plain rotted out. Drowned.  The new additions for this week are flowers. Elizabeth wanted flowers as part of our back yard and here they are!  Zinnias, Pansies, Daisies, and Black-eyed Susans.    I will have to add the picture later...camera has to charge up. 

The Peep Show...

Peeps! They have arrived...

And they are now set up for a few days in the study because its too freakin' cold out to have them in the garage.

Buckeye Chickens
So, what kind of chickens did I get?  Buckeyes.  First, honestly, I didn't want the same old chicken I keep seeing all over the place.  So I did a little research on chicken breeds and, there was a somewhat rare heritage breed developed by Nettie Metcalf in Ohio.  She was trying to create a breed of chicken that was cold-hardy.

Buckeyes are darker birds and have a pea comb that isn't as susceptible to injuries from frostbite.  The ones pictured to the left are the "parents" to my peeps.  The adults, I'm told are pretty easy going.  They are "dual purpose" birds.  This means they are for both eggs and meat.  I've been told that dual purpose birds are not as high volume in the egg department but they lay for a longer stretch of their lifetimes and have a more easy going temperament.  Bred by a woman, bred in Ohio...called Buckeyes.  I'm there! I grew up in central Ohio and I love the idea of buckeye chickens living in Ann Arbor (and Ypsilanti is the perfect spot for that kind of rebellion).

Turns out I am not first comer to that party.  There is a breeder here in the Ann Arbor area and he was fabulous to work with.  A visit to his farm was wonderful:  llamas were getting shorn; Tennessee Fainting Goat kids were running around; and he has some Guinea fowl that where fascinating.

Peeps

So far the chicks have settled in nicely.  Scratching and pecking in their box.  The office is warmer than it was and that is good for me because we are refusing to turn the heat back on and the rest of the house is cold. 

Right now they have a heat lamp over them.  They have a waterer and a feeder set up to one side.  The heat lamp gave me fits yesterday.  I had them in another box and it was clearly way too hot and the box was too short - they were almost jumping out of it.  So on to a larger box  with the heat lamp at a higher (meaning cooler) position.  It took most of the evening to get the lamp right (up, down - warmer, cooler).  The birds told the story.  They were either huddled on top of one another or all separate and panting.  I have a digital thermometer set up in the box too - just to keep track.  They seem to be happiest at an 84 - 86 degrees. 

Corn cob bedding...for chicks...not so good.  The cob bits look almost exactly like their food so until they know what their food is, don't use it.  I had to switch out.  Later on?  I think think corn cob, while expensive, is a good idea.  It is very absorbent and its kind of like really course sand.

Next Step
The next step will be a move out to a larger brooder in the garage (with a hardwire top).  It is just too cold to do that right now.   Plus, I think the closer contact with me is a good thing.  They were pretty scared yesterday.  They seem more settled today but I still feel like I am this invading giant.  Obie has made a couple visits too. He seems very interested but nothing like the cat who spent last night trying to open the study door.

Falling Asleep
We are just getting started but I can see all the typical chicken things I would expect: scratching, stretching, an early pecking order.  One cute thing to mention is that they fall asleep in mid stride.  Boom, out.  Then back up for more.  They do this as a group too - huddled in a corner and fall asleep slowly - the group looks like a deflating air mattress.

The are incredibly cute.

More Transformation Front and Back

So for this weekend, our continued transformation has brought us plants from the Growing Hope Seedling sale and a few additions from friends.

Our gardens are growing now with seedlings and seeds of various veggies.  The list is long but some of the highlights are a couple striped heritage tomatoes, black root lettuce, collards, bell peppers and Kale...we love kale, thus there is a bunch of both curly kale and dinosaur kale.  The dino kale is new but anything called dinosaur would probably find a home in my garden.  The idea that its kale is even better.




There a couple more additions to the yard that are worth talking about.  First up is the dark half of the front yard.  It has no grass, it is very dark shade and its wet.  We decided to make it into something resembling a woodland trail from the back of the house to the front.  This would include a walk way and ferns.  I went back to my desire for anything that is NOT grass and IS edible and thus today we spent some time planting Cinnamon Ferns (fiddle heads in spring).  I am very excited about all of this. 

Second is a replacement boundary for the hedge at the entry to the drive way.  Officially its an alley.  There is pretty useless hedge there now so what to do?  Well, another remarkable urban homesteader friend of ours showed up with a couple Hazel Nut seedlings.  Yup - nuts.  The trees grow to a reasonable size (in this case maybe 10 feet tall) and take about 3 years to start  bearing nuts provides there are both male and female trees in the same general area.  There isn't a way to really tell which are which so we planted two, we'll probably plant a couple more just to be sure.