Growing Chickens, Guilds and Nest Boxes.

Growing Chickens

Our chickens continue to grown putting on a little bit more weight every day.  We are still more than a month away from getting eggs.  We are starting to let them out to wander in the back yard.  I have enjoyed watching them weed the garden (not really go for the veggies just grass and weeds).  They clearly like hanging out by the compost the best because they find more worms and bugs there.

They are also much more experienced with our dog, Obie, and cat, Ralph.  Obie kind of watches over them.  When he is laying down next to us on a quiet evening, the chickens come over to us and pick unseen things out of his fur until he gets up and moves.  Ralph has had thoughts of getting a chick from the time they were inside in their brooder and he was able to watch them grow.  They are very big by comparison and his dreams of getting one vanished in front of my eyes.  He came out back and was sort of stalking one of the chickens.  I was getting ready to grab him when the chicken turned around, walked over to him and given him a significant peck right between the eyes.  That was it, Ralph ran for the door asking to go inside.  From that moment forward, he hasn't even looked at them.  He won't go out when the chickens are out.

We have hawks that are of concern and as a result, we do not let them just hang out on their own.  I have seen a hawk fly by, see me, and leave.  That was enough for me to plan a better roof for the outside pen.



What the Heck is a Guild?

We are using some ideas borrowed from a kind of farming/landscaping practice called "permaculture" in our backyard.  If you remember, I ripped out a Viburnum to build the coop.  I left one in place and since then we have planted a variety of native plants in and around the drip line of the remaining tree.  In our case we planted Spiderwort, Thistle, and Ramps (native leeks).  This community of plants working in harmony with the shrub is called a guild.  There are more of these communities coming was we plant Cherry, Apple and Pear Trees to complete the permanent additions to our yard/farm.


This area is our chickens' favorite place.  Under the Viburnum behind the ramps and spiderwort.  Shady, cool, buggy.  Perfect.  Wish we'd planned it that way.  They are cute in it, I think the plants benefit from the scratching of the earth and the bug removal.  I think the plants suffer from being stepped on periodically but not enough to discourage the chickens.


Nest Boxes

I am simply announcing here and now - more than a month before they are due to start laying.  The nest boxes, two of them, are nearly complete way before they are needed.  This is a victory for me.  Figured I'd just say so.

Garden imps and the 87 pound rabbit.

It has been too long and I am sorry.  My life became a whirlwind of unexpected proportion all of a sudden.  Now, with a couple days of quieter time, I have a moment to write.

Garden Imps:

Our garden has taken off.  I have harvested more peas,  lettuce and strawberries than ever before.  I am currently trying to keep up with the kale, cucumbers ans zucchini. Breads, soups, and kale crisps. 

Each time I walk about the back door there is a chirp or squeak and a trail of moving plants in this garden.  Some significant numbers of strawberries and cucumbers have been eaten but not enough to really make me upset.  

I was finally able to identify the imp by noting the holes in the sand under our chicken coop and patio pavers...5 stripe chipmunks.  Now, that left me with a question:  who is eating the strawberries and cucumbers? They were getting eaten whole.  I've seen a rabbit or two and thought it I had a solution that question too.

The 87 Pound Rabbit

Our home is set up so that the bedroom windows look out onto the garden.  I am usually the first one up and I have a routine.  I check out the back window on the gardens and the chickens and see that all is well in the morning sun.  I like the peacefulness of the space we have back there.  I feed the dog, make some coffee and let the dog out and sit down to my morning emails. Nice, quiet, peaceful before the day gets going.

It happened that walking the dog a week or so ago, I got badly stung by hornets - never saw the nest, 3 maybe 4 stings on my hand.  It blew up to be the shape of a latex glove used as a balloon and caused nights to be uncomfortable.  All of this is relevant because I was not the first up in the morning.  I woke up to hearing my partner in the kitchen letting the dog out and getting something for breakfast.

I went to the window and saw with my own eyes who has been taking the cucumbers and strawberries.  Its Obie our dog.  I watched as he walked over to the garden, poked his nose under leaf after leaf, take that one, and this one, oh, that one is good too.  87 pounds of rabbit.

He likes kale stems, strawberries (they're done now) and cucumbers.  We have to watch him because he really likes the cucumbers and he's sneaky.

Next post: growing chickens, plant guilds and nest boxes.

A Choosing Time

Wow this came so fast.  I am calling this time on our tiny homestead A Choosing Time. I am guessing there will be more than one.

Choosing Chickens: 

We have had to choose our chickens.  5 Cockerels/Roosters went back to our wonderful breeder including the ever-fun foster chick I *rescued* at Recreation Park.   He was clearly a rooster from the beginning but we enjoyed him a great deal while he was here.  We may have one more that will have to be returned and one that may come back as time tells us more clearly who is hen and who is cockerel.  For now, we are down to 4 chickens and our coop and pen are much much quieter.  The hens are deciding on the new roosting options now that they have more room.  They were scared the first couple days, opting to stay in the coop tempted by their favorite treat, sour clover.


Choosing for New Crops and Next Year:

I have learned a great deal in just this few months about what has been successful in our gardens.  Good news: not many looser crops so far.  Bad News: I want more of everything and thus need more gardening space.  We are loving our large cache of Kale.  Love it.  I want to specialize in Dinosaur Kale but I will see how it goes over the winter.  Swiss Chard...lovely!  It is a big hit with us.  As a plant, it is a heavy feeder but I think we can handle that.

Along adding to the volume of the things I like, I want to try a bunch of new crops: Patty Pan Squash, Pumpkins, Potatoes and I want to try mushrooms. 


The next project will be to close the ends of our gardens in with more gardens to get the space I want. 



And Some Good News:

Obie was allowed to keep his tail for now.  The cyst/abscess nasty thing began to heal nicely in the time between the diagnosis and the scheduled surgery date.  Given the choice, I  opted not to hack it off.  That said, if it gets infected again, we're back to that question.  He did have two large cysts removed and did get the world's worst haircut but he has done surprisingly well. He does insist on walking our block clockwise so his naked patches don't show to the street. He is now back to being our 87lb rabbit eating sunflower leaves, lettuce and strawberries when he gets the chance.

First Havests have Started and a Flood

First Harvests:

We are feeling lucky to be starting to harvest from our gardens.  It is mostly greens but they are wonderful.  We have a couple kinds of lettuce that we love.  One is something called a Trout's Back lettuce.  The Butter Lettuce is especially bright right now. 

We continue to receive seedlings from friends including a series of heritage tomatoes: Purple Cherokee, Speckled Roma, Mr. Stripey and some others.  Our onions are now all in and the peas are starting to climb.  The squash are moving into larger leaves and they starting to reach out a bit.  Our broccoli is showing its head a bit.  On the whole we are pleased and are thinking about the next steps in converting our yard into our homestead.

As you can see the chickens continue to grow and look more and more like they will as adults.  They are curious about everything now that they are outside.  Robins and Blue Jays frighten them and they run back into the coop when one arrives.  I have not seen the hawks I saw earlier this year but I do have the outside run now completely covered in chicken wire and avian netting.  

We are particularly lucky because we had a deluge of rain that left most of our block with flooded basements and flooded yards.  So much so that I spent Sunday pumping out the flood next door so that our yard wouldn't get flooded.

The Flood of 2010 (so far):
The house next door is vacant.  They were long time-residents and a much beloved family here and the neighbors do what we can to keep it up until they are ready to put it on the market.  Including using our spare sump pump to move more than an olympic sized swimming pool of water out of their yard.  7 hours of pumping.

This was the same set of storms that did so much damage in Toledo, Oh and Dundee, MI.  We slept through the whole thing but we got pretty busy the next morning.  Some water in our basement but this pond...this one was going to do damage.  What you see is me standing with the electrical cord in my hand (dry and above the water) and the PVC pipe and pump leaning on my thigh as it pumps water out to the storm drains in the street.

I am pleased with my decision to keep the pump with a faulty on/off switch (always on) as a spare.  It really came in handy AND the new pump I replaced it with worked wonders.  I was even more pleased that I found a flat spot for the pump and I could get out of the water. 

And with that, I think I will take my chair out back and enjoy the evening.

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.