December 16th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, DIY, eggs, mud, rain
November has been the first period with a lot of rain since I created the enclosure down the end of the garden, and the ground is starting to get very muddy! There are 2 problems with this: The first problem is that the chickens love to walk in the mud and then walk all over the eggs, which means the eggs get very muddy. The second problem is that when I try to clean the coop out, I nearly fall over in the slippery mud.
The best way to solve both problems would probably be to put down a load of woodchip in the run, but that will have to wait until next year. For now I have added this lovely board walk so that I can get to the coop to clean them out without sliding around in the mud.
Check out my lovely board walk!
The other thing that I have done recently is invested in a basket for collecting eggs. This is a little thing that has made a big difference to my cleaning / egg collecting routine. Before I had to collect the eggs, climb back over the fence with them (hard when you have 6 eggs in your hands) and put them inside. I would then go back into their area and clean up. With my basket I can do it all in one go, and I don’t end up dropping the eggs in the mud!
This is such a time saver
September 26th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, coop, DIY, escape attempts, fence, naughty, weldmesh
I have had to put Victoria back into the pen a couple of times each day since I got back from Spain. Chasing Victoria around the garden isn’t that bad – sometimes it’s good fun chasing a chicken around the garden, but I think she finds it stressful and I don’t like having to do it when I have woken up late for work and she is being uncooperative. Luckily I have found a solution!
Hopefully this will stop her from escaping...
I have put a weldmesh fence on the side of the coop that she was jumping off – I don’t think she can clear the fence from the ground but she can easily jump from the coop roof into the garden. I have put the fence on the edge of the coop that she would jump off of – she can still get onto the roof (and crap all over it as usual) but she won’t be able to get out and destroy my garden. Now I just have to wait and see if it actually works…
June 1st, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: cleaning, coop, DIY, nest box, poo
Recently I have been finding that cleaning the poo out of the coop is a little bit unpleasant. It’s not because I have to pick up the chicken poo – I have got used to that now. The reason that I have been finding it difficult is that I have to hold the nest box lid open with one hand, whilst leaning on the fence in an awkward position and clean the chicken poo out with my other hand (obviously I wear gloves). What makes matters worse is that the awkward position I have to stand in often brings my face quite close to the chicken poop.
Well not anymore! I finally decided to do something about it and added this hi-tech invention to the side of my coop.
This took me a whole 2 minutes to do and I think it may even have cost me just over 20p...
I had some hooks in my garage and decided to tie a bit of string round them to hold the door open. When I was walking through the house to get the string I found this little rubber ring on the floor so decided to tie it on the end of the string to put over the hook – I don’t even know what it is or where it came from. It’s amazing how such a small effort has made my life easier!