June 4th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: coop, feed, pecking order
A couple of days ago I decided that I no longer want to wake up at 6:45am on a weekend and sent off for an automatic door opener for my coop. Whilst I was at it I also ordered a new feeder and some powdered disinfectant. My order arrived at my work today so I brought it home at lunch time (apart from the disinfectant – it was way to heavy to carry on foot).
When I got home I set up the feeder and filled it with food. I put it in the coop and straight away Daisy decided that the food would be better on the floor. I sat and watched her for about 10 minutes methodically scraping all of the pellets out onto the run floor.
Daisy making a mess
I am impressed with the quality of the feeder. It was quite expensive but it is a lot better than my other one: You can adjust the size of the gap at the bottom where the pellets fall out and it has an attached rain cover meaning that I can keep it out in the open instead of underneath the coop. The main reason I decided to get a new feeder was that the pellets used to get jammed in the bottom of the other one. Once this had happened the girls used to kick it over and the rest of the pellets would end up on the floor.
While I was watching the girls investigate their new feeder I noticed that Meg was getting picked on a bit. Daisy went straight over the the feeder, and a few minutes later Victoria followed. Every time Meg got anywhere close to it Victoria would chase her away. It was actually pretty horrible to watch
The girls had fun with thier new feeder
When I got in from work this is what I saw – as you can see, the fact that they could get to the pellets didn’t stop them from knocking the feeder over!
The next thing I did was to remove the old door and replace it with the new aluminium door and automatic opener. The door and opener cost me over £100 but hopefully it will mean that I can have a lay in on the weekends. It took me about an hour to get it fitted correctly – the main bit that was difficult was tying the knot in the bit of string that attaches the opener to the door.
The main thing that I was worried about is that the girls would get trapped outside, but they went into the house at about 9:00pm and the door shut on its own at about 9:30pm.
The new door isn't pretty but it works
The door opener is mounted above the door and raises it with a draw string
The only problem with the door opener is that I have had to mount it over some of the ventilation holes in the top of the coop. I think I am going to have to drill a few more holes tomorrow…
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!
May 28th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, comb, fence, netting
Today I decided to put up a bit more netting around the chicken’s area. They have recently been escaping by jumping up onto the fence and then onto the coop and down the other side. I decided to extend the netting so that it runs along the roof of the coop and all around the fence at the side. Now it must be un-escapable!
I have added netting up the back of the coop and along the fence at the side of the enclosure
While I was in there I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a few mug shots of the girls. Their combs are looking so big now!
Daisy's comb used to be so tiny...
This one is a little bit blurry - it's difficult to make a chicken sit still!
May 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, fence, free range, netting, treats
This weekend my girlfriend was on holiday so I decided to go away for the weekend and see my parents. My girlfriend’s mum offered to come up and look after the chickens which saved me paying pet sitters to come around and look after them.
I was a little bit nervous about leaving the girls for the weekend, and to make things worse as soon as I let the girls out on Saturday morning, Victoria jumped up on the fence. That was the first time I had seen any of them go up onto the fence and I was worried that she would end up in next door’s garden.
In the end I had nothing to worry about and the girls were fine – although they did make a few attempts to escape the netted off area of the garden! Apparently whilst I was gone the girls had managed to find their way into the rest of the garden a few times. When I got back I let the girls out and within 20 minutes of doing so Daisy had escaped and was scratching about in a pile of grass clippings by my compost bin. She was only out there for about 2 minutes but she managed to spread the pile around half of the garden! I think I am going to have to put some netting around the fence and the top of the coop before I let the girls out again.
One more thing happened today that made me laugh. I went out into the garden and put some meal worms in the run for the girls, in an empty washing up bowl that I put in the run about a week ago. I went back inside to watch tv, and when I looked out I could only see 2 chickens – Meg was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed the washing up bowl was upside-down and moving around by itself! I realised that Meg had somehow managed to get trapped underneath it and was walking around with it completely covering her. It looked really funny and she didn’t seem to be at all bothered by it (I think she was still hoovering up some meal worms that were underneath).
May 16th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 1 Comment »
Tags: eggs
A couple of days ago I got the biggest egg yet – there is a photo of it in the entry for 14th May. I ate it this morning in a bacon and fried egg sandwich and it was a double yolker!
Double Yolker