My wife and I kept talking about getting a pet(s) but the traditional dog/cat thing wouldn't work out for us for a variety of reasons. We've always wanted a pig but came up with some reasons why we shouldn't get one. Then we started thinking that chickens would be fun: they're low maintenance, they live outside, they're better at composting things than I am (I never stir the pile), and they'll give us eggs. They're not super cuddly but they can be friendly. So back in May we got 7 chicks.
Everyone likes "chick pics"
- Joan Jett
- Beaker
- Lucille 2
The bird in the last picture is a Black Copper Marans. They have a genetic defect where they sometimes have webbed feet. We got her from a breeder who couldn't keep her because she couldn't be bred due to the syndactyly (there's your vocabulary word for the day!) which was holding two of her toes together. When she was a few weeks old we performed surgery on her toes by cutting the webbing (clean, numb with topical lidocane, cut, glue with surgical super glue). Within hours she stopped falling over and started to perch.
After getting the chickens we then had to build them a coop. We decided on a large (6x10 foot) chicken tractor (mobile coop with attached run). Building it took all of our weekends for about two months.
I chose the color scheme based off some yellow houses we saw in Sweden, many of which had red tile roofs.
Some highlights of their living space:
Made from the lightest construction we could use (3/8" plywood, 2x3 and 1x3 construction, polycarbonate roof)
Interior painted with wooden boat paint for durability and ease of cleaning
Composting floor of the coop (deep litter method)
Water bite nipples that the chickens peck at to get water (prevents the use of water toughs which getting dirty)
Automatic door with solar charger and photosensor (programmed to open 90 mins after sunrise and close at sunset)
Hardware cloth "skirt" around perimeter to deter digging predators
Wheels mounted on levers: flip "skirt" upwards, press lever down and latch in place, coop lifts up allowing us to pick up on the other end and roll it to a new place.
We move it every few days to give them fresh grass. When they get larger we'll put up a fence around part of the yard to give them more space to roam.
By the end of August I need to have their nesting boxes built. We have a mix of different breeds so our eggs might look like this
- eggs.jpg (21.79 KiB) Viewed 7148 times
They're getting bigger but we're still not sure which birds are going to be roosters and which ones will be hens.