silarajc's "Starting a Farm" Journal

[CntryBoy777]

Those Great-Horned owl can be pretty bothersome, and will attack during daylight hours also. We have a couple of nesting pairs not too far from us, so I have to be vigilant. Ya did the rooster a favor....and he did his job by protecting his hens and others....he died with Honor. As the overseer, there are many qualifications that fit under that "Cap"....and that is just one of them. That was a big "Test" of whether ya could make the "Hard Choice", and ya sure "Passed the Test"....

 

[Baymule]

You might want to make your coop floor into a tool shed or something else useful. Most of us put the coop on the dirt and skirt around it with strong wire to prevent digging in by predators and snakes. With a dirt floor, the chickens can scratch, you can toss in leaves, grass clippings, garden stuff like corn shucks, cobs, pea hulls, kitchen trimmings......what they don't eat, they scratch to bits and poop on. In a few months you have dark crumbly compost--garden gold. It's called the deep litter method. And you don't have to keep cleaning the floor. To me, that is a PITA job, especially when I already have so much to do. Really? Clean the coop floor? I need to use that time to clean my own danged floor, thank you very much!

 

[silarajc]

Well, I just dispatched two mice that got stuck on glue traps in my basement, with pruning shears. My daughter says I'm becoming the master of killing things.

I was going to try the deep litter method with the new coop, but mostly hoping they would be outside most of the time. I know it doesn't work as well without a dirt floor, but it did pretty well in the brooder area when they were young. I have a compost pile started not far from the site that they can scratch around in. I've got the new coop set 12-24 inches above the ground, hoping the chickens could use it for shelter. It is a pretty open area, and we are going to have to wait for trees/bushes to grow. I've planted several blackberry seedlings in the area.

Right now, they are in a three-sided garage that is half underground. The cinderblock halfwall seeps when the ground is wet. And it is floored in gravel, the kind used for roads, not rounded pea gravel. Not the best environment for the chickadoodles.

However, I added some stakes and more nails to the wire wall to fortify it against predators pushing in, and strung some string across the front "yard" and tied some mylar tape around. Hopefully that will deter winged predators enough that my chickadoodles can escape.
Hoping we can work more on the coop this weekend. Evidently, despite using levels and squares, our coop foundation is not square, so it is going to be more work than we had envisioned.

 

[Baymule]

I never build anything square. My lumber is used or comes off the reject rack at Lowes. My lumber is bent, curved, crooked, looks bad, nobody else wants it, and I build all sorts of stuff with it. Square???? I've heard of that......not sure what that means..... One thing I have learned. You can build it perfect or you can just build it. Either way, you will use it and it will work for you. chickens don't care........

 

[silarajc]

@Baymule - I agree, square is really hard with bent lumber. This is our first large project, unless you count a play tower, and I think we have a combination of ignorance and perfectionism at work here!

 

[Baymule]

My name is Baymule and I am an ignorant builder. I don't know how to cut angles, sometimes I hold the board up and draw a line on it. I just jump in and do it. It doesn't matter if I know how-I do it anyway-and somehow it all comes out ok.

 

[silarajc]

LOL - I needed lincoln logs when I was little, or something. I keep trying to talk my husband and myself into "good enough".