Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Clipping wings

One of our delawares has flown the coop, literally... several times a day. This practice is hazardous to her health considering we have dogs that are fully capable of killing a chicken in the yard. There used to be mesh covering the run to keep the chickens in and airborne predators out, but we removed it and put on wood slats instead to help a vine grow up there for shade. Somehow, she is getting out through the wood slats. There was a fairly big gap when Dave first put up the slats, but we added a couple more thinking that would solve the problem. It didn't. Our next trick is to try clipping the offender's wings. We did her right wing yesterday to see if that works. If she gets out again, we will clip the other one. If that doesn't work, we may have to staple the mesh to the underside of the slats, though I would like to avoid that since it will make it harder for the vine to grow there. Hopefully one wing clipping will be all it takes!

For directions on how to clip a chicken's wing, go here .



*It's really very easy!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Urban Mushing

I have done some dog scootering, or urban mushing, with my dogs since early this year. Well, actually I started bikjoring with Chewie our two year-old Swissy mix and then after the summer ended, started taking out our one year-old. At first I took them one at a time as I didn't have the proper setup for two dogs, or two harnesses for that matter. As soon as I got the right gear and a great new scooter (thanks honey!), I started the two of them in harness together. It has gone surprisingly well. Not one fight between the two of them so far.

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They compliment each other very well. Chewie never wanted to take the lead before, he always wanted someone next to or in front of him. If he got out in the front and was unable to see anyone else, he would stop. However, when he gets going, he is wicked fast! Skippy will go just because I tell him to, but he is much slower than Chewie. So when they are together, Skippy keeps Chewie moving forward when there is no one else around and Chewie makes Skippy move a bit faster (though I still have to slow Chewie down a little).

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I got started doing this when we took Chewie out sometime early this last spring. We took our bikes and thought that Chewie would just run alongside my bike. Well, he didn't want to run alongside... he wanted to pull! I have never seen natural instinct kick in like it did that day. He pulled my bike for about six miles and seemed to love every minute of it. We didn't waste much time ordering a proper harness and figuring out how to hitch him to my bike.

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When we got Skippy, I was really hoping he would be a good team member for Chewie. The first time I took him out, he did very well. He doesn't have as much natural pulling instinct as Chewie, but he always has a lot of fun. He is still building up his stamina, so he can't go for as long as Chewie, but he'll get there.

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The biggest challenge in this sport is teaching the dogs to obey voice commands. You don't have much physical control over them when you are back on the scooter. I can put on the brakes to make them stop moving forward if I need to, but they have lots of leeway on which direction they go or if they choose to go at all. I still have trouble getting my dogs to go the side of the trail I want when we are passing someone, but they follow my direction commands about which trail to go down fairly consistently. We all still have a lot of training to do, but it sure is going to be fun doing it!

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Friday, November 27, 2009

Chick coop

Today was supposed to include putting together a coop/brooder in the main run for the 10 buff orpington chicks who are currently residing in my garage and a friend's run. I took three of them to a radio show on chickens I did day before yesterday so they are in the garage in a tote. I am anxious to get them into a better space (and to remove the chick smell from the garage). We have two previously built coops in the backyard. One has firewood stacked in it, but the other would probably be fairly easy to take it into the main run for the chicks. The hard part is putting wire around it so that they can get outside of that little coop without the big chickens being able to get to them. I wonder if we will get to it tomorrow...?

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Coop construction

My husband built our current coop and run with help from myself (ok, so I wasn't that much help...), and our two boys. It houses 10 chickens comfortably and keeps them safe from the dogs. It may not be the most beautiful coop around, but the chickens don't know the difference!

It is attatched to the side of our shed for ease of construction.
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Ready to be painted.
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Adding the run.
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The finished product! The fan is there because I took this picture during the heat of summer and the fan helps keep the girls nice and cool as they are dustbathing.
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Though there are coops built with more fancy stuff than we have, all your coop really needs is sufficient space for your birds (chickens should have 2-3sq. ft. per bird in the coop and 4-5sq. ft. per bird in the run at a minimum), a roosting bar that will fit all your birds (we just use a plain old 2x4), and nest boxes (ours are milk crates). We keep their food and water underneath the coop so that they don't take up space inside. Our girls are able to come and go as they please so they always have access to their food and water.

Order of the Poultry

Meet some of our chickens! All our birds have Harry Potter names since I am a huge HP nerd. My husband goes along with it just to make me happy.

We currently have a laying flock of 10 and we have 10 chicks in the brooder from our first hatching project. Our birds are:

George, a two year old rhode island red.
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Katie, a two year old australorp.
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Hermes, Pavarti, and Padma; easter eggers that hatched this spring.
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Gabrielle, Hedwig, and Pigwidgeon; delawares that hatched at the same time as the EEs.
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Sprout and Poppy, a light brahma and a black sex link that hatched late spring.
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All these different breeds give us a very colorful basket of eggs.
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