Backyard Chicken Coop

It was time to get serious about building the chicken coop. Either we built in time for the chicks, or the chicks would need it before we had time. Finding a place to put the chicken coop was our first obstacle. We have a great yard but not a whole lot of space to work with. We decided to go with a semi built storage shelf by our office nook where we kept our composters. Coming up with the plans was easy once we started jotting down our ideas.

Keeping with the simple logic, we decided to build our coop in two parts. A good poultry house protects the birds from the elements (weather), predators, injury and theft. Poultry require a dry, draft-free house. This can be accomplished by building a relatively draft free house with windows and/or doors which can be opened for ventilation when necessary. It is also necessary to build the coop on high, well-drained areas. This prevents prolonged dampness and water saturation of the floor of the coop and outside runs. Allowing an adequate level of space per bird also helps keep the humidity level in the coop to a minimum. The first part would be the actual coop house, where we would keep the nests for our future eggs. This section we would put in an elevated area. The next part would be a chicken run. This is the area that the hens will be able to cruise around and play in the dirt.

We started out by cleaning out the designated area, and building a frame to get an idea of what we would be working with. We wanted to keep as much as a natural element to the coop as we could, so we worked around existing branches and structures already available.

Once we got the frame up, we started to add the chicken wire. We built the chicken run area large enough for us to stand in. This will help with cleaning out the area in the future. The wire mesh we are using has a 1" wholes. This is the recommended size for chickens. We also learned that it is much cheaper to by the wire mesh that they use for roofing. It is the same stuff that they sell for chickens. It is just marketed for a different use, and comes in a larger roll. The wire mesh we purchased is 20 gauge, 36" wide and 150' long. We will most likely only use half of what we purchased, but can use the rest in the future around our garden.

When building the actual coop house, we needed to make sure that the hen's will have adequate space for movement and exercise as well as areas to nest and roost. It is recommended for egg laying hens to have 1.5 ft of space inside the coop, and 8ft of space in the run. We will also add perches for them to hang out on. With these chickens, we will provide 6 to 10 inches of perch space per bird. We will also provide them a nest. You should always provide at least one nest for every 4-5 females in the flock.

This is what the view looks like from inside the coop house, looking out to the run.

Slowly but surely it all starts to come together.We still need to add a pen door, as well as make sure everything is tight and secure from predators. Once we are done it will be important to remove any loose or ragged wire, nails, or other sharp-edged objects from the coop. We will also eliminate all areas other than perches where the birds could perch more than 4 feet above the floor. These extra measures could eliminate any injury to our birds and may prevent damage to the coop, as well.

Once the coop house is done, we will retrieve our eggs from this door. We decided to leave the existing wood structure for the back wall to their house. This way they can enjoy some old old ivy vines for natural decor.

We built a raised floor in the coop area to assist in the ventilation as well as the cleaning and the collection of their waist for composting. The floor is built with the 1" chicken mesh, raised about 4 inches off of the floor. We will place a large tray down below for easy collection of their waist before they move in.

This is a view from inside the chicken run area, up to the coop house. We are about 90% percent done with the coop. We should be finished with it by next week, giving us a few days of tweaking it out before the chicks will be ready to move in.

 

Garden Chronicles : Chapter 3

A Stroll Through The Garden

We started letting the chicks spend some time in our garden. We want them to get familiar being around us, as well as the plants and the insects. Up to this point each time they saw us we were lording over their box like some type of greek god having fun controlling the outcome of their day. We did not want them to get the wrong impression of us so we started hanging out with them both in the house and in the garden a few minutes a day.

In the garden they feel right at home, foraging for food or pecking at the plants.

Blanch here, The Plymouth Rock, is the most animated out of the threesome, she also gets out and explores more than the other two.

Judah continues to try to convince us that he can help keep the chicks in line while they are in the garden, here he is trying to get under the fence to assist. The first day we let them out we learned the importance of staying close by while they are so small. It's bad enough that our land shark can't seem to leave them alone, but other birds of prey can't as well. Lyndsey was sitting with Rose about a week ago in the yard, and a large bird swooped down and perched on a branch directly above her and the chick. When I say directly, I mean like three feet away. Rose stopped chirping immediately and ducked down into Lyndsey's hands. Fortunately everything was all right, but it did open our eyes as to how vulnerable they are at this age, and how important their coop will be when they get older.

Garden Chronicles : Chapter 2

Watch it Grow

Well it has been about three weeks on the garden and two weeks with the chicks. We keep feeding everything, and it keeps growing.

We had to move the chicks a couple of times now into a larger habitat. The recommendation for chicks is that they have square foot per chick. At first this seemed like a bit much but after a few days of watching how much they ate and grew it made allot of sense. They now have a 45 gallon container they call home. Next move will be to the chicken coop. We are going to start building that this week.

Everything is coming in fine, some of the peppers and greens are ready to go.

We had a great salad for dinner last night with the spicy mescaline mix, spinach and red leaf lettuce. It was tasty.

He'll Have His Rare

About a month ago we decided to change around our dog Judah's diet for a number of reasons. The most pending reason was due to the fact that he was having major skin issues mainly due to allergies and flea bites. It turns out that we aren't the only ones attracted to the beaches and great weather in Southern California, but fleas as well. San Diego is supposedly the Flea Capitol of the U.S. We give Judah his flea treatment once a month with some occasional salt water swims, but this barely does anything to help. Recently he started developing hot spots from some sensitive areas he couldn't keep himself from licking and scratching. Our vet said that it a common thing for dogs, especially labs, to have skin issues. They also gave us some medicated shampoo for the hot spots. I new there had to be more we could do, so I started researching for more options.

The first thing we did was change his diet to a raw food diet. Also known as the B.A.R.F Diet. The acronym in BARF Diet stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, or Bones And Raw Food. The ideology behind it is that each animal has specialized dietary requirements and if they don't receive their biologically appropriate diet the end result will be detrimental to their health. After I learned a little more about dogs and their eating habits I would almost go as far as calling this a 'common sense diet'. "The food your animal eats should provide all of the nutritional components which are necessary for all organs and systems of a healthy body to perform in harmonious unison. A properly functioning body does an amazing job at preventing disease and healing itself, and to do this it requires the energies and nutrients of a well-balanced diet." You see, since the first dogs placed their paws on this earth they have been carnivores. Hunting, scavenging and eating raw meet, not commercial pet food. Many of the commercial dog food companies would have us believe that they actually use human grade meat in the production of their food, when in fact the sources of this "meat" are not even fit for animal consumption. I learned that the most common and most visible symptoms of nutritionally caused deficiencies are allergies of one kind or another. Because many commercial foods are woefully deficient in key nutrients, the long term effect of feeding such foods makes the dog hypersensitive to its environment. I soon learned that Carnivores cannot maintain long term production of the quantity of amylase enzyme necessary to properly digest and utilize the carbohydrates. In addition, the proteins in grains are less digestive than animal proteins. As a result, the immune system becomes irritated and weakened by the invasion of foreign, non-nutritive protein and carbohydrate particles. When this happens allergies and other chronic immune problems may develop.

So for the past month instead of getting his usual kibble, we started feeding him raw meat. Now he eats fish, beef and chicken; bones and all. Bones are full of nutrients good for dogs. They also slow down their eating and clean out their teeth. The important thing is that the bones are not cooked. Poultry bones especially are dangerous cooked because they can splinter and cause internal damage to you your pup. However if they are raw they are still soft, and can be digested.

The results so far have been quite noticeable and worth mentioning. 1. He has lost weight, which is a good thing because he has had issues with his knees since he was a pup. 3 lbs on a dog makes a big difference. 2. His coat is more shiny and he is itching a lot less. 3. His Hot spots began to heal and new hair began to grow in. 4. His stinky dog odder and breath disappeared. We washed him a month ago, and he still smells clean. 5. Cleaning up after him has never been so easy as his droppings are solid and gamey. I know that is a bit gross, but if you own a dog you understand that something like that is a big change.

We will obviously keep a close eye on him and continue to moniter his eating, but so far things are looking pretty good.

The Pecking Order

We expanded our family the other day by adding three hens to the pack. Now we officially have 1 crazy dog, 6 fish (this keeps changing due to our fish elimination rounds) & three little chicks. These chicks are one day going to be our breakfast making hens. "Rose" the first light colored chick is a Rhode Island Red, she so far is the most docile, as she likes to be held. "Blanch" right next to Rose is a Plymouth Rock and the chick in back is "Dorothy" she is a Gold Laced Wyandotte. All three breeds are suppose to be good for backyard coops, as they are all good egg layers as well as docile birds.

We are looking forward to their eggs, however that will not be for another 5 months. In the meantime we can use their droppings as manure for our garden. Poultry manure (chicken in particular) is the richest animal manure in N-P-K. (nitrogen (N), phosphoric acid (P) and potash (K) ) Chicken manure is considered "hot" and must be composted before adding it to the garden. Otherwise, it will burn any plants it comes in contact with. We will also let them range free around are garden to help out with the insects and slugs. We will start building their chicken coop in our back yard here in the next couple of weeks as they will be ready to move into it in about 4-5 weeks.

Garden Chronicles : Chapter 1

This year we got out garden going a little late in the season, fortunately in San Diego, Ca you can get away with that. This was our first year in our house so the fist thing we needed to do was pick out our plot. TIP: Choosing a Location -- Select a plot of good, well-drained soil near a water supply. It should be close to the home for convenience, but should not be shaded by tall buildings or trees. Enclosing the garden spot with a fence is usually profitable.We chose a spot next our south west fence that gets the most sunlight, and acts as a natural barricade against critters. After we chose a spot, we spent the first week tearing up the soil and getting it ready for a garden. It s a little back breaking work, especially if your use to being on a computer all week, however the reward of yard work is always beneficial.

We decided to do an Organic Garden for a number of reasons. Organic gardening differs from "conventional" gardening mainly in the areas of fertilization and pest control. The organic gardener prefers to use natural and organic materials and methods, and avoids using practices and synthetic chemicals that may be detrimental to his health or environment. In order to this much attention is put on the soil you use, to maximize the most nutrients getting to your plants from the soil alone. A major basis for organic gardening is the use of abundant quantities of organic material applied to the soil. Usually, it is in the form of animal manures, plant manures, cover crops, compost, or mixed organic fertilizer. We purchased a composter at our Neighborhood Gardening Store to start our composting. The model we purchased is great for making compost as well as making compost tea. This batch will not be ready for another 3-6 months, just in time for our winter garden.

We also started a Vermiposter with worms. Worm composting is a method for recycling food waste into a rich, dark, earth-smelling soil conditioner. The great advantage of worm composting is that this can be done indoors and outdoors, thus allowing year round composting. It also provides apartment dwellers with a means of composting. In a nutshell, worm compost is made in a container filled with moistened bedding and redworms. Add your food waste for a period of time, and the worms and micro-organisms will eventually convert the entire contents into rich compost. We got our started and then were able to go by a friends house and pick up some worms. This will kick start our batch in time for next season.

Because we needed something a little sooner we went to out local Land Fill and picked some of the good stuff up there. Fortunately for us, residents of San Diego get can get their compost for free at the Miramar Land Fill, as long as you are willing to scoop it up for themselves. We undershot our first load, so we had to make an extra trip to make sure that we had enough for both of our plots. We even had enough after our second trip to stoke out one of our neighbors with some our extras. TIP: Compost can actually get rather expensive if you are purchasing it at a Garden Store. We estimated that we saved around $400 right from the start picking ours up at the land fill.

The Garden Design -- Many gardeners find it helpful to draw out on paper the location of each row and the crop or succession of crops to be planted. We did this as well. We separated our garden into four separate plots and grew plants that are good companions together. TIP: There are two types of companion plants: those that compliment the nutrient needs of other plants, and those that insects do not like. Plants that insects do not like, make great companions to other plants in your organic garden. Planting onions and garlic amid your organic vegetables, will repel a variety of insects. In addition to providing insect protection, you can harvest the onions and garlic, too. Marigolds are another great companion plant. A companion plant can also be one that insects like. In South America, coffee growers plant banana trees around the coffee crops. Insects like the sweet, banana plants and fruit, much more than coffee plants.

To avoid walking on the soil and compacting it down which can be damaging to plant roots, we laid planks across our garden to act as a natural barrier between plots, as well as give us access to all areas of our growing plants.

As an extra bonus for our garden we water it with our house plants and garden with our dirty fish tank water. We keep a basic gold fish tank that sits in a window seal between our patio and living room. Each week we need to clean out the tank and replace 1/3 of the water. That dirty water is full of amino acids and nitrogen that plants thrive on.

one week later.

Keeping out the Predators can be basic or extreme depending upon your situation. To keep out our land shark we put a basic garden fence. This way he can't roam around the garden covering our garden with his markings, and eating our ripe harvest. We are hoping the combination of the fence and land shark will keep out the raccoons and skunks. We also built a simple frame to lead our vine vegetables, and added an old disco ball that helps keep out the birds.

We started growing natural wildflowers about a month before we planted our garden to deter predators of the vegetables.

our onions are kicking in as to be expected.

Some nice spots that we found to grow herbs are in hanging baskets.