Chaos in the Hen House

What is it with chickens? There can be any number of perfectly good empty nest boxes available, but they want the one that another bird is already in!  And they are quite persistent about it. They will push on in and sit on the current occupants head, even pecking her if necessary, to get her to move. If the invading hen happens to be one of Rooster Schooster's favorites, he joins in with all manner of squawking! 

Of course, when Schooster sets up a fuss, we have to go check. Even when we're pretty sure it's just over nest box squabbling, it could also be a snake or rat, both of which are egg and chick stealers. One time, we had a skunk brazenly walk into the coop in broad daylight and kill chicks! So, reasonable doubt requires making sure everything is okay. 

Egg laying is bird business, which means that none of them is interested in (or compliant with) the humans' opinions and solutions to the problem. Our efforts to sort things out are completely ignored, and the battle for the nest boxes continues with the sense of business as usual. For the most part it actually isn't a problem. It becomes a problem, however, when the occupying hen/duck/turkey is broody and wants to hatch some eggs. 

Broodies can be pretty persistent, but when they are successfully routed out of their nest by a rude chicken, they move and then stay there. This results in the eggs being abandoned which means none of them hatches. Our solution has become to keep an eye out and then move the eggs to the broodie's new next. 

This solution points to another problem however. That is, now there are more eggs so that they are at different stages of development and often become too numerous for the broody to properly cover and incubate. 

I'm guessing that at about this point, many of you are wondering why we don't use an incubator and skip the fiasco in the hen house. There are several reasons for this, which are logical to us, although they may not make sense to others.

• We like having a mixed age flock because it helps keep egg production at a consistent level. Old hens eventually lay less, while younger hens lay the most. With a mixed age flock we can keep six hens and have a surplus of eggs to share year after year.
• Consequently, we don't need a specific number of new chicks every year. We don't do the replacement flock thing, so just a trickle of new chicks each year works well for us.
• It's infinitely easier to let the birds hatch and rear their own young! This is nature's way, after all, and it relieves us of the accompanying chores of the job. Plus, we firmly believe that babies deserve to have their own mother. 

So, speaking of baby poultry and mothers, here is the first hatch of the year:

Yup, our turkey hen hatched out two duck eggs and they are all perfectly content with the arrangement. The added bonus for the ducklings is that the chickens—which tend to be ruthlessly mean toward newcomers—absolutely leave Jenny's babies alone. They are all quite intimidated by her, so nobody messes with her young 'uns!

Sadly, we lost one duckling when it drowned in the big water dish. But the other is doing just fine.

Currently we have two broody ducks and a broody hen in the nest boxes. We're waiting to see what's next. 

Chaos in the Hen House © May 2024 

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Winterizing

Just when I was beginning to think that our mild autumn days would never end, the forecast came in - not for our first frost - but for a hard freeze. We spent all day Saturday getting ready for winter.

My first order of business was to rehang the dining room curtains.

Closed at night for added protection against the cold.

Open during the day to let the sunlight and warmth in.

It's almost a shame to cover up those pretty new windows, isn't it? But increased energy efficiency is more important than being able to admire our handiwork.

Next I moved into the garden. We don't have much growing there anymore, but a freeze would certainly bring an end to the little we were getting.

I got a good amount of green tomatoes. Some I'll let ripen, but we
had to have yummy fried green tomatoes with our Sunday burgers. 😋

Dan helped me cover the hoop house.

This year we added a door! Don't laugh! It's the old door from our original chicken coop. Not a perfect fit but pretty close.

Where our chickens used to live.

Our chickens used to share the old shed with the goats. Chickens on one side, goats on the other, with the milking room and feed storage in the middle. We saved their door when we built our current chicken coop.

I just hope I don't regret reusing last year's polyurethane on the hoop house. It's just utility grade, which means it's cheap, but it doesn't have UV protection. That means the sun will dry it out and deteriorate it faster than plastic with UV protection. Greenhouse grade would last longer, but I haven't found that locally yet, and the cost of shipping nowadays often prevents me from buying better products than what I can find close to home. We plan to upgrade this as soon as we can.

I had only one winterization job for the goat shed, to cover the remaining original window.

Nails in strips of cardboard hold the plastic in place.

You may recall that the Little Barn is actually built onto the original goat and chicken shed. Dan made window covers for the newly built part, but not the old. This old window gives light and allows in lovely breezes during summer, but it creates cold drafts during winter. Eventually we'll re-side the old section of the shed and build in new windows, but for now I covered it with an piece of old shower curtain, doubled. We still get the light but not the cold air.

While I did that, Dan filled the wood box.

On my way back into the house, I brought in my three potted plants.

Aloe vera, Meyers lemon, and ginger.

The Meyers lemon and aloe vera will do okay on the unheated back porch, but the ginger plant will need to be brought in where it stays a bit warmer. It doesn't much like temperatures below 50°F (10°C).

The next morning the temperature was well below freezing. The odd thing was that there was no frost. That's how dry we are. I was happy to see that the Little Barn remained about 10 degrees warmer than the outside air.

The only thing I forgot to do was to find my winter gloves. By the time I got in from morning chores, my fingers were freezing. That made the fire in the cookstove all the more welcome.

With a pot of oatmeal on top cooking for breakfast.

I know quite a few of you in North America have been getting snow! Any of you in that camp? How about the rest of the world?

Winterizing © November 2016 by Leigh 

at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Master Plan 2016

If you've read my blog for awhile or my first book, then you know that one of our cornerstones of homesteading is our Master Plan

When we first bought our place we walked the land, dreamed out loud, and discussed what we wanted to do. To keep our proposed big picture in mind, Dan wanted to map out how it would look some day. That's what our Master Plan is, a map of where we hope we're heading; of our goals fulfilled. It serves as a reminder of what we've decided and makes it easier to discuss how new ideas fit into the big picture.

We've updated it almost every year. Now that new goat quarters are finally going to become a reality, we've been reflecting back over what we've learned over the past several years and have been discussing land usage. All of this is reflected in the new Master Plan. (To see previous plans, click here).

Things in black are current, blue designates 

what's planned. Gates are notated with pairs of dots.

The biggest change (besides the goat barn) is more permanent designations for pasture and field crops. I've long hung on to the idea that we could rotate field crops and pasture in a four or five year rotation plan that utilized our critters in soil preparation. The reality of doing that has proved more challenging than I anticipated. This is partly because the odd shape of our land doesn't facilitate an easy moving around of critters. The animals themselves don't like change-ups, especially if it means being driven to different areas. It's so much easier to simply open one gate or another, depending on where we want them. This doesn't mean we can't use them in various areas, but having a more permanent setting is less confusing for them.

The area we've chosen for field crops in the new plan is in a good sunny spot which has fewer weeds than "doe pasture 2" and more sun than "buck pasture 2" where I've grown them in the past. We plan to prepare it next fall for winter wheat. The placement of the new goat barn with a small fenced-in "goat corral" will make it easy to rotate between the girls' two pastures.

Rotating the bucks amongst their smaller pasture areas will require a little more fencing (as in a corridor from the shelter to buck pasture 3. We may even be able to divide their pasture 1 into two for additional rotations. I also plan to make more hedgerow garden areas along fencelines between the various pasture areas.

For permanent quarters, we think the pigs should be toward the back of the property. When they were closer to the house it was impossible to carry feed or hay to the goats without being accosted by pigs. They are pigs, after all! We can still give them access to whatever area we want them rooting in, so they can still have pasture, but a permanent home farther back gives us a little more control. As long as we feed them in the same spot, they'll be happy.

Once the barn is done we can finish the house (only three more windows plus siding to go), including adding on a small greenhouse. That front corner of the house faces south and gets good sun in winter.

The other thing we plan to do is finish fencing the rest of the property. Most of the property is fenced, except for the back "wooded, not fenced" area. There is a lot of good browse back, but the property lines are very dense with shrubs and fallen trees. It will be a big job to clear it to erect a fence.

The most amazing thing with this plan is seeing how far we've come and how "little" is left to finally have the sense of being "established." Trying to get one's homestead set up is a lot of work and there is sometimes a difficult balance amongst time, money, and our goals.

Do you have a Master Plan? I'm looking for folks who do, because I'd like "How To Make a Master Plan" to be part of my The Little Series of Homestead How Tos. If you'd be willing to be interviewed for an upcoming book and see your plan in e-print, please contact me and I'll tell you what I have in mind.

Master Plan 2016 © May 2016
by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Moving Day for Chickens

Ready for chickens

Once the new chicken coop was ready, it was time to move the chickens in. Because chickens (like other animals) do not like change, I put some thought into how I was going to approach this. I decided the best thing to do would be to move them at night. I'd give each chicken a wing clipping, put them in the new coop, and leave the flock in there for at least two nights and a day in between. First, however, we gave them a chance for a preview. I lured them in with scratch.

They took the tour and seemed to approve. I moved their feeder in so they had to come in if they wanted food.

When it came time to move them I waited until after dark and lighted the new coop with my Coleman camping lantern. One by one I plucked them off the roost in the old coop, clipped wings, and put them in the new. Even the Weather Chicken got the same treatment. Dan used a stick to jostle her perch so that she flew out of the tree and ran into the old coop. The trickiest one was moving my broody hen and her clutch. I moved her last and she was mighty upset about it. After a huge fuss, however, she finally settled back down on her eggs.

After two nights in the new coop I let the flock out and into their newly expanded chicken yard.

I confined them to the chicken yard for several days. I did this in hopes that they would continue to lay in the new nest boxes and not try to go back to their former random laying places. So far it seems to have worked.

There's a waiting line for the new nest boxes

I absolutely love the new coop. It's roomier, brighter, has easier access, and wonderful storage. It's shaded under oak and pecan trees. A fabulous breeze comes through the door and keeps it comfortable and cool. I can get that same breeze through our front door, but coming over a blacktopped road and treeless front yard means the breeze is hot! What a difference trees make.

And Mama Hen? Yesterday was day 21. In late afternoon I was able to get this shot.

Mama has five eggs but is being pretty secretive and pretty protective. As soon as she's willing to show and tell, I'll give you a full report.

Moving Day for Chickens © May 2014 

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

New Chicken Coop: Feed & Storage Room

I have one last thing to show you in our new chicken coop - the feed room and storage area.

Good storage space is so important, especially if one's goal is to grow all or most of one's own feed. For example, if I go through about 50 pounds of chicken feed a month, then I need to be able to store 600 pounds-worth!

Each one of these trash cans can hold about 150 pounds and I can fit three side-by-side in the feed room. That's 450 pounds. Thanks to Dan's forethought to give me potential storage space outside, I can line up a few more outside, still keeping them under cover.

Next up, moving day!

New Chicken Coop: Feed Room & Storage © May 2014 

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

A Barn Door for the Chicken Coop

Continued from here.

A barn door is so practical. It slides open and closed, stays put, and is never in the way. But have you ever priced the hardware for one? Way too expensive to be practical! Never one to be deterred, Dan decided to make his own.

Hardware for a DIY barn door

This is the project Dan worked on while I whitewashed the inside of the coop. For the hardware he bought:

• 3, 4 ft. strips of flat bar, .25" x .75"
• 2 garage door pulleys 
• 2 mending plates
• 2 door stops
• 1 pressure treated 1x6

He ripped the 1x6 to 2.5 inches, and then made the track by cutting a groove into the long edge and fitting the flat bar into it. The pulleys ride on top. The mending plates are bolted to the pulleys and also the door as you see in the two photos below.

The mending plates were bolted to the pulleys,

and screwed onto the door.

The door itself was made from scrap plywood and lumber. 

Stop and guide

A doorstop was added and a guide made with a block of wood. This keeps the door from swinging away from the wall. Long metal pins hold it in place. Another flat bar attached to the bottom of the door makes for no wear and easy gliding.

The last things to add were a door pull and latch. The leather strap tying the eye bolt to the door pull keeps Yours Truly from losing it. I used a similar set-up on the stable door between the storage area and the coop. The door works very well, looks good, and I love it!

Only a few things are left to finish the chicken coop project: expand the chicken yard, set the feed room in order, and level the "patio" area under the overhang in front of the barn door. Then it's chicken moving day!


Next up, "New Chicken Coop: Feed & Storage Room."

UPDATE November 2016: I've had folks ask how well this door has stood up. I have to say that we've had no problems with it and it still functions beautifully. To see the larger barn door we made for the little goat barn, click here.

A Barn Door for the Chicken Coop © May 2014 

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Amish Whitewash

Series continued from here.

If you've read Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, then you are familiar with whitewash. I always thought of it as simply old-fashioned homemade paint, until I read Randy James's Why Cows Learn Dutch: and Other Secrets of the Amish Farm.

"The stone walls and wood ceiling are chalky from a thick coat of whitewash that is required by the milk inspector. The whitewash is a limestone based paste that's sprayed or painted on. It helps keep the barn clean, and it is too alkaline for insects to nest or lay eggs in."  pg. 20

That last sentence started a research project because I immediately decided that I would whitewash the inside of the new chicken coop rather than paint it. I found lots of information with lots of recipes, but you know me; simplest is best, so I used the recipe from Randy James's book. I call it "Amish Whitewash" because it's what the Amish dairy farmers of Geauga County, Ohio used.

Amish Whitewash

1 gallon water
2 pounds salt
7 pounds hydrated lime.

No preparation instructions were given. 

What follows are notes from my research. 

Use warm water, dissolve salt. Stir in lime until dissolved. Apply with sprayer or paint brush.

Consistency is about like lumpy pancake batter, but it thickens over time.

Safety precautions: The lime is fine so wear a respirator while mixing. I read on one site that it's caustic so I wore gloves. I got it all over me however and had no problem, so the gloves aren't necessary (but do see the notes below on different types of lime).

Notes:

• This is a wash, not a paint. It won't go on or dry like paint. 
• Doesn't stain clothing and washes right out.
• Not waterproof so this recipe is for indoor application only.
• Dries to a chalky finish which will rub off
• Needs to be reapplied every year or two
• Not toxic to animals
• See notes below on different kinds of lime

The salt makes it stick to the surface during application. Some recipes call for the addition of glue or paste to keep it from rubbing off after it dries. I didn't do that this first time but I might in the future.

The solution thickens as you go, and with experimentation I found it best to keep adding water to keep it the original consistency. It goes on thin and watery looking, but whitens up considerably as it dries.

Bare wood on left, wet whitewash in middle, dried on right

I gleaned more details from Housewifery: A Manual and Text Book of Practical Housekeeping by Lydia Ray Balderston (1919).

"Whitewash is much used on fences, outhouses, cellars, and chicken coops, to kill bacteria and vermin, to deodorize, and to improve appearance."

 "Lime water may be used to rinse milk pans and bottles, and chambers. A 3 percent. solution is known to kill typhoid bacteria and a 20 per cent . solution will disinfect excreta. This requires from one-half to one hour."

It is important to note that there are different kinds of lime. Hydrated lime is not the same as the lime put on gardens or sprinkled on the barn floor.

• Hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) - also called slaked lime, builders lime, masonry lime, pickling lime (food grade). Due to its alkalinity it is no longer recommended for pickle making, but it is used for industrial waste water treatment. 
• Agricultural lime (calcium carbonate) - also called barn lime, garden lime, lawn lime. This is the stuff that's used to mark the lines on sports fields.
• Burnt lime (calcium oxide) - also known as quicklime. This is the lime that is caustic. It's common use is industrial: manufacture of pulp, paper, glass, steel, insecticides, and fungicides. 
• Dolomite (calcium magnesium carbonate) - used as a soil amendment, also fed to goats as a source of calcium.
• Limestone - as a soil amendment to correct pH, supply calcium and possibly magnesium
• Calcitic - contains about 40% calcium and 0.2% magnesium
• Dolomitic - contains about 21% calcium and 11% magnesium

How did it turn out? Not bad, I'd say.

Two views of the freshly whitewashed chicken coop. I even did the nest
boxes! Once it dried I used bagged lawn clippings for litter on the floor.

Brightens it up quite a bit don't you think? (Photos of unpainted here). Because it whitens as it dries it was hard to tell if I was applying evenly. It didn't turn out like a good paint job, but hopefully that will improve with practice. I learned to keep it fairly liquidy (like pancake batter); also, that a second coat can be applied once the first is thoroughly dried. Even so, as a non-toxic, no poison method of insect control, I'm well satisfied. I plan to treat the goat shed the same way.

For a more permanent homemade paint, see Eric Sloane's The Seasons of America Past.On pages 145 and 146 are several recipes including one for an outdoor red paint. His collection of old recipes use linseed oil instead of water, which would make them better for exterior use.

For a very interesting article about how whitewash is used in Ireland (including how natural dye plants are used to color it), check out Restoring Mayberry (with thanks to rabidlittlehippy for first sharing the link with me).

Bibliography:

• Why Cows Learn Dutch: and Other Secrets of the Amish Farm  by Randy James, Kent State University Press, 2005
• Which liming material is best? by Rebecca Lines-Kelly, NSW Dept. of Primary Industries, 2004
• Hydrated Lime Beckart Environmental
• What is Lime? Graymont
• Housewifery: A Manual and Text Book of Practical Housekeeping by Lydia Ray Balderston, Lippincott & Co., 1919

How To Make Amish Whitewash: Make your own whitewash, paint and wood stain is now available as an eBook. Includes What's Up with Whitewash?, All About Lime, Safety, Basic Whitewash Recipe, How To Make Your Whitewash More Durable, How To Make Your Whitewash More Waterproof, How To Color Your Whitewash, Care And Maintenance Of Whitewash, Glossary, Resources, and A Collection Of Recipes for Whitewash, Homemade Paint, and Homemade Wood Stains. List price $2.49. Available in epub, mobi (Kindle), pdf, rtf, lrf, pdb, txt, and html formats. Visit Kikobian.com for where to buy.

Next post - "A Barn Door for the Chicken Coop."

Amish Whitewash © May 2014 by Leigh 

at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Chicken Door for the Chicken Coop

Checked off from the chicken coop countdown checklist - entry door for the chickens.

Closed

Open!

Closed

Open

Close-up of the knob and pin to hold the door open.

In hindsight we should have had the top of the Dutch door swing into the feed room instead of into the coop. For some reason I had it in my head to have it open away from me, into the coop. Dan accommodated my whim, and with genius, I might add!

Continued in "Amish Whitewash."

Chicken Door for the Chicken Coop © April 2014 

by Leigh  at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Chicken Coop Countdown Checklist

We're getting to that point in this project where Dan is anxious to be finished and move on to something else! We've gotten a few more things accomplished since my last update, and have a few more to go.

Done:

• Nest boxes

• Door between the storage area and coop area.

The bottom door swings into the storage room.
The top of the door swings into the coop. Slats
allow  for light,  visibility, and air circulation. 

Close-up. 

I really like the dutch door in the goat shed, so Dan also made one for the coop. The bottom door swings out, the top swings in. The thing we learned from the goat shed is that it's difficult to swing the bottom half in, when the floor is covered with deep litter! The top is slatted so I can see in, plus allows better ventilation and light. Best of all, it's wide enough for a wheelbarrow!

Still to do:

• Exterior door 

Dan's looking into a sliding barn door

• Coop entry door for chickens
• Finish painting exterior

• Cover openings between storage and coop with hardware cloth
• Paint interior

• Gutter and rain catchment

We will probably use one of those 275 gallon totes like we did for the
rainwater catchment system on the house. It will fit under the overhang.

• Extend chicken yard (a fencing project)

Green shows the proposed expansion of the chicken yard.
Stars indicate separate chicken gates which could control
(theoretically) which pasture the chickens have access to.

Expanding the chicken yard will give them more room when they aren't free ranging. There's also a nice little thicket there, a perfect hidey spot from hawks. The yard will border both front and back pastures. With a second chicken gate into the front pasture, we can direct where they graze.

So much to do and never enough time! Such is the plight of every homesteader. The key is to find contentment in the work itself, not in the expectation of the work finished.

Next → "Chicken Door for the Chicken Coop."

Chicken Coop Countdown Checklist © April 2014 

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/

Chicken Coop: Walls, Windows, Floor, Roost

Progress on the chicken coop continues.

Quarter inch plywood walls

We bought the plywood at our area builders surplus store. It is kind of junky but nothing a good paint job can't hide.

Cutouts for windows and chicken door. 

The windows are different sizes because they are the old storm windows.

Good old barn paint. 

I splurged on oil based barn paint for, hopefully, better protection of the wood. I used one of those foam craft brushes to paint the bottom edge of the plywood. That edge is often overlooked but needs to be protected from rain and water too.

After the paint, windows and trim.

Windows installed and trimwork in progress

1x3s finish the corners and cover the seams between sheets of plywood. More 1x3s are nailed midway between the seams, so that they are placed every 2 feet apart. These ones are decorative but, once painted, will give the building a more finished look.

Cap block floor for the storage area of the cop

Next Dan worked on a floor for the feed storage area. We priced materials and he decided on a cap block floor, The dirt was leveled and the block dried in, i.e. there is no mortar.

Wall to partition off the feed & equipment storage area

He used scraps of leftover plywood to make the wall between feed storage and coop areas. If you look closely you will see it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling. That's partly because I didn't think it necessary for him to rip a narrow section of plywood to finish it off. Also, I wanted to leave a gap for air circulation and light. If chickens manage to escape through that(!), we'll cover it with chicken wire.

Last but not least, I'm very excited to show you the roost Dan made.

"Tree" roost, eventually replaced with a conventional roost. Details here.

He had a cedar post which was too short for a fence post, but the perfect length for a tree inspired chicken roost. The poles are indeed branches, which are anchored to both the post and the wall.

As you can see, we're almost done! Nest boxes are next, shelves for the storage area, doors, and of course I have to finish painting. I just hope the chickens are as impressed with all this as I am.

Next post, Chicken Coop Countdown Checklist.

Chicken Coop: Walls, Windows, Floor, Roost © 

April 2014 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com/