The Second Half

First Two Egg Day of 2012!

So I haven't blogged in a donkey's age and yet what is the topic that compels me to blog today?  Why, it's no less than the first day of 2012 on which the girls have laid (lain?) two good eggs!  Here are the beauts:

Because there's no good reason not to post another picture of the girls, here they are:

This is from last summer; here they're sunning themselves.  I think that's Michelle on upper left and Sandy on the upper right.  Stephanie's on the bottom.

Today's eggs are from Stephanie and Sandy.  Michelle lays a bigger egg, but hers have had thin/no shells lately.   I found it surprising that Michelle lays the big egg and Stephanie and Sandy lay similarly sized eggs.  Michelle and Sandy ("the twins") are the same breed.  Stephanie is a different, slightly larger breed.  I thought Michelle and Sandy's eggs would look similar, but no.  Sandy and Stephanie's eggs are the same size, but Sandy's is slightly darker.

Who was laying the big egg was a topic of speculation for some time until it was determined with finality.  Although curious, we weren't going to sit around and watch to see who lays what egg over the course of a few hours.   Each hen was suspected, in her turn, to be the author of the big egg based on very casual observations.  Finally, one morning Kevin went to let them out and, as usual, checked for any eggs already laid that morning.  None.  Then, while he was still there, one chicken went in and settled in to lay an egg.  He waited until she was done, went in to collect the egg - which happened to be the big egg - proving once and for all that Michelle is laying the big egg.  As he put it, he outwitted the chickens.  We take our successes from whence we can.

Since I last blogged, Sandy molted and went on holiday from laying for the last few months.  She's recently started up.  From the article, Light in the Chicken Coop (about adding artificial light to chicken coops):

Hens naturally lay eggs when the days are long, and slow down as the days grow short in winter. This is because daylight stimulates the pituitary gland, which stimulates the hens' ovaries to produce eggs. Hens lay when they have daylight for at least 12-14 hours per day, and egg production drops off significantly and may even stop once days are shorter than this.

So her molt, combined with the shorter days, led Sandy to drop off laying eggs.  She appears to be starting back in again.  I barely notice that the days are longer, but I guess it's enough for Sandy.

Sandy's molted both winters we've had the chickens.  I don't believe Michelle molted, unless it was a very light molt.  Stephanie hasn't molted at all yet.  Curious.  I thought Michelle was looking a little scraggly in certain spots, so maybe she's getting ready to molt, but I don't know for sure.

Molting is when chickens lose some/all of her feathers and grow new ones.  They can look a bit ratty during molting although I think my girls are always gorgeous, but I'm hardly objective.  It takes a lot of energy to grow new feathers, energy that's diverted from egg production, hence the decline in laying.  But soon enough, a hen will have herself a fine new down coat and start laying again.

It may not seem like much, but I shall take today's egg output as a sure sign of spring to come!

Chickens: Scaly Leg Mites

Ick.  The chickens had scaly leg mites earlier this year.  Actually, I think only Michelle and Sandy had them; Stephanie looked good, although we treated her as well.

Scaly leg mites.  I'm feeling itchy just thinking about them.  The mites live under the scales on chickens' legs.  The legs then get irritated and this irritation pushes up the scales, making the scales raise up rather than lying flat as in healthy legs.  I think it might bother the chickens, too, since Michelle -- who seemed to have it the worst -- would scratch at one leg with the other leg.

I think this is Michelle in this picture:

 
We were leaving for vacation about a week after spotting the mites.  Actually, we never saw the mites; they're too small for that.  We just saw evidence of their existence.  We wanted to hit the mites hard before leaving for vacation so that our chicken sitter didn't have to deal with them.

Here's another picture of gross chicken legs:

 
One treatment is to do the following once a week for several weeks.  Since we wanted to really whack the mites out of existence quickly, we did this for several days in a row before leaving for vacation:

1. Scrub the legs with warm water and a brush.  We used warm water and a toothbrush.
2. Dry the legs.
3. Coat the legs with vegetable oil or petroleum jelly.  We used oil once, but switched to petroleum jelly for the remaining applications.
4. Clean the coop/run/foraging area.
5. Apply mite deterrents, e.g., food safe diatemaceous earth to the coop/run/foraging area.

The way this works is that the oil/jelly suffocates the mites, which is pretty gross if I think about it so I don't think about it much.  It did seem to work as they looked much better before we left for vacation and even more improved by the time we got back a week later.

Improvement can be slow, though, and it can take up to a year for the scales to grow back.  That's not a problem for the chickens.

For comparison, I believe this is Stephanie in this picture; her legs never appeared affected, but it made sense to treat her as well:

 
The treatment was a problem for the chickens in that they didn't seem to care much for being snatched, having their feet scrubbed with a brush and then having them coated with petroleum jelly.  It helped that we did it at night, after they'd put themselves to bed already.  Chickens are dopey and slow when they're going to bed, asleep and getting up so it's a good time to snatch them for treatment, to move them, etc....basically, most any kind of handling.

The mites thrive in wood so many chicken keepers find that their wood coops are the source of the problem.  This was not the case for us bc we have the plastic Omlet Eglu coop.  I can't be sure, but I think the problem was either wood mulch and/or woody yard debris that ended up in the compost pile.

See, we got the chickens in fall, 2010.  We let them roam the yard over winter.  Sure, they crapped everywhere, but we weren't frolicking in the yard in our bare feet over winter anyway.  Come spring, we confined them to a corner of the yard so that we could frolic in the yard in our bare feet.  Their new area had wood mulch in it.  Also, we decided to put the compost pile in the chickens's area so that a) they could enjoy rooting around in it and b) they would aerate it for us.  The scaly leg mite business coincided with their new living quarters; that's why I think something in their newly confined environment (the wood) allowed them to get mites.

If you do have a wood coop, the suggestion is to thoroughly clean and treat the coop (which I did anyway, even though our coop isn't wood); remove and destroy any bedding, shavings, etc.; there are sprays you can use on the coop and/or birds; you can also sprinkle food safe diatemaceous earth around the coop/run/foraging area to help stave off mites.

• 3 Steps to Treating Scaly Leg Mites from My Snazzy Chicken Coop
• Scaly leg mites chickens (especially posts from "velvet_sparrow")from iVillage Garden Web
• Scaly Leg Mites and Parasitic Diseases from Miss. State Univ. Ext. Service

That's probably more than you ever wanted to know or see about scaly leg mites in chickens.  You're welcome.

 

Chickens: Meal(worm) Time

The girls love their bugs!  One of their favorite treats is the mealworm which, according to this website, is the larvae stage of the Darkling Beetle or Tenebrio Beetle.  Not my cup of tea, but that's unimportant; it's what the girls want that matters.  Seems many poultry keepers raise their own mealworms to feed their chickens.  This blogger's post, Raising Meal Worms 101, has a lot of information about raising the little buggers.

Now, I don't know that I'll be raising worms any time soon, but one never knows.  From Googling for general information about mealworms, the internet informs me that there was a mealworm shortage (!) a couple of years back.  Still, there's just something about actively raising worms that kind of skeeves me out...at present.  It seems I'm making my way down a slippery slope into 'back to basic' type activities, hobbies, lifestyle, etc. so I won't rule it out entirely.  It might become palatable to me some day.

Here are some tender, juicy looking worms about to meet their end in our hens' innards:

 

Blech.  But to each his own; here the girls are feasting on the worms:

 

The chickens are almost always fun to watch as they go about their business.  They're especially fun to watch when they get something tasty to eat.  They grab their worm and run away from the others to eat it.  Then they dash back to look for another worm.  If there aren't any more worms, one chicken will run after a chicken that got a worm to try and get it away from them.  That doesn't often work; they're usually much too quick at snarfing down those bad boys.

Composting: So Easy a Complete Idiot Could Do It

It's always with a fair amount of hesitancy that I resort to one of those '_______ for Dummies' or 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to ________' books.  Part of me thinks, 'Well, I'm not a dummy (or a complete idiot).'  Another part of me worries that, even after reading the book, I might not get it (whatever the topic is), thereby confirming that I am, indeed, a dummy (or a complete idiot).

And so it was with this usual amount of trepidation that I borrowed The Complete Idiot's Guide to Composting from the library.   Nothing to fear.  There really is very little to composting.  As the author says, composting happens.  Just put your carbons and your nitrogens together, sit back and wait a bit and before you know it, stuff starts decomposing into compost.

Granted, there are many things you can do to improve the quality of your compost, physically manage your compost, speed up the compost production, etc. etc.  I've decided to take the passive approach: put stuff in a pile and let it rot.

I started last fall, mainly because the chickens had just arrived and they throw off prodigious amounts of manure.  What to do with it?  Kevin likes to grow flowers, so I figure compost could only help with that.  Also, it couldn't hurt to put it around other stuff, e.g., bushes.  Kevin's also planted some potted vegetable plants; I'm sure some compost would do them good.

(The real challenge is keeping the groundhog away from the potted vegetables.  Last year, he planted containers of lettuce, carrots, herbs, tomatoes, etc.  Twice the lettuce was just about ready to pick and the groundhog came by sometime -- we never saw him -- and mowed it down to the nub.  We'd also find the carrot tops crushed because he'd sit on that pot in order to better reach the tomatoes.  The groundhog is just doing what groundhogs do; if we can't outsmart a groundhog, then we're in bad shape.  Plus, they're super cute looking.)

I did start out more involved with the compost.  I placed the pile near the back porch; also near the garden hose.  I would water the compost pile a couple of times a week.  I'd also turn it.  Then winter came and it wasn't possible to do either.  In the spring, we're planning on fencing the chickens into a back corner (we let them free range over autumn and winter, but then they foul the whole yard; containing them in the corner will allow us to enjoy the rest of the yard in good weather without fear of stepping in it).  I'll probably move the compost pile there.  Further away from the house and the hose so I won't be watering it.  I also won't be turning it, but then I have the chickens to aerate it.

 
Seems like they love nothing better than that time of day when I let them out to free range the yard and I add fresh old stuff to the compost pile.  The above is an old picture.  Yesterday, I noticed that they've pecked away at the sides of the pile enough to get to the good, dark stuff in the middle.  Good work, girls.  Win-win situation.

I think the no-freeze date around here is mid-May.  Ooh, maybe I'll put some of my black gold in my hanging baskets of annuals.

If you're interested in composting, here are a couple of links:

• EPA info; I referred to this site the most.
• How to Compost - just found this site today; looks very informative

Chicken Blogging: May I Come In?

No, Steph, you may not come in.  I have to admit that it's endearing the way Stephanie follows me around.  Undoubtedly, it's because she expects to get some nums out of the deal, but I like to think it's at least partly because she likes me.  In whatever way chickens like things.  However that is.  She would surely follow me into the house if I let her.

She came in once, by accident, when I let the storm door swing shut and it got caught up on something.  I just happened to look back and there she was, waddling into the house.  Edison was just around the corner.  Each was oblivious to the other.  It could have been disastrous, but I shooed her out before introductions occurred.

She often ends up on the back porch or by the back door.  I think when the chickens are near the back porch/door, they can hear when someone's in the kitchen or by the back door, even when the door and windows are closed.  They're always alert to a potential snack.

Stephanie likes to hang out on top of the bin we use for recycling bottles and cans.

 
She can look through the back door into the kitchen and see what's going on.  Sometimes Ed jumps up on a shelf so he can look out the back door.  And they look at each other.

 
Most of the yard has a fence around it now, but the driveway doesn't because that would be awkward.  We use baby fencing (which we got from Stephanie, after whom the chicken was named) to block off the driveway.  The girls could get over it, but they've only done so when sufficiently motivated.  They could fly over it if they get up enough speed, but they don't seem interested most of the time.  It's just a driveway and there's nothing for them to eat there so it's usually of no interest to them.

Once Stephanie ended up on our neighbor's front porch; I think she may have flown over the baby fence from this perch here.  Now we put the baby fence further away.

The second time they got out was just the other day.  I left to borrow the same neighbor's dog to go for a walk.  The girls saw me leave by the gate.  When I got outside with the dog on his lead, Stephanie and (I think) Michelle had followed me and were walking around the neighbor's front yard.  There's a small gap where the fence hits a curb that's a few inches wide.  I think they may have squoze through there, although they may have flown over.

That was simply too exciting for Duke the dog as well as the chickens.  They weren't all excited for the same reason.  I'm pretty sure Duke wanted to catch and eat the chickens.  The chickens just wanted to get away.  They hurried to the fence and, of course, couldn't remember how they got by it in the first place, so I tied the barking Duke up to the lamp post and shifted the gate so the girls could go back into the yard.

Downside: the girls were scared.  Upside: They seemed to recover pretty quickly.  Also, I hope it discourages them from going by the gate again.

Chicken Blogging: 2EGZ,1DAY

The girls are starting to lay more eggs!  As in, sometimes we get two eggs in one day!  We stopped getting two eggs/day in early December.  We never got three eggs in one day last year.  Somebody laid fairly regularly -- 5 or 6 eggs/week -- throughout December, January and half of February.  I think it was one chicken bc the eggs looked very similar although, without a nestcam, I don't know for sure.

Anyway, someone else has been upping production lately and now we get two eggs most days.  We still have the occasional one egg- or no-egg day.  And there's been one wonky egg -- a shell-less egg -- laid.  That can happen a) with a new layer; b) at the beginning and/or end of the hen's laying season; or c) if the chicken has a problem forming a shell.

Here are some recent eggs:

 
I'm very much looking forward to the day we get three eggs!  Right now, I'm still buying eggs at the store.  I eat more eggs than the average bear bc I'm working my way toward vegetarianism.  I usually have a few hard cooked eggs on hand, although I use the store eggs for that at the moment.  I eat the girls' eggs for breakfast, e.g., poached or fried.  Mmmmmm.

Keep up the good work, girls!

Chickens: Using Deep Litter in the Eglu's Run

Yup, chicken keeping sure is a learning experience.  Not that I mind, mind you.  I don't mind at all.  That's part of the fun of chicken keeping: learning new stuff about chickens and how to keep them.

Our coop is a pre-fab concoction called an Eglu Classic made by Omlet.  Here's a picture of it taken during fair weather.

 
That red part at the back is the coop and the part enclosed by wire is the run.  They also get to free range most days.  They're out now, but, due to the snow still on the ground, they're not ranging much.  They don't seem to care for walking in snow.

The deep litter method (DLM) is actually used inside a coop and utilizes inches upon inches of litter.  But this is what our coop looks like inside.

 
So we won't be using the DLM in the coop since there's only a couple of inches between the drop tray and the perches.

However, we are trying out using several inches of wood shavings in the run bc:

1. Although the eglu is movable, we don't expect to be moving it very often during the winter.
   1. E.g., during the fall, we moved it a couple of times each week.  That gave the girls fresh grass to root around in every few days.  Most of our yard has been covered in snow for a week or so now, so there's no fresh grassy place to move the coop.
   2. The other thing about moving the coop is that we like to use the optional stakes to keep the predator proofing apron on the run snug to the ground.  It's really, really difficult to get the stakes in and out of frozen ground.  In fact, we don't have them in now bc when we made what was the final move of the year, the ground had already frozen.  It took a crowbar to get them out of the ground and neither of us was into trying to get them into frozen ground.  Right now we're using heavy stuff to weigh down the apron.
2. So the girls will be on the same patch for some time now, which could get gross and boring.
   1. The shavings will help to keep the manure from building up and getting gross and the girls basically wading through their own manure.  Now I know that chickens walk through their own manure all the time, but when they don't have a lot of space to work with, it gets pretty gross.
   2. The shavings will give them something to scratch up; something in which to dust bathe; something relatively warm on which to sit.  Some people throw scratch right into the deep litter.  The chickens scratch around in it, thereby getting in some of their instinctive scratching behaviors and moving around/aerating the litter (which means less aerating I need to do).  I hadn't tossed the scratch in bc I didn't know if they'd find it or if it would just get lost.  According to what I've read from others online, they do find it and they do a fine job of aerating the litter while they're at it.  Excellent.

The article, Deep Litter in Chicken Houses by Robert Plamondon, is a good source of information on the DLM.  There's this insightful tidbit in the introduction:

Many poultry techniques that were once well-understood became shrouded in mystery after the poultry business shifted to factory farming. The old-time diversified farmers passed away, and there are one or two generations of industrialized farmers between us and them, breaking our cultural continuity. One of the lost ideas is the “deep litter” technique.

Without waxing or waning too poetic, I do feel like there's this big gap between me and my food.  Of course, I'm not the only one who feels this way and I think it's a shame that there's so much going on with our food sources and most of us don't know much about it.  It came to my attention about a year or two ago when I decided to try to eat more fresh food, less processed food, etc. and realized that there was a lot I didn't know about modern food production.  I've only made small strides and I admit to more than my share of lapses in judgement wrt food choices, but I basically cut myself a wide swath of slack.  E.g., every two weeks we get a basket of organic produce and there are still times when something goes bad before I figure out what to do with it.  That's a waste of money and food (although I feel much, much worse when meat goes bad; fortunately, that doesn't happen too often).

Our hens, however, are here for their eggs, not their meat.  I know some backyard chicken keepers cull their layers after the second year, but I don't think we'll be doing that.  They have names, for goodness sake.  How could I slit the throats of chickens with names?  Plus, I like having them around, just for their own sakes...clucking, rooting around the grass, kicking up stuff, half-arsed attempts at flying, etc.  I miss the warmer weather with windows open overnight.  Usually every morning, around 9:00 or 9:30, I'd hear somebody clucking away proudly and think, 'Somebody just laid an egg.'  Their chatter is a very comforting sound.

Anyway, I wasn't supposed to be waxing so much.  So here are some pictures of the run with just a couple of inches of shavings.  True DLM uses 6"-12" of litter in the coop.  That link above about DLM is very interesting, even if I'm not doing true DLM.

 

This picture doesn't really show much more of the litter in the run, but I like Stephanie's up close and personal attitude.  She's always the first one to come greet me!

 
Isn't she a good looking bird?  Here's another picture, showing one of her two good sides:

 
Well, I'm off to toss some scratch into their litter and see how they do with it.

Chickens: Homemade Cookie Tin Waterer Heater

As mentioned in the last chicken post, Kevin made a heater for the waterer.  This came just in time as the temps declined enough to freeze the water.  It's a bit of a drag to keep changing the water, especially when it's not just cold, but also windy and/or precipitating.

The idea came from this forum post on Backyard Chickens.  I swear I looked through that posting for the instructions, bc I'm sure I saw them somewhere, but I never found them.  I did find some instructions on another website.  They used a premade lamp kit (i.e., cord with plug and socket).  When I went out to get supplies, I was going to go to the big box hardware store.  Then I decided that I'd probably have questions and went to Boonton Electric Supply in town; I figured they might be more able and/or more willing to help with this project.

And they were.  I don't think the guy who helped me had had anyone come in looking to do this, so I think it was a kick for him.  He set me up with all the stuff I needed.  Here's a picture of what you need.

 
Here's a list:

• low watt candelabra bulb (we used a 40w; some people have used a 25w; maybe we could, but I went w/the 40w)
• electrical tape
• flat plug
• candelabra socket
• lamp cord
• wrench
• a little bit of wire and a small screw for grounding (Since everything was metal, I don't know that we needed grounding.  Plus, the outlet is grounded.  Put this bit in anyway.)
• a knife to scrape off some of the wraparound on the lamp cord and grounding wire
• a couple of screwdriver(s)
• a drill
• a cookie tin
• tin snips

 Instructions:

1. Split the lamp cord a few inches.  Scrape away some of the wraparound on one end of the lamp cord.  It will look like this:
   
2. Take the two scraped ends and stick them into the base of the socket.  Pull one end out of the hole that's about about in the middle of the whole socket.  Pull the other end out of the hole on the other side of the socket.  The ends need to reach the two screws that are a little further up on each side of the socket.
   
3. Wrap the ends under the screws on either side of the socket.  Using a screwdriver, tighten the screws to hold the wires in place.
   
4. Fuzzy picture alert!  The socket with the wires screwed down should look something like this, just not fuzzy.
   
5. Drill a hole in the side of the cookie tin.  Place the hole about halfway up the side.  Choose a drill bit suitable for the width of the bolt on the socket.
   
6. Use tin snips to trim away any sharp bits on the hole's edges.
   
7. There are two nuts on the bolt part of the socket.  Remove one.  Place the socket in the hole.
   
8. I forgot to take a few pictures at this point.  Here you need to:
   1. The socket likely came with a cardboard or other tube to cover the part with the bare wires are exposed.  You can see our tube in the first picture above, the picture of stuff you need; it's a short cardboard tube.  Put this tube back on the socket.
   2. Replace the second nut on the socket bolt; leave it a little loose.
   3.  Scrape away a bit of the wraparound at both ends of the grounding wire.
   4. Wrap one end around the socket bolt between the side of the tin and the second nut you just replaced.
   5. Tighten the nut to hold the grounding wire in place.  It will look like this (ignore the black cord furthest to the right; that's the drill and is not part of the heater):
      
9. Forgot to take pictures again, but here's what you do with the other end of the grounding wire:
   1. Drill another hole in the tin.  Choose a drill bit suitable for the width of the grounding screw.  Place this hole a little short of however far the grounding wire will reach from its secured end.  It doesn't need to be a certain length; our grounding wire was about 6" so the hole is about 4" to 5" from the secured end. I suppose we could have made the grounding wire shorter than 6", but we didn't.
   2. Insert the grounding screw into the hole; keep it loose.
   3. Wrap the unsecured end of the grounding wire around the grounding screw and tighten the screw until it's holding the wire securely against the tin.  It should look something like this (minus the first hole we drilled which ended up being too far):
      
10. Forgot to take pictures yet again; here's what you do w/the other end of the lamp cord, i.e., the plug end:
    1. Split the lamp cord and scrape away a bit of the ends just like you did at the other end in Step 1 all the way at the beginning.
    2. Take apart the plug.  It should unsnap and open easily.
    3. Similar to attaching the bare ends to two screws on the lamp socket, there are two attachment points inside the plug.  Secure the bare ends to these points. 
    4. Put the plug back together.
11. You're done!  Here's the inside of the tin, unlit (note the socket has the cardboard tube on it):
    
12. The inside, lit:
    
13. With the lid on:
    
14. In use!  We only have three chickens so we have a small waterer.  I suppose we could have a larger one, but prefer to have a couple of waterers and switch them out every day so the water stays as clean and fresh as possible. 

 

During the cold weather, we keep the eglu near enough the garage to a) offer the chooks some protection from wind and b) so the plug on the water heater can reach the outlet on the outside of the garage.

Some people put thermostats in their cookie tin water heaters so that the light goes on only when the temperature drops to or below a certain temerature.  Ours does not have a thermometer.  We figured we'd be happy if we get this basic model to work.  It just stays plugged in all the time.  And that was actually helpful when a whole mess of snow fell and some blew around the waterer.  The heater melted the snow, making it easier for us to get to and the chickens had good access to water even during the snow.

The heater doesn't throw off enough heat to actually make the water hot, or even warm, for that matter.  It just gives off enough heat to keep the water from freezing.  It's been very effective.  I don't have to run out there several times a day to replace frozen water.  Also, I don't have to worry about being away while the water freezes and the chickens lack access to water.

And cheap!  The cost of the electrical stuff was $8.83:

• rubber 2-wire flat plug = $3.16
• lamp cord = $1.03
• candelabra socket = $3.36
• 40w candle = $.70
• he threw in the grounding wire and screw
• plus tax

The tin was probably about $1; I got those tins a long time ago and that was a leftover.  We had everything else.  So the tin cost about $10.

Hope this post helps anyone who wants to make their own waterer heater.  Feel free to email me with questions or corrections.  When we're not using the heater, I'll try to remember to take helpful pictures of as many of the parts as I missed photographing.  You can skip a bunch of steps by buying an assembled light socket and plug kit.  Right now I'm off to give those girls some scratch before they head off to bed for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

Chickens: Clucking in a Winter Wonderland

A blizzard came through over the weekend.  It was our first snow with the chickens and Stephanie the Chicken's first winter (Sandy and Michelle are spring, 2009 chickens).  I knew our chickens didn't like snow, based on what Henhouse Suzy (from whom we got all three of our girls) had said about her chickens' behavior around snow.  But I was interested to see for myself how the eglu would fare in snow and how the girls would react, too.

The snow started around noon on Sunday and ended about a day later.  The bulk of the snow fell Sunday, but strong winds gusted for over a day, blowing snow here, there and everywhere.  This is a picture of the eglu on Sunday evening.

 
To the right of the eglu is a metal bench that we used to hold down the run during strong winds (more on that another time).  The run is open, but we put a semi-opaque plastic tarp over it for occasions just like this, so as to avoid the run filling with snow.

This is a picture of the inside of the run on Sunday evening.  I think it looks a little space age-ish, don't you?  Like it could be from a 1970s sci-fi film?  Can't you envision storm troopers racing down this "corridor"?

 
Kevin dug a path out to the eglu that night.  He took this picture of the girls inside the coop.  That's Sandy on the front left, Michelle on the front right and Stephanie in the back.

 
The coop is neither heated nor lighted; lighting in the picture is from a flashlight.

Kevin shovelled a path from the back porch, across a little bit of patio, over some driveway and finally over some grass to get to the eglu, whereat he then proceeded to shovel around the eglu for easy access.  What a good egg!

 
The next day he removed as much snow as he could reach from the run.  Here's Stephanie walking through her treat of cottage cheese, flaxseed and freeze dried mealworms to say hello.  She usually comes hustling out when she hears people out and about.  Don't know who that is in the background, peering out from the coop.

 
The waterer is indeed sitting on a Valentine's Day cookie tin, but it's not just a cookie tin.  It's a tin that Kevin cleverly electrified to prevent the water from freezing.  Yeah!  No more running out several times a day to switch frozen water with warm water.

The homemade waterer heater idea came from a post on Backyard Chickens forum, although I never did find the post with the instructions.  I took pictures of the steps for making the heater and that will be a future blog post.  Basically, it's a cookie tin with a 40 watt candelabra bulb in it.  We started using it shortly before the snow.  It's plugged into an external outlet on the side of the garage; there is no on-off switch, we leave it plugged in all the time.

I wondered if enough snow would blow in so that Kevin would have to unearth the heater, but it actually melted any snow that came its way.  Excellent!  One less thing to fuss with.  The girls have been in their run/coop since a few hours into the snowfall.  I might let them out a bit today; I'll see what the snow looks like.

OTOH, when they're free ranging and they want shelter, they hide under the back porch and I don't want to end up having to crawl through a mess of snow to get them out from under there at night when it's time to go back in the coop.  We did that Sunday afternoon when there were just a few inches of snow and it was a suboptimal experience.

OTOH, they don't care to walk through an inch of snow so maybe they won't venture too far from their eglu.  Bco where we (I'm using the royal "we" here) needed to shovel for the driveway, they could find their way under the back porch by walking across the shovelled areas which are starting to melt and clear.  I also don't want them hopping up onto the snowdrifts and then taking flight into the neighbors' yards, especially the neighbor with the dog.  That's just like something Stephanie would do.  She got out about a week ago, having somehow gotten over the baby gate that blocks the drive.  Apparently, she was out visiting bc she was found on the next door neighbors' front step.  Our young neighbor and her friend brought her back home.

Chickens are relatively easy care, however, I do find myself worrying at times about what if this happens or what if that happens?  Can I microchip a chicken?  If they got lost, would animal control think to scan them for microchips?  Should I put leg bands with our address on them?  I think that, once we get through a whole year -- all the seasons -- with the chickens I'll feel more confident about them and their safety.

Chickens: Dustbathing

So much to learn about chickens.  How do they keep clean?  Turns out that rolling around in dry, dusty earth does the trick.  Here's a picture of my girls, from left to right: Stephanie, Michelle and Sandy.  The former two are in dusting spots, Sandy is not, although she has a spot, too.  You can see a couple of spots around them.

 

Chickens really don't need water bathing, unless you're showing them or they get into something messy.  From ChickenKeepingSecrets.com:

Hens love to give themselves dust baths. Roosters aren’t as likely to enjoy a good roll in the dirt though. When it is warm outside, your hens will look for a new place and scratch down until they reach nice, fine dirt. They’ll flop onto their backs, close their eyes and just roll around. They get the dirt way down into their feathers until it reaches their skin. When they are done, they’ll shake it all off and feel fresh and clean.

Apparently, dust bathing cleans them the way water bathing cleans people.  Also, the stuff they kick up makes breathing difficult for any parasites that have latched onto the chickens and the parasites die.  Nifty.

The girls seem to enjoy using the spots in the picture the most.  Occasionally, they'll dust a little in other grass/dirt areas (the grassy areas soon turn to dirt areas once the chickens start bathing in it) and mulch.  They flap around in the dusting spots and they might set a while, especially if the sun's shining.

For various reasons, some people make dust baths/spots for their chickens.  The area the chickens have access to might not be appropriate for dusting, e.g., it might be too wet.  The general recommendation is to use dry, fine material, e.g., a mix of sand, fine dirt and wood ash.  Some people add a bit of diatomaceous earth to help with pest control.

The girls seem to enjoy the dusting spots they've made for themselves.  I may have to provide something for them over winter when the ground is harder and stays wet and cold, but for now I'll let them enjoy their moments in the sun.