Coop Crazy

The girls are now 4.5 weeks old (sorry we got busy with the garden and have neglected keeping everyone updated). Elinore has almost all her head feathers and a bushy skirt of fluff on her underside. She perches on our arms and even fell asleep on my hand the other night. The other two are in awkward adolescence and are scraggly with odd bits of baldness and adult feathers starting to poke out.

3 week old pictures of our Peeps

Frankly, chicken poo reeks and I can't wait to get them outside in the beautiful coop we have built. The run is completed. It has a nice big door for humans and a smaller chicken door near the fruit trees so we can use temporary fencing to let them free range and clean up the rotten fruit fallings without touching the garden beds. Mike affixed two long branches for perches int he corners. The finishing touch is an automatic water fountain that we hope to hook up to a rain barrel to keep the girls from thirst. We hope this is not only sustainable but will also make winter water changing less painful and long weekends worry free (well . . . more do-able anyways).

Elinore is 4 weeks old!!!

So now that the run is ready we have turned our attention to the hen house. So I designed and made a new brooder since the other brooder was also the hen house and I couldn't very well saw windows while the girls were scratching around in there. So with the new brooder built and girls inside I hope to start hen house completion soon! Stay tuned friends . . . .

Lessons: The run is the area chickens spend much of the day eating, scratching, rolling around in the dust (called a dust bath), and stuff. The hen house is the enclosed area where they escape really bad weather, sleep, and lay eggs.

Brooder, Berries, & Barrels

The days since my last post have seen some milestones, long days, procrastinations, praise, pride, and our first money making idea...

I'll first start with what has to be one of my most prideful moments EVER! Our incredibly cool neighbors to the east, Michael & Rosalyn, hired a professional gutter company to replace/re-route their gutters and install a rain barrel system of their own... well, the contractor approached us near the end of his installation and commented that he was admiring our rain barrel system and asked if he could look it over. He did and proceeded to ask how we did it, where we got the materials, ideas and where he could get old wine barrels... needless to say, i was beaming big time! Abby (the cat) is checking out my handy work and is not so impressed...

Our equally cool neighbors to West, Bud & Joanie brought us over about 6 raspberry canes from a yard at one of their dozen or so rentals in portland (Bud by the way is the unofficial mayor of Kenton). These along with a new blackberry start, additional strawberry plants and grape vines that we just picked up at portland nursery (http://www.portlandnursery.com/) , completed our fruit quota (for now anyway). To date our fruit producer count is 8 raspberries, 2 blueberries, 14 strawberries, 1 blackberry, 1 plum tree, 1 apple tree, 1 pear tree, & 2 grape vines - We are going to be jam making, fruit salad eating, pie making & eating, wine drinking fools.

Finally, we have our first money making scheme in place... we have been housing the chickens indoors in what will be the roost (hen house) that will be connected via an entrance ramp to our chicken run when it is finished and moves outside. It works fine as a brooder but we really want to finish the roost but can't with the chics living in it else we impale them with drills, nails, etc. so late on a saturday night, we discussed the concept of building a separate brooder. Within a 1/2 hour, we (nicole) designed it, sunday morning we gathered up the necessary materials, and by sunday night, we (nicole) had the brooder fully constructed and in place. Honestly it turned out sooo good that we (mike) thought of the idea of renting it out to other newbe chickeners when our 3 ladies permanently relocate to the backyard. The brilliance of the design is that it has removable partitions so as the chickens grow, it can grow with them, it can be easily disassembled by removing a few nuts & bolt, can be transferred flat (think IKEA style) so can fit into the trunk of a car, it's easy to clean and so on. Nicole should be really proud because it is really really really good and we will make some money off this little design because for new chicken parents, a brooder is very necessary but very temporary...

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Lesson: don't build your own brooder, rent out the mufe expandable brooder at an easy on the wallet value of only $50 for 8 weeks, we'll even throw in the infrared bulb for an additional $10.

Real Lesson: A farmer at the local Vancouver farmers market said a great space saver for strawberries is to plant them around the base of blueberry plants about 8 inches apart. who knew. we planted 6 around each blueberry and will keep you posted on how it works out...

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day indeed! In past years we went down to one car for a few months and a few years ago I dedicated four months to bike only transport. This year we planted three trees . . . four way apple, four way pear, and a plum. Also we implemented a new non-paper towel buying policy- we are now a cloth napkin and towel household!

Spring term ended and I have one week before summer term starts so Mike and I wasted no time in making the most of this last weekend and its beautiful weather! Mike discovered that Vancouver, WA, has a farmer's market. At our last place we biked or walked to the one in downtown Portland. Turns out the Vancouver one is close enough to bike with a great 4 mile bike route direct from our house! We had a blast- think Saturday market mixed with the farmers market.

(left) blueberry bushes and (left) partial view of our mini orchard - can three count as an orchard?
We planted starts from the farmer's market, a local seed/start exchange, and a nursery that I wouldn't return to. On Saturday we planted: lettuce, raspberry, strawberry, rhubarb, white onion, walla walla onions, leeks, blueberry bushes, and 2 types of rosemary.

Felix decided to help dig- (and fertilize)

~2.5 week old chickens
This week was better. I learned to be less freaked out and Elinore stopped flying randomly without navigation and into walls. Now they perch on my wrist and peck feed out of the hand. They do fly and spread their wings but it isn't bad. They are so big now!!!! It is amazing how much they grow each day- its my favorite past time to go and spend time hand feeding them.

Ester (left) is our most curious chick and Elinor (right) is gianormal!
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Lessons: 1) the typical blueberry bush needs to have another planted next to it for pollinating in order to get blueberries. There are some small planter varieties that self pollinate but they have small yields and small berries.

Rain Barrels

ahhhhhh.... the rain barrels and the watering system! this is what i was really looking forward to. i had this plan in my head to create this automatic watering/irrigation system using wine barrels, buried hoses, soaker hoses, 4 headed water spickets, rain diversion devices and some other cool items i didn't yet know about. you see, stored in my head was this elaborate gravity fed water system plan (our backyard has a nice slope leading away from the house) that, in my mind, should work no problemo....well... let me breifly explain my plan first before i give the results.

the plan was to hook up the wine barrels to the rain gutters (not so tough), attach a 2-headed spicket to the last barrel with an underground hose heading down to the garden beds. that hose would then connect to a hose splitter with one hose leading to the first bed and the other to the fruit trees. the hose for this first bed would then attach to another splitter which attached to a soaker hose layed out in bed # 1, the other line would lead to bed 2 and to another splitter and would be the same set-up as bed #1. i would continue this daisy chain system to all the beds... each splitter has a valve so i could turn on/off any hose i wanted -- easy, automated (kind of), and slck as hell ... so i thought. so i decided to test it out with just one soaker hose and you know what, i now know one major fact about soaker hoses -- soaker hoses need a little something ... well actually a lota something called water pressure to make the water soak through them and you know ... to make them work!! my rain water soaker hose system would never work - DAMN!! oh well - i'll just connect the system to the water spicket coming out of the house which is full of pressure ... done - not as environmentally nice as using the barrels but waaaaaay easier ... so all is not wasted though ... now the rain barrels will end up watering the fruit trees, berry bushes and the other non-bed portions of the garden. and you know what, 3 barrels of rain water is really not that much water ... especially in the summer when it doesn't rain for 3 months....

~

Lessons: 1) when setting up rain barrels, make sure they are in the position you want them because once they get just a little water in them ... impossible to move cause they are freakn heavy!!; 2) soaker hoses DO NOT work with rain barrels; 3) using a pressure backflow system when your barrels are full is a great way to keep mosquitos away as there is no open water to attract them.

catching up- the chickens part 2

one week old chickens-
meet the cats. Felix (left) finally discovered the chickens a few days ago after Mike took down the fort/protective chicken room in our basement. We're pretty sure if anyone is going to commit fowl murder its gonna be Abby (right) also known as el gato diablo.

The girls made it through their first week and we commemorated with a new brooder (fancy chicken speak for baby pen). We decided the hen house would function just fine as a bigger brooder, besides it had to be built anyway- why not now. It didn't take very long but they already got their bum feathers and the wings are getting tested. This wasn't a very fun chickening week. They now fly- sorta. They run around and flap their wings in a haphazard way. Maybe the exposure therapy wasn't my brightest idea . . .

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Lesson of the day~ the city of portland allows three chickens per house, more with a permit (or if your neighbors don't snitch), and no roosters. Chickens lay eggs. Roosters make baby chicks. It's just like human sex-ed. Really. You don't need a rooster for eggs. Now, chickens do lay more often with warmth and light. This means spring when everything is more fertile. But our girls won't lay eggs until sometime around late September. Chickens reach maturity around six months old. They are called pullets until their first birthday and then they blossom into being called hens! awe . . .

catching up - the chickens

so for the last several months, nic has said time and time again, we are a few years away from getting chickens because with her in grad school, time was/is tight and she wouldn't have the bandwidth to take care of chickens... well about 3 or 4 weeks ago, nicole came across this very cool new store in town called 'the urban farm store' (http://www.urbanfarmstore.com/ )... really before i knew what hit me, nicole had designed a chicken run and chicken coop, i was attending chicken class, got to pet a welsummer and i now know about pasty butt --- yes pasty butt. Did you know that chickens have only one exit, its called a vent, and everything that can come out of chicken (or in for that matter...hmmm) comes out the vent... eeeeesh!

I may have designed it but make no mistake about it- Mike built it!!! (so proud)

april 1st (no foolin)... the day was here, the urban farm store had confirmed that they received their new shipment of 1 & 2 day old chics. they opened at 10am. we were there at 9:45am. we knew they were only getting 10 welsummers and that was one we really wanted - 5 of the 10 were already gone by the time we made it to the front of the line - no exaggeration. $14 later, we were the proud new owners of a welsummer, an americauna, and a buff orpington. we rock! Here are some pics of what we think they will look like when they grow up... in order: americauna, buff oprington, welsummer

Ahhhh . . . procrastination is an amazing thing. Its finals week in grad school and since procrastination is one of the primary reasons I was able to get all the planing for chickens done I figured why not keep it up and get in on this blogging thing. So here's the deal. I am deathly afraid of birds. I know . . . then why did we get chickens? Beyond the ridiculous therapist-in-training answer of exposure therapy there are lots of reasons!!!
-they compost (read eat anything put in front of them)
-they provide beautiful protein rich yummy eggs that are firm with orange yolks
-they till your garden (even when you don't want them to)

-they are entertaining as hell

So here is what the eggs will look like: bluish-green americauna eggs, light brown large buff orpington eggs, and chocolate brown welsummer eggs

May we introduce to you the arrival of Elinor the buff orpington, Esther the americauna, and Gladys the welsummer-

left: Gladys, middle: Elinor, right: the left side is Esther's rear

So the first two days of chickening was not so harmonious. Gladys kept aggressively pecking at Elinor's eyes. In a panic, we called the chicken guru and upon her advice we separated Gladys with a wire mesh wall from the other two. After two days, she still went for the eyes and we reluctantly agreed that we would need to return her to the store to go live with the big girl chickens who would put her in her place. Mike went down to the basement into the chicken-fort (ask him about that and he'll be your best friend) and there in their little brooder home the three snuggled together. Esther and Elinor had flown over the fence to be reunited with their sister!! say awe . . . So we kept her.

Mike placing the girls in their first brooder, the girls sleep all curled up together

How we picked names- Esther was originally suppose to be called Harriet but we kept calling her Easter egger after a similar mix breed that also lays green/blue eggs. Gladys, (reflection of Mike's humor) so we could call the girls Gladys and her peeps . . . oye. And then Elinor who we now affectionately call Eli-snore due to her ability to fall asleep anywhere even in midstretch as she just flops head first onto the ground. hilarious!!!

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Lesson of the day:

Chickening- chickens are super social creatures. They need to be in flocks of at least three or more to be happy. While most eye pecks are a normal part of establishing pecking order and dominance, chicks will occasionally eat other chicken's eyes. Chickens are omnivores and eyes are like juicy grapes . . . ewe. The biggest concerns for the first week of life are keeping at 95 degrees and avoiding pasty butt (poo sticks to the down fuzz and clogs the vent). This can result in death within a day if not fixed. Hint: clean pasty butt the way i did with Gladys, use warm water and a q-tip to wipe away the poo.