Well, it's that time of the year! We have less pasture places to place the coops and with the lack of sunlight/new plant growth, we have to move coops more frequently throughout the area. Four coops was two coops too many! We have consolidated. We kept the "only 2nd year layer" of coop three, and she is now co-mingling with the 1st year layers. We also kept all of the 2nd year layers of coop two. Coop one's 3rd year layers will all be winter soup material by the end of this week.
D has decided that he definitely "over built" that first coop. Without any wheels to move it along, the process of moving that big old heavy coop was getting to be too difficult to move in the winter, even with heavy slog boots on. That coop will be put away, for now.
I have strategized a different "hoop" coop that we can build for next spring. We can work on it over the winter in the garage. It will be a combo of the coops we built last year along with PVC hoop (tunnel) pen. So I think we can get at least five to six hens in that one while it will still be easy to move.
So, our thirteen hens are dwindling down to eight hens this winter. That will be plenty of eggs for the family with a few extra that we can sell.
Last night, at dusk, we pulled the three 1st year Wellsummer hens out of their coop. Just before that, we closed the door from the coop to the pen on coop three. Then we pushed all three hens into coop three with the remaining Russian Orloff (in the dead of night). Interestingly, no major fights. I knew they would not fight in the dark, but wondered what the daylight would bring. They definitely kept their distance, with three in one part of the pen with the one in the other part of the pen. So, perhaps, they will work it out without any damage until they figure out a new pecking order.
Last night, at dusk, we pulled the three 1st year Wellsummer hens out of their coop. Just before that, we closed the door from the coop to the pen on coop three. Then we pushed all three hens into coop three with the remaining Russian Orloff (in the dead of night). Interestingly, no major fights. I knew they would not fight in the dark, but wondered what the daylight would bring. They definitely kept their distance, with three in one part of the pen with the one in the other part of the pen. So, perhaps, they will work it out without any damage until they figure out a new pecking order.
The moult has been a long one this year. Don't know if the extra hot summer is the reason, or if all the house construction has just been too much stress on the hens. The 1st year layers, of course, basically grew up with all this noise, so they appear oblivious to the racket. Nonetheless, the coops are set up for winter with lights in place. I attached some oversized plastic electrical boxes in the coops to protect the timers from constantly being knocked down. Now the issue is the light socket being knocked out of the box... Oy Vey! Will need to work on getting that secured.
Hopefully, we'll start getting some more fresh eggs in the near future! For now, we are only getting one or two eggs per day! Come'on Girls - let's get back to Egg'n!
Garden-wize, I wanted to make note so that I don't forget next spring, that I planted the Garlic and Onions about the 3rd week of October (10/18/15). I had never tried onion seeds before, so I was not sure that would even work. Due to the temps being in the low 40s almost every night, not much was happening even after two weeks. I put my plastic hoop house over the garden, and a week later, I had a nice sprout of onions and garlic. It's dipping into the high 30s at night now, so I'll leave the hoop house up for another week or two. In the meantime, I plan on adding straw to the garden to help protect the bulbs from frost. Winter is on its way!
