No Sooner Said. . .

We got our first egg from the Rhode Island Reds. Pretty good size, in truth. That means that they will get larger over time and practice.

The Welsummers are NOT happy that I accidentally left a thistle in their run.  They knocked down everything around it, but, yah, I don't blame them.  I will get out there tonight and get that sticker out so that it doesn't continue to be a hazard for them.  They will, on occasion, lay an egg in the fresh grass as though it is a pile of hay in the nesting box. Sillies.

New Egg was laid next to the fake egg.  I have the circle on the fake egg so that the kids won't carry it in thinking it is a real chicken egg. The comparison photo is a bit blurry. Sorry 'bout that. 

Photos of the RIRs also include the new feeder.  That little black knob that sticks out at the bottom of the opening becomes a weight that pulls the opening closed if a rodent gets on it to get into the feed. The RIR are very curious birds.  Much more so than the Welsummers which are a bit stand-offish. 

1 year Welsummers
Please Remove This!	The Grass is Cooler than the Nesting Box
First Rhode Island Red Egg & Marked Fake Egg	Rhode Island between 2 Welsummer Eggs
Hen, Water & New Feeder	Safety Knob
Rhode Island Red in New Pen
Whatchcadoin?	Another RIR Close Up

The HoopPen attached to the HoopCoop Update

The sun is out, albeit, brisk. Temps are not getting above mid-60s this weekend. However, the chicks are enjoying the fresh air, and the sun through the door.  On occasion, one or two will pop out into the grass to look for bugs and worms, but mostly like being inside where there's heat radiating from overhead. While we have placed food and water in the pen, we will also keep it inside the hoop coop unless they start getting so fat, that they can't walk.  We don't want them THAT fat!

The heavy water-proof canvas tarps along with the down-filled comforter laying in between, is doing the trick to keep the warmth inside at night. That's our solution for now, until we can come up with something better for next year. 

Next weekend will be the extra lighting set up in the other coops, since we are barely getting 13 hours of sun per day. To keep the layers producing a little better, we need at least 13 hours of sun/light. We set up the lights inside the coops to come on at 4 am for the layers and that way, all fall, winter and spring, they are getting a minimum of 13 hours of light and sun to help with egg production. Additionally, we will take off the sun cloth from the pens, so that any sun that does peek out from the clouds, helps to promote a little extra warmth, and lots of vitamin D. 

We always try to use clear plastic on the pens as rain guards covering over 75% of the pens, but at the same time, there's a gap for ventilation purposes on each side.  We do cover one or both sides of the pens, when there's a strong wind or snow for a little extra protection.

I recognize that some people think we go a bit overboard with protecting our chickens, but the reality, as we have learned, is that the extra protection reduces the stress level for the chickens, and we don't need to feed them any medicated food in order for them to be good egg and meat producers. The layers produce good eggs almost all year long, they don't pick/peck on each other, they forage like "real chickens" are intended to do, and they are not bored because we move their paddocks regularly to fresh grass. We don't pamper them; we do treat them humanely without turning them into pets.

Close up of Hoop Pen	Hoop Coop and Pen is Set up
Cornish X Sunbathing	The goofy Hoop Coop and Hoop Pen
New Welsummer Doing the Sunshine Lean

PVC Turkey Pen

Between the three of us, the pen is finally complete.  It is five feet wide and ten feet long. The only wood is the base of pressure treated 2X4s. The archs are ten foot 1/2 inch PVC with 1/2 inch mesh hardware cloth.  We attempted to replicate the arch for the end as a door, but it did not work well. So we filled in a section in order to attach a vertical post and attach a rectangle door over the end. We used a lot of zipties to attach the wire to the PVC while stapling the wired on the outside of the wood frame.

In an effort to reduce sway, you may see a few "right angles" of PVC attached to the center next to the arch. One of the right angles is also where we have hung their rain-proof feeder for easier access to feed them.

These two are great foragers and within an hour of putting the pen into place, they had the vegetation mowed down!

The shiny "cover" over the pen is just a clear table cloth for those rainy days our area is renowned for. The pen is considerably lighter than our eight foot by four foot pens built out of 2X3s!

If we ever decide to combine our two chicken flocks, the coop and pen together are big enough for all our chickens. Or, we can just keep it set aside for raising a couple of turkeys each summer.

Doing the Mouse Stomp

I can't say that I'm a chicken behaviorist. I don't profess to understand what goes through the mind of a chicken. But I think the Welsummers are territorial! 

We live on several acres of untended pasture land. The stray cats, snakes, hawks, owls and coyotes feast on the mice that live in the pasture. Our backyard is not a coiffed parcel, but more pasture where the chickens can graze in peace, until a mouse tries to invade their space.  In the past month, the Welsummers have stomped, killed and played chase with little mice that get into their pen. Sure, I can totally understand why mice want to get into the pens, because the chickens routinely drop food on the ground.  But, obviously, if it mouse dallies at all, these gals are gonna turn that poor little mouse into an object of fun or revenge.

No, I did not take photos of the little squished mouse carcass that I found today. I pulled it out of the pen and threw it into field. 

By the way, all three Welsummers are laying eggs now.  We have received five cute little chocolate colored eggs.  Despite the Orloffs going into molt, we are still getting a few eggs from them, from time to time.

An Evening Out with the Orloffs

First and foremost, I apologize for the fuzzy photos.  I really should have used my tripod! 

Yesterday was an eventful day! Normally, we keep all the hens/pullets penned up for safety reasons.  There are plenty of predators out here, even in the daytime, from Hawks to Coyotes, Feral Cats and Neighboring Dogs. Also there can be some traffic zipping past our house, on one side or the other. D and L wanted to investigate how well/close the chickens would stay in proximity to the house and their coop. Will they venture over onto the neighboring properties? Will they slip out into the field? Will they attract the predators? Will they proverbially, "cross the road?"

These are the soon to be dinner chickens. They have been the least productive peep that we have experienced to date. We should, at the very least, get 14 eggs per week from them, however, if we are lucky, we get 7 per week.  Typically we get 5 per week. That's food in their bellies without giving much back. Breaking it down, that's about $12 per month expended on all three of them in food (organic), grit, oyster shells, other supplies and coop cleaning efforts.  At the price I sell the eggs, I would only recoup approximately $6 per month.  That's not even breaking even! Soooo... something has got to give.

Of the other two coops, the hens are costing us about the same, $12 and $16 ($28 total), but, if we sold the eggs from the other two coops, we would  recoup about $40 per month.  But we don't sell all the eggs.  Of course, the real benefit to us is that we know we have healthy, happy chickens laying the best chicken eggs in the territory! :)  We personally, can't eat all of the eggs.  Essentially, we try to sell just enough to pay for the grain. So it's not like we are making a "killing" on selling the eggs. On the average, we sell about 2 to 3 dozen eggs per week and eat the rest for ourselves.  We are recouping about $9.00 per week, but the benefit ratio would be better without the three non-productive eggers. Then, of course, there's always the 6 week molting period where a chicken basically does not lay any eggs. We are heading into that period in a few more weeks.

So, that being explained, the question was raised, how safe would it be to let the hens roam the property, on their own during the day, letting them forage more freely outside the safety of the pens.  Our property is not well fenced.  There is a fence for the pasture where the horse moseys around, but even that is not something that slows down any other critter or predatory animal.

The "experimental" hens stayed pretty close to their coop.  They ventured, at most, about 75 feet from it. They did investigate the horse, by running between his legs while he was noshing on some green grass. But, for the most part, they stayed close to the opening of their pen, under the trees.  They did not venture into the field.  It was close to twilight when I let them out, so that might have been a factor. But they did stay outside longer, well after dark, after the other hens had already gone to roost. We will try letting them out again today, a few hours earlier in the day.