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Moving Day

Those baby chickens have been in the house for over a week. That is over a week too long! My main concern is that Rita is going to get in the room with them and figure out a way to have a chicken dinner. My other main concern is that . . well, after a while, chickens begin to smell not so good.  Two dogs, 14 chickens and us . . in a house that’s too small . . something has to go and today . . that would be 14 little chickens.

Who remembers Helen? Back in 2009, she sent me this email.

It’s obvious that you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when it comes to chickens!!!!
A hen will lay one egg per day – even if it lives in a nice lime green house with purple trim.
There is a rooster – the male of the species.  He likes to be on a high fence, crowing – announcing daybreak.  The neighbours would enjoy this.
What goes in a chicken comes out the other end – kind of juicy.  If you don’t want this all over your back yard, a fence will have to be created to enclose the ‘cute things’.
Flies just love chicken poop – be prepared for an invasion of flies.
A hen just doesn’t come to your back door and deposit her egg each day.  She has to have a nest in the chicken coop – check Google for chicken coop.  Straw is used to cushion the egg being dropped from the hind end of the chicken.  (Cracked eggs harbor salmonella.)  Sometimes the hen will poop on her deposit – so the straw makes it easier to clean.
At night, chickens like to sleep on roosts – check Google for that.
While they are in their coop, they will poop – dirty creatures!  Since it is juicy, you’ll have to put straw on the floor of the coop.  Eventually, it will get kind of ‘high’ with smell, so you’ll have to clean the coop.  This means making a trip to the store for a pitch fork – check Google for that.  You will have to load the straw and poop in the back of the husband’s truck and haul it somewhere – most landfills won’t accept agricultural wastes.
After this, the box of the truck will have to be washed – it will smell.
Oh yes, the chicken coop will have to be large enough so that you can get in there to gather eggs and to shovel poop.
Finally – most towns have a bylaw – check Google for that – where livestock – pigs, cows, elephants and chickens – are not allowed in town limits.
 
Stick to quilting – something you know about!!!

Poor Helen. I think she figured I was just to dumb and she would no longer waste time reading my blog so I didn’t hear from her again after that. I feel kinda bad for her though because apparently, in some ways, she didn’t know so much about chickens. We have “egg boxes” that stick out from the coop so I don’t have to get inside the coop to get eggs, and for the most part, I don’t have to get inside to clean out the coop. And, who takes their chicken poop to a landfill? We let it age and use it in the garden. In 8 years of having chickens, I’ve never owned a pitchfork and I’ve never put the poop in the back of Vince’s truck, though we have gone and picked up rabbit poop and other kinds of poop to bring back home for the garden. 

Oh well . . I think even Helen would be proud of my progress with my chickens. Or, maybe not!  🙂

Who remembers when we first got chickens in Missour? They were cute little fuzzballs and they were living in a box in the basement. We didn’t have a chicken coop yet but don’t worry . . Vince was going to get one built. The chickens grew and they smelled bad. The were moved from the basement to the basement garage into a bigger box. They still smelled. The coop still was not built and not progressing very quickly.

After about 5 months . . YES, 5 months . . I sat down with Vince and I said . . the chickens have to be removed from the basement garage. It was summer by now and the smell from the basement garage was drifting into my sewing room, also in the basement. Vince got a big wooden box and made it into a temporary coop and the chickens laid their first eggs in that wooden box.

“Coop”

He did eventually get the coop built.

Same thing happened here when we got the first chickens. Then we hired someone to come finish the chicken coop. Then we got more chickens, and we needed another coop and the chickens outgrew the box before the second coop was built and we had to go buy a little inexpensive portable coop from Tractor Supply. And then we hatched eggs, and the chickens grew and we needed another coop. And the chickens grew some more and we didn’t have the coop.

New Home

New Home

One of the empty coops is now cleaned, scrubbed, sanitized and ready for the 14 little chicks to move in.

This is the first time ever that we’ve had a coop ready before the last minute. These little birds are growing so quickly and they’re so active. The plan is that they will stay in the rubber tub with the heat lamp over them til they’re fully feathered. The only reason not to let them run wild in the coop is that I’m afraid snakes may get in there and eat them. I’ll put a screen over the top of the tub and put bricks on top of it so I’m hoping that will make it fairly snake proof.

Today is the day .. they will be moving into their first permanent home and we will be back to having just the two dogs and the two of us living in the house.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Oh dear, poor Helen. Seems she had chicken issues and took it out on you, whom she thought to have no intelligence at all. Sad. Well, you are a very bright woman who knows how to find answers without anyone elses help and have clearly demonstrated that. Maybe she was/is a chicken farmer that was fed up with chickens with no life but chickens and thought she was doing you a favor by warning you about all the pitfalls? I love reading about your chicken adventures. Thanks for sharing Judy!

  2. hahaha! check Google for that! too funny!

    Glad they’re going outta your house!

  3. Judy ~ Some how when I read Helen’s “advice” to you it just became funnier(hope that is a word!) as I continued reading along. So thx for the good laugh this am! Actually I’m still laughing & I think that was one of those rants that after it was written it should have been read by author than deleted rather than sent!
    I enjoy reading about your chickens & am glad that you have new baby chicks to report about now! Will be eager to hear about their adventures as they grow! Thanks for sharing! Penny

  4. Yes, I remember all of your chicken adventures and you have proved to Helen that you do know how to care for them.
    You are going to love these Buckeye chickens!! I love your photos of them. We will wait a few more weeks before we get any new chicks.

  5. I remember you writing about Helen’s letter, but don’t think I have seen it till today. I think Helen was the one who had to clean out the coops when she was younger and didn’t particularly like doing it. We have always let it break down and added it to the garden in late fall to overwinter then tilled it in the spring. She has some pent up anger towards chickens. To funny.

  6. Your blog is one of five, out of too many to count that I read regularly, that I really look forward to reading. Although we don’t have any pets, I so enjoy reading about Speck, Rita, Cat, the chickens, Addie, Chad, Nicole, Vince, you (who have I left out?), life in Texas, … . Not a knitter, although I have thought about learning, but I do look at what you have on the needles. I am a quilter though. Thanks for the laughs, Judy!

  7. I love that letter from Helen! I’m imagining her experiences taking care of chickens, and I bet that when she got to a place where she had her say, no chickens were allowed anywhere around her! She could have been nicer about it, but maybe the subject of chickens just gets her riled up. This made my day.

  8. Helen must have never been told my favorite saying, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all…..course the Internet has made everyone anoyomus so they feel free to spout off all kinds of nasty stuff! I love your little fur ball chickens, good thing I have a very small yard, I’d have all kinds of critters!

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