house potatoes

We came home today with 4 new baby chicks:

We’ve been thinking about raising chickens for eggs for years and years, and today we took the Love Apple Farm backyard chicken keeping class in Santa Cruz.  They spend the day telling you about the ins and outs of starting a flock and send you home with week-old chicks and a brooder set.

The brown speckly one is an Araucana, yellow is Buff Orpington, black is Black Cochin, and the one with a pom pom on its head is a White Crested Black Polish.

They alternate passing out every few minutes with cheeping around.  Super cute.  Holding them feels like holding fluffy air.

They are starting their 5th week of life.  I fed them their first bug today from the compost pile.  I picked a pillbug, because last week, they were a bit afraid of the beetle I put in there.

They are loud and the litter gets stinky.  They also freak out and run into the corner whenever we reach in for them.  I am ready for them to go outside.

They can go out @ 6-8 weeks when all the feathers grow in, so Steve is planning a coop and run.  There are a bunch of examples at the backyard chickens website, and we like the features of this, this, and this one.

Steve’s coop-planning sketches

My abandoned attempt at visualizing in Sketchup

We’re either spending our time on Steve’s iPad app or else we’re working on the chicken coop.

Bought all the coop materials 2 weekends ago, then Steve has been measuring, staining, and cutting for the past 2 weeks.  I helped once or twice.

So did Gizmo:

This weekend, the plan is to finish putting everything together.

Out in the enclosed run:

In the coop, they haven’t figured out what the roost is for yet:

Some specs:
- 4′x4′ coop, 12′x4′ enclosed run, 5′-6′ high
- 1/2″x1/2″ hardware cloth over all of it, including 10″ into the ground (couldn’t find 1″x2″)
- roost inside
- removable pop door with ramp
- double front doors for easy access, acrylic windows to peep in
- board inside the doors for deep piling litter
- person sized door to get inside run

Later on, we’ll add a nest box and figure out a more permanent food and water feeder.

The chickens are now beginning their 8th week of life. They seem to really like running around in the run and pecking at the ground.

Just in time for the summer heat – a new chicken waterer! Finally out of the crazy development phase of work so I had time to get this project whipped out.

Ingredients:

• empty kimchee jar
• 4 Coke bottle caps
• pie plate
• drill
• hot glue gun
• one curious dog who’s going to get his nose glued one of these days (not pictured)

The kimchee jar holds more water and has squarer dimensions than the mason jar waterer we have now. Hopefully the chickens won’t be able to tip it over as often when they decide to stand on it. I tried super glue the first time around. Didn’t work. The bottle caps popped right off of the lid after the glue dried.

I put the caps on the outer rim to make it as stable as possible.

More holes means the dish fills up faster which I thought would be nice. It turns out that the fast fill isn’t worth it because it means that a ton spills out when you flip it over. If I had to make another one of these, I’d drill just one hole in the center

In the chicken run and next to the original waterer for comparison.

This post is picture heavy, but I think it’s worth it.

Last week, the buff orpington and the araucana (easter egger) started running up to me and flattening out like so:

While they’re squatting in this position, they let me scratch their backs and ruffle their feathers pretty much however I want. It’s fun (they’re super soft), and it’s also a sign that they’re ready to start laying eggs soon.

Sure enough, was treated to this sight last Friday! (courtesy of the buff – not pictured)

It’s tiny, but nicely shaped.

We decided to hard boil it. Fresh eggs are always really hard to peel. Delicious…

The buff gave us another egg on Sunday.

Fried over-medium this time with some sungold tomatoes from the garden. Mmm…

Monday, the araucana gave us her first egg! She decided to lay it in a pile of poop… Need to build them a nest box soon.

Eggs galore. The buff and the araucana both laid eggs yesterday (consecutive days for the araucana). With a couple of eggs in hand, decided to try making mayonnaise. Turns out, mayo is really simple to make. Next time, have to go a little easier on the granulated garlic (1/4 tsp this time) and the salt (1 tsp table salt) and a little heavier on the acid (1 tbsp lemon + 1/4 tsp vinegar) and the sugar (1/2 tsp).

Since I would’ve added granulated garlic and salt anyway, made a tuna fish salad sandwich. Yum. Going to use what’s left on fries.