| We made a makeshift coop from a roll of chicken wire and some wooden posts, plus a long flat board we had lying around. I could not have done it myself - thank goodness my room mate helped. (He has muscles; I don't.)
The coop
I'm sure the coop would have been easier to make and a bit neater too if it wasn't around this tree, but so far as I can tell, the chickens REALLY LIKE the area under these three trees here, with all of the shade and dead leaves and, thus, opportunities to hunt for bugs. When we fostered a few chickens several months ago, this was the part of our yard those chickens liked the most.
As you can see, I got food and water containers at a nearby feed store ($14 total, I think), and I picked up organic chicken feed for $.79/lb. I also spent $12 or so on a bale of straw to use for bedding. The chickens themselves were $10 each, which seems about right, considering that they are from a small farm and not a hatchery. There was no attempt to sex the birds, but the farmer has promised to exchange them if they turn out to be roosters.
Sunday, I brought the girls home in a big box, and put them in their coop. They seem very happy. They get fed lots of kitchen scraps - bread crusts from the kids' sandwiches, apple cores, carrot tops, leftover oatmeal - and they spend their days eating grass and hunting for bugs. Nearly immediately, one found (and ate) a big fat slug. I was so happy! I've been finding and killing slugs every now and again for a year now, and now they chickens will take care of them for me and turn them into fertilizer and eggs.
I would have preferred to get chickens of various breeds to make it easier to name them and tell them apart, but the farm we got them from has only a handful of breeds, and buff orps were the only ones they had that were among the ones we wanted. Most important to me was that we were getting our birds from a local farm instead of through the mail from a hatchery, and that the farm had handled them a lot so that they wouldn't mind the kids petting them and holding them.
Yesterday, I picked up each of my room mate's kids from school and told them we had a surprise. Neither one had any guesses what that might be. I told the preschooler that the surprise was outside and she guessed "Is it a plant?" I asked if that would be a good surprise and she said no. I said it was a good surprise. Both kids loved the chickens.
Today, my room mate's older daughter brought a few friends over, and they took turns feeding, petting, and holding the chickens. The birds were incredibly good natured it. All in all, the chickens are a huge hit! Right now I've got them loose in the yard, out of their coop because the way I see it, we've got an entire yard FULL of weeds that they should be eating. |
