Author: Anna & Mark

I wish I d known how loud chickens are

August 26, 2013 Posts 1 Comment

Noisy chickensMason’s big
surprise when he started keeping chickens was the noise
level.  He wrote:


“For me, the one thing I wish I knew was how
loud the hens can be. We live in the city and thought that if we
didn’t have a rooster we would be in the clear for noise.

“For Leah, she wished she knew how destructive they can be on a
yard and garden.

“Love your blog. My fiance and I are in Louisville, Kentucky, and
I keep her up to date on all the happens going on at your
homestead. We started a nonprofit louisvillegrows.org
about four years ago and going strong.”



I can totally relate
to Mason’s point, especially this year.  Our current batch of
pullets seems to think they need to tell the world about every egg
they lay.  Since we average ten a day at the moment, that’s
one noisy flock!


Help your chickens
keep those vocal cords hydrated with a POOP-free chicken waterer.

I wish I d known grown birds would peck the wee ones

August 25, 2013 Posts No Comments

Segregated chickensJoe had two answers to my
question about what he wished he’d known about chickens when he
first started.  He wrote:


“I wish I knew about
baby chicken leg problems like spraddle
leg. By the time we realized something was horribly wrong,
too much time had passed to be able to fix it.



“The second is more
related to the picture. I wish I knew how hard integration of
baby chicks was. When it was time to start raising generation 2,
we figured the maternal instinct would make it easy to let them
adopt the new babies. By the time we realized that the grown
birds would peck to death the wee ones, we had to learn about
segregation.



“We hadn’t allowed
for a coop design to have two partitions inside the hen house. I
was able to split the yard, but every day I have to haul the
little ones back into a cramped makeshift coop area for the
night till they get bigger. This would be much easier if I had
built the henhouse with a removable partition and two doors.



“Thanks for the
great product, we love having low maintenance clean water for
our birds thanks to a DIY
kit!”



This is one of my
favorite entries so far because Joe’s second point was also on my
list of things I wish I’d known.  Maybe this post can save
other new chicken-owners from repeating our mistakes!

Drainage around a chicken coop

August 24, 2013 Posts 3 Comments

Homey chicken coopHelen wrote in to share her lessons in coop
locating and building:


“The one thing I learned after
starting with chickens is to make sure there is drainage into
their run.  My run was at the bottom of a slope where I throw tons of snow from my
driveway.  Well, spring run off and heavy rains gave me
lots of mud and stink. 



“I just finished building a new
chicken coop, 24 square feet and only spend about $175 getting
most of the materials from friends or the dump.  The green
wood is from an old out house.  Notice the

moon on the door!”



Don’t forget that
tomorrow’s the last day to enter our contest to win a free EZ Miser!  I’m looking
forward to hearing what lessons you’ve learned since beginning
with chickens.