Chickens?
I’m hoping last night was the conclusion of my involvement of adding chickens to our family farm. I can hope all I want, but I realize now that we have chickens something is going to go wrong.
What could go wrong? Well, let’s consider the fact that we have four dogs (who eat CHICKEN and rice dog food) and our house is surrounded by coyotes at night. Oh yeah, and the best one, our neighbor and his son spent last weekend rebuilding and strengthening his chicken coop because his “old” one was destroyed by a bear. Nope, I can’t see anything that could go wrong here.
We have a nice chicken coop. I know because Ivy told me it was really nice and she has become quite the chicken expert. The coop was given to us by a neighbor that has moved back to town. They didn’t necessarily want the coop on the property when realtors showed their house to potential buyers.
Why? Well, the coop was laying on its side because the wind blew it over. Not exactly blew it over, it actually blew it over and it rolled down a hill. I’m guessing it rolled over twice before it stopped, landing on its side. Amazingly, the news gets better. The coop was not damaged, (much). There was a small amount of cosmetic damage.
It was about a couple months ago my neighbor told me if I could get the coop off his property I could have it. Ivy got so excited she bought some chicks and started brooding them.
I learned from Ivy, baby chicks need to be kept under heat lamps and slowly reduce the temperature around them for a couple months. She was keeping the chicks in my brother’s shop (he is also an expert in chickens).
Ivy did a substantial amount of research choosing the breeds of her chickens. First, they needed to be tolerant of cold weather, (in case this summer ends). Second, they had to have pleasant dispositions. (No, I didn’t realize chickens had dispositions, either) Lastly, she wanted chickens that produced colored eggs.
This egg thing is where all logic went out the window. She bought enough chickens to produce over 150 eggs per month. As a family, we would be lucky to eat a dozen eggs a month. The twins are cereal eaters, the adults seldom take the time. I see a problem developing here.
I spent a couple weeks thinking about how I could get the coop back up the hill and to our place. Then I spent a couple weeks WORRYING how I was going to get the coop up the hill and over to our place. All this time, Ivy and my brother were lowering the temperature on the chicks. The chicks were needing to come home.
I let panic set in. Against my better judgement, I decided I was going to get a neighbor and another friend, we would drive a tractor down that hill, pick up that coop and set it on a trailer. It worked! I got the coop home. It took only three hours to get the coop off the trailer, and placed where we wanted it. But heck, I wasn’t doing anything anyway.
Ivy, Elaine, the twins and I spent the next four evenings repairing the cosmetic damage and tying the coop down. This coop will not roll down anymore hills, (I hope). We brought the chickens home last night. It was kind of fun getting the coop ready as a family. I would suggest you all try it.
The twins asked to sleep in the coop with the chickens. Personally, I don’t even like taking the dogs camping. I had to say, no.
UPDATE: It rained a little yesterday, not at our house, but most of the fire areas received a nice rain. In fact, the weather service was calling for flooding conditions. I spoke with a fire crew and they told me they needed to pull off due to the unsafe, slick conditions. What’s next? Locusts?
Our crazy lives!
Monner
