Saturday, April 17, 2010

Busy Weekend

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic trying to get a couple of projects completed. I few weeks ago I started a chicken coop inside of our barn. We need a place for Kaden to keep his bantam chickens for the fair and wanted a winter home for some laying hens that we could then build an outdoor access area for them. It took a little while, but finally this evening we moved the chickens into their new home. Our Buckeye chicks are almost two weeks old and they are now occupying the big area in the coop. I will get a picture as soon as I can. Their wings are almost in and they are already looking much bigger.

We finally gave up on our initial attempt at a portable hoophouse because the wind kept knocking it done. We finally decided to build some permanent structures and spend a little more and do it right. So far I have pretty much completed 2 hoop houses, 1 is 9'X24' and the other is 11'X24', I have to enclose one end still and eventually will enclose the other end and put it a door so they can be sealed off, although they will work for right now. We used 2" PVC pipe and attached them to 2"X4"'s so they would be secure and then put on greenhouse plastic and attached that with lath strips so the plastic cannot go anywhere. Again, I will get pictures shortly. I want to build at least 1 more and may add 2 more at some point. I am also just starting to build some small 4'X8' hoophouses that are more portable. I am using my PVC pipe from our failed hoophouse so it does not go to waste.

I also got our electric fence installed in our field over the last 2 days. I was hoping to do a daily rotation of the animals, but at the moment that is not going to be feasible. I realized that you have to clear a strip for the fence because our grass is about 3 feet high at the moment and I have to weed eat a border and then put up the fence, it would take forever to do every day so I am going to move them every week or 2 depending on how quickly they eat the grass. Right now the grass is so high that they get lost in there, but the good news is they have lots of great food to eat.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Baby Chicks


Our first batch of Buckeye Chickens arrived on Wednesday. We ordered 25, they sent 26 and 4 did not survive the trip so we have 22 chicks on our make shift brooder. I am currently building a chicken coop in the barn and we will move them into that when it is done in a few days.