A Texan Asian in Belgium - The Story of the Hippie Stink Homestead

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hmm, I would be cautious with PT wood anyway. The reason I asked, and it would be doubly beneficial now, was to suggest you wrap(tightly) some old bicycle tire inner tubes around the roost. Here is one study about it. There is another but I don't agree with how they presented their findings so if I link to it I'll spend the next two hours picking it apart.....so I'll just leave this one for now.......


http://www.yourchickens.co.uk/care-and-advice/the_perfect_perch_1_2842822


Edited to add I was able to get old tubes from a bicycle shop for free..
 
Last edited:
Chipper Chicken said:
hmm, I would be cautious with PT wood anyway. The reason I asked, and it would be doubly beneficial now, was to suggest you wrap(tightly) some old bicycle tire inner tubes around the roost. Here is one study about it. There is another but I don't agree with how they presented their findings so if I link to it I'll spend the next two hours picking it apart.....so I'll just leave this one for now.......


http://www.yourchickens.co.uk/care-and-advice/the_perfect_perch_1_2842822


Edited to add I was able to get old tubes from a bicycle shop for free..
Click to expand...


Most of the chemicals in US pressure-treated wood are illegal here. Plus the lumber here has to be specially marked as Bio if it doesn't use chemicals at all.

The whole prefab coop is pressure treated wood though, so I don't think I can really do much until the spring when we have time to replace the thing.
 
Finally got the stuff for the new coop figured out! We get TONS of pallets and have giant sheets of plywood just laying around. Ironically the smaller, more splintery-looking wood pallets give you more profit at the recycling center here than the large, fairly good wood (which only nets maybe a few euro).

I'm taking two large roughly three meter pallets and I'll have to scavenge some wood from this week's kitchen breakdown or something to get the raw material for the coop. We'll spring 16 euro a pop for two corrugated plastic sheets for the roofing. In all it'll be a lean-to style design on wood or brick risers to give it height and two nesting boxes for all eight girls. I'm also sourcing agricultural lime (slaked lime used for drawing those white lines on football fields) to use for whitewash on the inside of the coop to keep out mites and I'm going to use pet-quality wood dowels for roosts. I got a real good plan y'all!
 
Wow it HAS been a while hasn't it.

I finally decided on a coop plan. We're going to go with either an A-Frame or a Hoop Frame coop because of the windy nature of the run. It won't be built on the ground since the run is uneven and often muddy, I'll have it off the ground on stilts that are leveled and anchored to the ground. Both are inexpensive and can make use of the wood pallets we have.

Chickens finished their first molt, and are looking beautiful.

Pics before molt:



















Pic after:



I just got back from winter vacation in Texas visiting my family. I didn't get to go to the feed or tractor supply stores, which was disappointing. Still, I can buy my UK mite killer solution I got from From The Land UK in time to dip the birds for fleas and mites this spring. I'm taking stock of my seed this year and I'm downloading the garden planner trial on Old Farmer's Almanac to start planning my crops for the year. I'm moving my raised beds from my roof down to the main garden area, and I'm going to be doing a raised bed style garden mixed with a no-till garden.

I also want to plant herbs near or in the chicken's run so I can snip excess foliage from the plants for aromatherapy in the coop. If I choose in the run, it'll all be caged off so the hens can't uproot or eat too much of the herbs at once. I'm thinking St. John's Wort, Borage, Comfrey, Valerian, White Yarrow, and Sweet Woodruff as well as the standard Sage, Thyme, Rosemary, and Tarragon. Growing it inside the run also gives the hens the opportunity to nibble at the leaves at their leisure when it grows past a certain point - which means less work pruning back the herbs!
 
Bought supplies today. Hay for the run to refresh the hay from last week and some seed starting stuff. I'm starting sage and garlic right now; I'm due to start lettuce, red and green cabbage, and red and white onions next week.



My garden plan is pretty straightforward. I'm doing raised beds either this year or the next and we're trying a no-till method. Three Sisters grows in the left corner there, with the Golden Bantam from this past year and Fin de Bagnole from this past year. The squash will be Jack o Lantern pumpkins, a good dual purpose cooking-and-carving heirloom.
 
News update for this week:

Chicken coop plans are finally in motion. Going to have the husband wake up on Sunday and cut the pieces I need for the coop frame. We're doing a reinforced hoop frame house, which will basically be a wood frame that will then be covered on top and on three sides with livestock fencing, then covered in a clear tarp. One side will have painted or sealed wood doors that have a pop door for the chickens that swing open so I can clean it. The whole thing will be raised off the ground and have a footprint of one meter by two meters. Nesting boxes are basically fruit crates in most small farms here so I'm taking the idea a step further and buying square 24x24 cm plastic organization bins that will lay inside of the coop. It's more aesthetically pleasing and practical than wooden nesting boxes that could potentially bring back the red mites I worked hard to get rid of. Since the coop design is mostly plastic and wire and is shaped so the wind just skates right over it/rain runs right off of it, red mites should find it difficult to find nesting areas in the coop.

It rained most of last week, but Thursday to today has been lovely and clear, though cold. I started the Romanian Red inside this year last Sunday (I still need to go and purchase weed screen for the garden, we're trying a local method that makes gardens virtually weedless) and today we have 12 out of 15 bulbs sending up shoots. I'll be starting my onions, lettuce, cabbage, and celery inside next week and the garden will hopefully be ready to plant the garlic by the end of next week. I picked February instead of November to sow this year, last year I ended up having to harvest my garlic bulbs far too early in JULY instead of in September when I would have been ready for them.

House is getting tidied up today, since I'm off work on the weekends. Wipe everything down, finish up the laundry, should only take two hours at most if I do it until it's done. I just made literally ten batches of this laundry soap recipe, adapted to cut out the borax and using ZOTE (the most popular brand amongst my Hispanic neighbors and family). I have a giant box made specifically to hold storebought powder laundry detergent, so I make as much at one time as I can fit into the box (4 kg washing soda to 2.5 bars ZOTE). It'll be a while before I need more laundry detergent!
 

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