Hi there, we have three hens, and we’re about to have a big part of our yard leveled and then hydroseeded. The hydroseeding lays down a liquid mulch layer that then sprouts. Supposedly birds won’t eat it.
Question is, will my girls scratch the bejeezus out of it, or leave it alone?
Anyone...
Interesting. So if they decide to nest on my pond, I have to stop using it?
does this seem like one or two eggs, or do they lay a big mound and these are the only two I can see?
So we have a nest of wild geese near our house. This morning one of my dogs got a little too close and spooked mama goose off the nest. I noticed that she has already laid some eggs.
Is it possible to get some fertile goose eggs and slip them into the nest for her to hatch? Or would that...
Coop complete!! Thanks to everyone for your help. There was a lot of barn rehabbing involved as well, so it took longer than expected.
We just moved the birds in tonight, I placed them on the lower roost bar when it got dark, and they hopped up to the higher roost pretty much right away, which...
Thanks everyone!
I wasn't planning on a ladder roost, but the nesting boxes are up high so we can easily get the eggs out from outside. So the roosts need to be higher...and I was worried our girls wouldn't be motivated enough to fly all the way up the 50" high bar in one go.
I'm not sure if I am happy with the roosting bars where they are, or if I should put them on one of the other walls. If I moved them to the back wall, then the birds would have more room to land when they come careening down. The bars are 37" and 50" off the ground.
For this session, I unrolled a ton of hardware cloth, measured and labeled each section, and then cut them all out. It made working easier to have each panel ready to go, rather than shifting gears every time and doing: measure, cut, install, repeat.
Whoah. For some reason I had it in my head that you had to start an apron at the edge of the structure, and that having pavers around it extended the edge. Like if you had a coop with no pavers you would want to lay down an 18" wire apron staring at the coop....but if you had a coop with 18"...
I'm trying to reuse as much material as possible to keep costs as close to zero as we can.
That said, I sprayed the $&_#- out of everything with kilz primer tonight.
Here's some progress.
"Porch" of the nesting boxes is up.
Nesting boxes divided.
Hinged doors installed on nesting boxes.
One swings up for egg collection
One swings down for clean-out
It helps that's there's electricity down at the barn so I can have a light going.
Dang it now I'm overthinking this.
Do you mean there should be an eight inch gap between the boxes and the board? Or the far end of the board should be eight inches from the boxes? so in the latter case, that would mean a four and a half inch gap between the board and the boxes. Pictures...
Here is the in progress nesting box setup. I need to put dividers in. I've seen some people put a little strip in the front of their nesting boxes that kind of looks like a place for the chickens to fly up to, and then jump into the box from. That's why that board is balance on that roll of...
Okay, the roof is up. New plywood plus corrugated metal over that, with drip edge.
Frame of the coop box is done. Need to figure out framing for the human door, pop door, and nesting boxes. Then prime it and put up the hardware cloth. Oh and vinyl flooring.
These little tiny things have been crawling on one board of our coop for a couple days. At first I thought that it was a spider clutch hatching, bit now I'm not so sure.
They stay on the same area, and are about the size of a pinhead, if that.
Thanks!!