Great thread. I live in the Pacific Northwest and the winter rains leave part of my run a nasty mess - naturally it's the part by the gate where I have to walk. I've put down some pea gravel just to keep my and my chickens' feet from being in the mud, so I think I'll just add a bit more and then...
My hubby picked up cabbage for a game of swinging keep away (they've grown on him to the point that he buys one at least every other trip to the grocery store), and I put out some river pebbles to combat the amount of rain we've had lately! I also planted marigolds to transplant into the run and...
This is all fascinating! I have 5 Easter Eggers and get a variety of green and blue, some with spots, some more brown than green. So, basically, it seems that all my girls have a blue egg gene, and some also have the "set" of genes that leads to brown. I don't have plans to breed at this point...
About things that use more eggs, with the holiday season coming up, you can make meringues and divinity with the whites. Pound cake uses a bunch, too. I love making homemade mayo - it really isn't hard and sooo much better than store bought. I use one whole egg and one yolk, and the recipe from...
:lau We eat them ALL! But I only have 5 chickens and 5 people and get a max of 3 a day at the moment . . . but we have been known to go through 4 dozen a week, so I'm looking forward to getting a few more chickens so we can do things like make meringues and pound cakes . . .
I'm in
I'm in the process of covering the run with chicken wire, just to keep them in. Even if they don't escape, they sit on the fence and poop on my sidewalk! Which is why there's a run!
I'm pretty sure the brown & black one in the middle is an Easter Egger - she looks just like my girls! Which means you're likely to have blue or green eggs - beautiful and tasty! Welcome and good luck! I'll warn you, though my EEs like to fly . . .
They sound hilarious! My EEs are just the opposite. I clipped their wings before we went out of town for a few days, and one still managed to get on top of the neighbor's trailer on the other side of the fence. At night. And my friend had to knock on the neighbor's door for help getting her down...
Mine never slept on the low roosts that came in our bought coop. I renovated another one and put in roosts about 18" of the floor, and they loved it. With the low roosts I had to block off the nest boxes every night. And they still slept right in front of them, on bare boards. Yuck!
I'd just...
Wow! That's a lot! The nice roof on the coop was the main reason I decided it was worth renovating. Sigh. The back is fine, since it slopes down. I'm thinking I'll add to the sides and turn it so that front (which slopes up) is facing the wood fence, which should keep rain from blowing in...
I didn't include a pic of the nest box, because that area stays dry! Other than one minor fix. I have one long box, and the girls are fine, after I put up curtains made from old jeans.
I like the tarp idea, though the rain doesn't seem to bother them much. I'd like a bit more dry ground! My...
The paint I used is the stuff intended to fill in cracks and waterproof old decks. Do you really think I need more? And the holes do have paint in them - hence the drips thatI didn't have enough leftover paint to cover .o_O So, maybe I'll move it over closer to the fence and face the fence to...
Sorry - could have explained more. The first pic is the side that is hinged as a door. That's where I took the inside pic from, which shows where the water is. The wet there may be because the door swelled and doesn't fit under the roof. The second one is the front, which is where I'm not sure...
Ok, so I reworked a freebie coop because my stupid store bought one leaked in addition to other problems. Well, after a really good 4 days of rain -and I'm talking over 2 inches yesterday - I found this morning that it leaked all along the front and down half one side and all of the other. I...