Colorado

[Mtn Margie]

My oldest of four boys is 21 and the youngest is 8. Keeps me busy! We are getting 50 red broiler chicks on Friday in order to feed these guys. The work that the chickens do around the house and under the deck got rave reviews from the Wildfire Risk Assessment person. Who knew chickens could be great for fire mitigation!

 

[Minchi]

So my oldest son and ai were working in the chicken yard yesterday afternoon.....when all of a sudden it started raining HARD. We ran into the hen house, which was the closest shelter. We ended up being in there for nearly 40 minutes while it rained and hailed buckets. Good news is that the hen house, even without shingles, held out the water. Bad thing was that it was LOUD! Got lots of moisture though, and it is a good thing.

Hope Rock is doing well after his surgery.

Yea I got that storm too..... I still don't have a finished coop. I had just put the girls out and was starting to make lunch when suddenly we were hit by a downpour. I look outside to check on them and the tarp I use to cover the temp pen I made for them was blown completely off and they are standing in the down pouring rain shivering at the spot I put them in. So I know they were telling me "we want out". So I go out and re cover the pen so I can scarf down my lunch that is very cold by this point. I am soaked through and through. I go out to see if they are still wanting in and they have not moved so I go get my heavy coat. As soon as I go out to start bringing them in it starts hailing. They are freaked out and I am getting pummeled by almost marble sized hail. I take them out one at a time and put them under my coat and run them in to the house. After I get the last one in it stops stops hailing and within 5 min it stops raining and the sun comes out... So I give it a few min to let the girls recover and let things dry a bit and put the girls back out. They were a bit hesitant to go and Menchi proceeded to tell me off until she noticed that it had stopped raining. She is still giving me a bit of an evil eye like I made that happen.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Laproscopic surgery and now I'm home. Great to be home.

Hospitals are no place to be if you don't feel well.

 

[Mommato5]

Yea I got that storm too..... I still don't have a finished coop.  I had just put the girls out and was starting to make lunch when suddenly we were hit by a downpour.  I look outside to check on them and the tarp I use to cover the temp pen I made for them was blown completely off and they are standing in the down pouring rain shivering at the spot I put them in.  So I know they were telling me "we want out".  So I go out and re cover the pen so I can scarf down my lunch that is very cold by this point.  I am soaked through and through.  I go out to see if they are still wanting in and they have not moved so I go get my heavy coat.  As soon as I go out to start bringing them in it starts hailing. They are freaked out and I am getting pummeled by almost marble sized hail.  I take them out one at a time and put them under my coat and run them in to the house.  After I get the last one in it stops stops hailing and within 5 min it stops raining and the sun comes out... So I give it a few min to let the girls recover and let things dry a bit and put the girls back out.  They were a bit hesitant to go and Menchi proceeded to tell me off until she noticed that it had stopped raining.  She is still giving me a bit of an evil eye like I made that happen. 

I'm sorry, but that is hilarious! Oh, the things we do for our chickens...

Rock, glad you are home! There no place like home when you are not feeling up to par!

Coloradogal, I may want "Grandma R's" phone number in the future for my developing Roo. I'll keep him 'till he crows just in case but I don't have much hope of an "early blooming pullet" any more! I would love to keep him but the neighbor expressly said no roosters and I'm just not sure we could make him dinner.

 

[Minchi]

Yea, and sadly they don't have a clue but at least our efforts are repaid with eggs.

BTW this reminds me of Menchi yesterday.

 

[gardendufus]

So my oldest son and ai were working in the chicken yard yesterday afternoon.....when all of a sudden it started raining HARD. We ran into the hen house, which was the closest shelter. We ended up being in there for nearly 40 minutes while it rained and hailed buckets. Good news is that the hen house, even without shingles, held out the water. Bad thing was that it was LOUD! Got lots of moisture though, and it is a good thing.

Hope Rock is doing well after his surgery.

Yeah we had the hard rain night before last. My thought was, oh good, I just cut the weeds, now here is rain t nourish them again.

 

[wsmith]

Got the handle and latch on the hen house door this afternoon. Also finished hauling in dirt to level the floor and added the straw. It had gotten wet, but is drying out now. I want to have chickens in the hen house by Friday evening. That's the goal anyway. Still need to put the vents in before that. Paint will come after the trim and the vents are on.

 

[wsmith]

Yeah we had the hard rain night before last. My thought was, oh good, I just cut the weeds, now here is rain t nourish them again.

During the hail storm, as it was just getting going, the chickens were out pecking at the hail..then they started getting hit by it and all went under cover. Very funny to watch.

 

[wsmith]

Laproscopic surgery and now I'm home. Great to be home.

Hospitals are no place to be if you don't feel well.

Glad you're home and feeling better. Hope it was successful.

 

[Mommato5]

wsmith, what are the dimensions of your hen house? It looks a lot like what I want to build but I think yours is bigger than I'm planning. Your craftsmanship is absolutely wonderful! My Hubby is handy in many areas but carpentry is not his thing! LOL He tries and what he creates is *good enough.* His excuse is that he doesn't have the appropriate tools. I'm sure that's part of it but another part is just not thinking enough steps ahead. I remind myself often that's it's JUST for chickens! As long as it doesn't leak and it's predator-proof they aren't going to complain!

And on that topic, I am wondering if hardware cloth is predator-proof. When we build our big coop I'd like to have it raised off the ground and enclose the underneath area with hardware cloth. I'd like to have the coop always open to the enclosed underneath area so they can come on out whenever they wake up. But ONLY if hardware cloth will keep out predators that might come around at night! We have raccoons and skunks although I've never seen any in our yard. We did have a large predator (probably coyote) come through once (that we know of), we saw tracks in the snow. It chased a rabbit around the yard and then did laps around the coop before leaving. We also have a large dog who happily leaves his scent all throughout the yard. We live in a suburban neighborhood with open fields just a couple blocks away.