FoodKiller's chicken journal!

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Love your Journal! Great job! Keep it up.

 

[Baymule]

Hi Foodkiller! I am so sorry you are fighting the cat crap war in your garden. It burns me up too when I carefully plant my garden only for the neighbor cats and my own cat too, for the matter to use it as their personal toilet. AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!The neighbor next to us even feeds the stray cats, how wonderful. I can sympathize with your cat ghetto. I finally laid paper feed sacks down, weighted with bricks, and that helped keep their scratching claws out of my dirt. I have told my husband that when our cat goes to that cat heaven in the sky, we will not get another cat. I start my seeds in small pots and transplant them to the paper protected garden beds and that helps keep the cat crappers from digging them up. I used to plant seeds directly into the garden beds, only to have the cats dig their toilets and scatter the seeds, most of which never came up after that. I wish you the best.

 

[BigDaddy'sGurl]

Here's a home remedy I have heard of: dust red pepper flakes all over the topsoil in your garden. A sniff or two and the cats will stay away!

 

[FoodKillah]

Quote:
The brown ones lay bigger eggs than the baker, but are much smaller than the baker, a Silkie hen would be a great idea, i might buy her one when the weather gets a little better, never thought of a silkie after what happent with that poor silkie rooster.

BigDaddy'sGurl :

Here's a home remedy I have heard of: dust red pepper flakes all over the topsoil in your garden. A sniff or two and the cats will stay away!

I will try the orange peels trick soon, i hope the cats hate the orange peels. If that fails i will try that for sure

I hope they get in the yard to seek for shelter from the bad weather, i also hope when the weather gets better to have less poop planted in my yard​

 

[lovinlife]

We need an update. It's been too long....

 

[FoodKillah]

Ok then..

It is so cold today, i could harldy stand next to the coop when i got out to open their door to free range. The cold air seems to go through my skin to my bones, i thought the chickens didnt care that much.

I was sitting on the computer when my wife started crowing the alert call. I say what happent? They are in the storage room! I was trying to figure out what is wrong with that, when i heard the noises. I go out at the storage room and i see Mr Rooster trying to gather the flock together and make them come out in the yard where they are supposed to be. The girls were in the room on top of things and everything was a mess. This is the room i used a couple of times during storms, as a place to hide my small coop from the weather. They got used to it! The rooster was looking at me with a look on his face like saying "oh those women!" and i sighed back to him "go figure duuude" as i showed them all the way back into their real coop. Mr Rooster lost his freerange for nothing and knew all that was not just right, but he did good and went in the chicken coop first to show good will. Those silly girls got him trapped in the coop today once again!

It seems the girls are not as strong as my rooster is and cant take the cold. I hope they all make a huge hug in their real coop and keep warm until that bad weather pass.

Because this is a mans world

I have placed the new chicken runs door a couple of days ago, with homemade arm hinges that i made, and that seems to work, i hope those hinges i made can hold the pvc door in place for a long time. They seem light hinges but the door is not heavy and seem to get the job done. I also try to level up the ground in the new run, because somedays ago i watched it during heavy rainfall and all the water from my yard gathered right there in the run, when i am done leveling it and use stones to keep the leveled soil in place, that should belong to the past.

I am still thinking if i want a chicken coop with concrete as bottom, or with soil?

1)Concrete, is easy to clean, but needs to be cleaned! Also it will eventually suck the dirt, poop, and microbes that chickens produce and then it will be dirty forever. Concrete stays cool even in the summer so imagine having to sleep on concrete.

2) Soil, sucks the moisture.. naturally. I think that cleaning a coop with soil will be as easy as replacing few inches of dirty soil with clean soil. Then also spread all that fertilizer around the yard. The soil doesnt keep the cold temperature on it like concrete does and breaths more easily than concrete.

I have to decide between the two, until next week when the builders will finish their job around my property and leave for good.

I wanted to build the coop using bricks, but now i am more into rocks, because rock is nicer to look at when watching a garden, than brick.

Thats my random journal update, oh, happy new year!

 

[lovinlife]

My chickens are on dirt and do just fine. You can dump wood shavings on top of the dirt that should help with keeping it clean. Good luck with whatever you do!

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

My chicken yard is dirt, but I use deep bermuda hay in the coop, I change it about 3x a year.

 

[BigDaddy'sGurl]

The floor of my coop is dirt too. Maybe you could use sand? Or smallish gravel? I know a lady who used sand and gravel and hers worked well...happy New Year to you!

 

[Baymule]

My coop is dirt floored. last summer when it was so hot, I made the girls a mud hole in a corner each evening. The next day, they had cool earth to dig and lay in.