Should I buy eggs or wait it out?

[Wishing4Wings]

Ha! Raccoons were probably living in your neighbor's crawl space! They are opportunists and have adapted to urban settings. Better than rats, though, in my opinion. My dogs eat a lot of fallen plums in the summer. They like them dried out, then it's like plum jerky. Enjoy them so much, I hate to clean them up. I have to cut back on their food because they get fat off of the fruit. Apple trees are in the chicken yard. They eat a lot of those when the ripe ones fall.

You have to be made of asbestos to live in Redding. (I'm surprised your H-E-double hockey sticks made it through the auto censor! I always get ****).

My Wyandotte did fine in the hotter temps (upper 90s), but she's gone now. I have new blue pullet that I hope does as well. My poor little bantam Cochin gets HOT. All those feathers!

 

[Nutcup]

Thanks for the corrected spelling, W4W - I forget.

I felt so sorry for the hens last week, we had 100++ temps and only cooled into the upper 60's by dawn. I had a nice shady coop/pen in Fremont. I wish I could have kept the house and yards and brought them up here with me.

My brother's coop & pen are covered with grape vines now after 15 years. It makes such a big difference in the heat. I'm going to do that with my next one.

 

[Wishing4Wings]

I don't mind your spelling at all, it's just whenever I try it, it comes up ****. They must have my number....

The coop for my layers has some trees around it, that helps, but I keep a tarp over the run. Really helps keep the heat down and rain off in the winter. It is shredded right now. Hubs was just asking this morning if we should get a new one.

I am planning a sort of grape arbor in the chicken yard. Going to be a smallish pergola sort of thing and I'll start a couple of grape vines up the corners. Underneath will be a dust bath area. So many rocks here, it's hard for them to maintain a good spot. Lots of holes filled with rocks out there in the chicken yard! I'm going to dig down, remove the rocks, and fill it with some nice sandy soil and wood ashes. Okay, I lied. Going to have my surly teenagers dig down, remove the rocks, and fill it back up.

Anyway, hoping the chickens will enjoy their new combo bathing-snack bar area!

 

[Nutcup]

I had a grape arbor in Irvington. The chickens got all the lower grapes, and the rats or birds always got the rest. I would say tomorrow I'm going to harvest! By tomorrow they would all be gone but the last few little green ones. One year I covered the whole thing with bird netting and caught a couple of cute little birds in it. Then I had to cut the netting off so I could prune in the Fall.

It was always a battle with the critters.

I had the same problem with rocks here. I dug out as many rocks as I could and covered the area with a bale of straw. I bought a bag of clean garden dirt at the nursery and they loved it for bathing. It's all kind of mixed together now.

I put weed cloth over half the run, it lets water and air through, and gives them some shade. I haven't been very professional about keeping my chickens. It seems to be a cumulative project, as I think of new ideas. Next time I'll have plans!

 

[Wishing4Wings]

I wrote a response, but it didn't post. Probably operator error.

We have grapes along a fence by the neighbors that make a wonderful green screen in the summer. I don't water them, so the grapes are very small, but pretty tasty when I remember to look for them. Usually the big dog eats them. They were here when we moved in.

 

[cheeka]

all my photos came up in reverse order... so you can see our day from finish to start... Wrangler is amazing... she's had a handful of lessons from me and has taken off like a shot! I wish I had her swimming 3 years ago - and to think, she did not like getting her face wet.

she has the cutest bathing suit, and then the sales woman showed her a tennis skirt that she could wear over it, and so... she insists on wearing the skirt in the pool. it's actually so cool, I got one in my size, hides my skinny thighs... she also has a mask and fins on...

the nose cover is what broke her fear of putting her face in the water. I've created a Monster... what my mother called me...? Water Rat.

lesson on holding her breath and going under the lane line on her back, she's mastered going under face down, she got this one easy peasy too.





we spent a couple of hours at the indoor pool at my parents housing complex earlier, then came back for lunch and chill time before going to the big outdoor pool in the top photos... but really... as soon as we got back, she got out of her yellow bathing suit and into the new one... with the skirt. That's my Mom's pug, Nestle.



Thanks to T-Ball, Wrangler can pitch tiny bits of bread 20' or more. Yep. throws just like a girl!

she can whip 'em!

 

[cheeka]

funnily enough, the only time I needed fencing was to protect the chickens from predators. they never messed with my gardens, unless is was to add a tomato seed to the flower beds, I got some really nice cherry tomatoes and big boy's last year... and the grapes I had always failed, until I got chickens... someone pooped a nice seed under a pine that they bathed in and a huge vine grew. wild concords and scrumptious! plenty to share as the vine grew more than 70' long!
oh but there was that one time that they got into the scallions... that was the day I realized that chickens had the potential for bad breath.

Brutus hopped up in my lap and perped right under my nose. overwhelming smell of onions! golly I miss that boy! too sad, I hope he's okay... they say he's fine... but y'know...

 

[Nutcup]

that is so funny, mine would eat onions sometimes, too, but I didn't notice LOL their breath - good job with Wrangler!

 

[BullChick]

funnily enough, the only time I needed fencing was to protect the chickens from predators.  they never messed with my gardens, unless is was to add a tomato seed to the flower beds, I got some really nice cherry tomatoes and big boy's last year... and the grapes I had always failed, until I got chickens... someone pooped a nice seed under a pine that they bathed in and a huge vine grew.  wild concords and scrumptious!  plenty to share as the vine grew more than 70' long!
oh but there was that one time that they got into the scallions... that was the day I realized that chickens had the potential for bad breath. Brutus hopped up in my lap and perped right under my nose.  overwhelming smell of onions!  golly I miss that boy!  too sad, I hope he's okay... they say he's fine... but y'know...

 

[Scrambles55]

I have 10 chickens and get only maybe 1 egg a day. My pullets won't lay for at least 10 more weeks. I say buy more eggs.