Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[CoopDeDoo]

Quote:
Welcome! and best of luck in your new home

 

[CarolynF]

I would offer my neighbor eggs if she had addressed complaints to me personally but since she filled out a citizen action report instead I am not going to go to great lengths to make her happy. She has actually given me stuff from the garden to feed the chickens and she has always said she enjoys the chickens and ducks so it is odd to me that she would complain. I had already told her I have more birds than I will be keeping since I was raising chicks to sell and I have made two trips to the auction with roosters that did not sell before they started crowing (plus I took four more so I don't have to raise them before taking them to the auction).

I know it is the wet compost that smells so I am working on watering the wet pulp into the soil but I had wanted to keep the shavings on top for mulch. If I can't get the shavings to dry out and not smell with the wet weather, I may have to cover them with dirt and then move the dirt off the top of the shavings when I plant. The poop smell goes away because I water it into the dirt but the wet shavings have a pulp mill smell I don't like either. Once we get some drier weather they will dry out and the smell will be gone.

I will be cutting back on my bird population in the Fall but after feeding birds all Winter I want to be able to get my feed back out in eggs. I have some I am selling now to get down to my best breeding stock but I will not be going down to less than three. Because I already have small animals, technically I have hit my limit but poultry is listed separately in the code, not under small animals (rabbits are not defined as small animals but I could understand calling them animals if they were not listed with poultry). There is a section specifically for poultry and another for pet birds so they can't really be defined as small animals when animals are defined as dogs and cats specifically. I am talking about legal definitions, not scientific classifications here. Obviously my daughter does not count as a small animal in the legal definition of an animal just because humans are animals.

I have a small flock and I use sand in the coop and run rather than shavings, so I'm not sure if this will help or not. BUT.... when I do my daily poop scoop I dump it into a trash can that has a lid. And I have more than one trash can so that I can keep it in there to composte for 6 months or more. When I dump it into the garden beds the smell is gone.

 

[CarolynF]

My name is Amy and I live in the state where the sun rarely shines more than 10 minutes at at time, otherwise known as Western Washington!

As a kid we lived on 10 acres in CO. We had horses, chickens, ducks, goats and turkeys. When my dad brought the turkeys home they were tiny little things and as an eight year old I fell in love. I asked if I could name them to which my dad responded with "they already have names." I innocently asked him what their names where to which he replied "Thanksgiving and Christmas" and no the story did NOT have a happy ending lol I quickly learned that animals named after a holiday or food where not pets.

Fast forward many years and I am now older with children of my own who also have learned that animals named after food are not pets, they however were taught this long before any fuzzy's were brought home.

We started gathering resources to add chickens, ducks and possibly rabbits (as food sources for us and our dogs/cat). We were going to go last weekend to get the new babies and we were so excited. Then I thought I heard a coyote howl. The next day when I came home from work my husband told me that he saw the coyote I heard the night before. I asked him where he saw it, thinking he was driving and saw it and he said nope, saw it right in the open 5 acre field right next to our house. We are now rethinking how we will arrange areas and protect any animals we get from predators!

I've been reading on this site for a week before I joined. I actually joined because I wanted to post a response to the lady whose dog thinks chicks are toys.

So far I've seen the coyote, hawks and I know Bald Eagles are around too. I also discovered a huge red ant hill but not sure they are fire ants.

On a side note the neighbor behind us come home today with five baby chicks

Fingers crossed we can get this figured out this week and have babies next weekend!

Hi Amy, welcome to the area and welcome to the group!

Sounds like you have a lot of work to do and a lot of energy too! Colorado certainly is different than our area, for sure!

With coyotes, racoons, possums, free roaming dogs, rodents, and birds of prey there are a lot of things to think about. There is a section on the BYC forums that have a lot of good recommendations for building predator resistant and weather appropriate coops and runs. I would highly recommend spending a couple weeks thinking about those issues before building. So many of us think we have but get so excited about the chickens that we end up re-designing and adding on later. I certainly did!

A few things to pay close attention to are:
Using heavy wire that the canines can't rip apart or bite thru (chicken wire will NEVER protect your birds)
Using half inch hardware cloth on the bottom 3' to keep racoons from reaching in and ripping the heads off your birds
Adding a heavy wire apron to the exterior perimeter of the pen/run to deter animals from digging into the enclosure
Racoons are smart, strong, and tenacious -- plan locks and latches accordingly.
Have an outdoor area for your birds that can be kept dry (i.e. covered) to minimize wet-related health issues and smell.
Consider an electric fence.

You mentioned taking out a large tree or something. I like having large things for the birds to dash under for cover. I have an apple tree that seems to create some camouflage for them and I'm trying to find & plant more bushes they won't eat for the same purpose.

ChickieLady's suggestion of using net is popular. In Seattle there's a person that lists used commercial fishing nets on Craigs List for ag. uses. A few people have been using them as a cover over their poultry runs to keep out predatory birds.

And one last note. Many people have found they have better success with chickens from local reputable breeders. We have a lot of people in the area that breed good lines of chickens. They often have fewer health issues especially around the age of 1.5 - 2 years. You might want to consider them. It's no more expensive to raise good quality stock. If you'd like suggestions we can all help point you to them.

 

[Lutefisk]

We have several compost bins but they fill up and I wanted to use the compost on my raised planters in preparation for planting. The shavings in the compost don't seem to break down very well and they smell when they are wet.

do you let your chickens turn your compost? We built a two stage system of concrete block - just two open bins about 4x4 each - and fill one side while using the other. The chooks do a fabulous job turning it over. Pine shavings disappear in a few days, even big woody stuff breaks down fast.

 

[CarolynF]

I almost forgot to mention! I got to see my pretty little 2-day old Marans chicks yesterday! SO CUTE! CowgirlGrace hatched them for me and will be keeping them for a few weeks. They are BCM and Splash Marans eggs I ordered from Helen Byers. I wish I lived next door to see them every day! I know Lyn will do a great job raising them, but I'd love to hold those little balls of fluff all the time!

I won't get to keep them all, unfortunately. By the first of May I'll need to re-home at least a couple of them, and then later this summer I'll have to make a final decision on the rest. If anyone is interested in Marans from Helen Byers, PM me.

 

[Kaneke]

...

I want to plant some plants back in what will be the run area for the chickens. I'm thinking of removing a big something or other that is growing back there. Not sure what it is so need to either ID it or remove it before babies move out there. We've got a couple of months to get that done though. DH has access to as many pallets as he can haul so we have a lot of resources for only the cost of gas. 


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couple of things:

you can plant things in the chicken run, but unless you screen them off, or build a cage around them, the chickens will eat them and dig at them until the run is nothing but dirt ... quite a few people fill the run area with sand, that makes it much easier to scoop the poop and keep it clean -- I would leave the whatever-it-is plant right where it is, the chickens like to have something to run under when they are startled .. unless it's something that's poisonous to poultry

our run started out with tons of dandelions and heavy clump grass -- lasted only a month even with newly fledged chicks ... I do throw fallen fir branches in there, they enjoy eating the fir needles and perching on the branches ... those are denuded in a few days

sugar ants (the tiny black ones in the house) hate cinnamon, don't know why, but if you sprinkle cinnamon where they are getting in, they will either stop coming, or find a detour -- supposedly if you also sprinkle cornmeal, which they can't digest, they will take it back to the nest and die out .. diatomaceous earth will also deter them, good to have some of that on hand (the food grade stuff) for your chickens to dust-bathe in, it kills off mites and lice

make sure you don't have any ground-nesting small black bees/wasps .. they have a horrendous sting ..

if you can, get the coop up off the ground; lots of small rodents around, and while the chickens can and will catch and eat them during the day, they can get into the tiniest cracks and invade a ground-level coop at night .. and many of them around here are carrying hantavirus -- we hang our feeder and waterer up high enough that the rodents can't jump to them, but the chickens are messy eaters ...

good luck !

 

[Duck Drover]

do you let your chickens turn your compost? We built a two stage system of concrete block - just two open bins about 4x4 each - and fill one side while using the other. The chooks do a fabulous job turning it over. Pine shavings disappear in a few days, even big woody stuff breaks down fast.

The compost bins I use are made from black plastic and they have lids on them. The y are designed to add new material to the top and take old material from thebottom but the access door on the bottom gets stuck so I have to take compost out from the top. My husband piled the compost in the planter beds for me and he piled it deeper than I would have done. The manure gets liquified for the most part so the shavings are what remains and they have a pulp smell more than a manure smell to them. I most often use rabbit poop for fertilizer, though, and that gets added straight from the rabbit pen. When the weather is dry the rabbit poop makes dry pellets that are time released during watering but the rain makes everything the consistency of mud so I have to add even more water to break it down to a liquid that will be absorbed into the dirt. The shavings are a problem but my plan was to be able to use them for mulch.

I have sand in my Silkie pen and it just seems to hold moisture so their poop gets liquified with all the rain since the pen is not covered and there is nothing to scoop. I thought it would work well for drainage but I still get puddles forming in the rain. There are shavings in their coop so the sand is just in the outside pen. My Orpingtons free range in my yard so they are not penned up, they are just locked up in their coop overnight for their protection and there are shavings in their coop as well. I wanted to try Stall Dry in the nest boxes but decided it is easier and cheaper to keep shavings in them. I have been getting the larger shavings and maybe I need to switch to the smaller ones so they break down better.

 

[Lutefisk]

The compost bins I use are made from black plastic and they have lids on them. The y are designed to add new material to the top and take old material from thebottom but the access door on the bottom gets stuck so I have to take compost out from the top.

i know those bins, we used to use one and they only work if you turn the contents which s a lot of work. Much easier to let the chickens do it, and they get a lot of food from the worms.

Here's our bin. This took us about an hour to build. Two days ago we dumped a five gallon bucket full of used bedding from the brooder into the left side (which was recently emptied). It was pretty caked up with poop and had a moderate ammonia smell. You can still see the shavings but they are mixed up with dirt from below by the chickens and aerated and there is no poop or rotting odor, just smells like clean soil. By the end of the week you won't be able to tell it was pine shavings at all.

 

[Hinotori]

A few things to pay close attention to are:
Using heavy wire that the canines can't rip apart or bite thru (chicken wire will NEVER protect your birds)

I personally don't think chain link will stop a dog that is determined. I've watched my german shepherd pull the chainlink away from the bottom of a kennel and bend it upwards with her teeth in an attempt to get a rat that was between the hardware cloth outside and the chainlink. She killed that thing through the fence and the fence has the scars to show for it.

All can do is build the pen as sturdy and strong as you can. I still use chain link or welded wire dog kennel panels and hardware cloth. Costco has a nice 10x10 kennel with windbreak and roof for about $400. Just have to use good anchors if you put it in a high wind area.

 

[Coupleofzees]

Thanks for the welcome and we all have a dark side, sometimes it needs a bit of light shined on it!

We are always careful with the smaller animals and they are never outside without us close by. Even Token sleeps inside with us and truth be told none of our animals are outside without us, the pets at least.

We are limited by the size of our property, which is only .5 acres. We are on a private road but there are seven houses on that road. Two are on 5 acres each, two are on .5 acres, one on 1 acre and one on 2 acres or so. Three of those (the 2, 1 and .5 acres) are all owned by the same person and we have one of those rentals. From what I can see the animals around here are lots of dogs, a goat, horses, geese and chickens. 

We have a large area behind the detached double garage that is fenced but will have to be fixed and where we plan to build the coop. I'll take pictures tomorrow of the area to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. I want to plant some plants back in what will be the run area for the chickens. I'm thinking of removing a big something or other that is growing back there. Not sure what it is so need to either ID it or remove it before babies move out there. We've got a couple of months to get that done though. DH has access to as many pallets as he can haul so we have a lot of resources for only the cost of gas. 

As far as how many, we're not sure. I was thinking 3 ducks and DH wants 12 chickens but I'm not sure. The area for the chicken run is on the small side and I worry about 12 chickens having enough room. The ducks will be on the other side of the property.

The ants probably are not fire ants but they big for ants and have a huge mound/nest in the ground. If it ever stops raining I'll get some pictures! We also have sugar ants (not the name but what we always called them. Really small black ants) right now invading the kitchen. From what I understand our property was vacant for over 8 months while the mobile home was renovated on the inside so the yard is overgrown and we have a lot of work to do! The great thing is my children are 17, 17 and 15. They are also homeschooled. That means lots of free labor .. I mean chores around the house that they can do

Regarding the ants, they could be thatching ants. Nasty things that make huge mounds out of things like fir needles. We moved into a rural area a year ago. Moved in right when they became active and man are they active. I tried to coexist for months but finally broke down and hired an exterminator. Best money I ever spent because I couldn't stand anywhere outside where they would leave me alone.