Winter Preparation?

Seems strange to think about winter in May but over the past few years Ive gotten tired of being ambushed by early snow and realizing we were into winter before my summer projects had even started. This year I'm taking a different approach and its turning out really well so far.

Each month Ive been giving myself a solid week of 'me' time, and even though its supposed to be for more artistic pursuits, my summer chores have to come in somewhere.

So on Sunday the new winterized chicken coup was started and finished up tonight... well, the first one is. There are going to be three levels on the whole thing and the lower level is the one that is complete.

Our 11 broiler chickens went to the outside coop to grow up a bit before taking over the main area, our older layers have been outside in their section of the outside pen for some time now and this years baby layers officially moved into their new digs!

I haven't taken photos of the new coup yet, the ones posted here are of their temp cage that they were quickly growing out of and getting tired of the dogs drooling at them from all sides.

Their new cage is mostly plywood and they finally have a decent nest box to lay their eggs in. After three years of raising these guys I think we finally have it right. Now, if I can get the girls to hatch their own chicks this year I think we will have come a bit closer to the mini farm we have been working towards.

Since Ive been working in the garage I haven't had much office time with the outside dogs. I tried to bring Thani in for some one on one but he really freaked out the baby chicks. I had forgotten that hes not used to seeing ones so small. He does well with the bigger birds and watches them quietly like the house dogs do but these smaller babies were far too tempting. Nothing bad happened but he gave them quite a scare!

We have seven new layers this year and by this winter we should be getting at least seven eggs a day! That will be far more than James and I can eat so the dogs will get some great supplements to their food. We will be keeping two of our older hens so that will make nine layers in all plus our big rooster, Red Beard. We have never had so many chickens to over winter. This year should be very interesting!

Below is a short video right before the babies went into their new cage that is twice the size. Spock is having a hard time finding the best place to watch his babies in their new area...