Not If You Need a Jacket!

What's the best day to skin the coop?  Not a snowy or windy day.  No, no, the extra protection around the chickens, that vinyl skin that keeps out the weather, needs to stay up to keep the girls comfortable. The careful Things I get to do today are to remove and pocket each and every staple and peal off the protective wrapping on the girls' accommodations.*

Fresh and airy once again.

Today and for the last week the hefty feather rompers that my hens wear were surely almost too warm. My two shirts were plenty. A long-sleeve T would have been enough. So where you live, do you skin the coop today? Not if you need a jacket!

*A note to all chicken keepers.   Zinc will kill a chicken. The galvanized water can is fine since the water does not leach out zinc. But a hen will peck at and eat anything.  They would eat a galvanized staple. I vowed that losing one hen to zinc a couple of years ago was one too many.

It Sucks!

*One Sweet Sucker found in Aunt Alice's garage before she passed.
I was the only one interested in giving it a home.

A working girl needs friends.  I've got quite a few--talkin' tools here.  My closest collection of good buddies include the staple gun and zip ties.  One powerful sucker of a tool is up for nomination to the inner circle.  Indeed, it was this piece of equipment that inspired my very first blog posting about vacuuming out the gutters. May I present my ancient Craftman(woman) Variable Speed Power Blower.*

A Curly Black Locust grows up to the sky near our back patio, and from nearly its first spring sprout of green, it begins to shed dozens of golden petal-like leaves everyday all summer long.  Never complain about raking leaves in the fall--you could end up doing it all summer as well.  Here's where my great and dear friend the blower earns his keep.  Everyday from June until all the trees are stark naked in the Autumn rains, Things I get do today include blowing the leaves off the patio (which keeps them off the bottom of our shoes, and therefore, out of our house).  I am so grateful.

The latest demonstration of dear friendship from this tool came last week.  The hen coop was cleaned (finally).  Fresh straw was spread deeply on the floor.  After the job was complete, I remembered that I had been using chopped straw.  It's finer, fluffier, goes farther and is not stiff like little sticks the way regular straw is.  But I had borrowed the neighbor's electric mini leaf-grinder to create a huge sack of the chopped variety, and that supply was now gone.  I had never tried using my blower to suck and grind before, at least not straw.  For some reason I doubted its strength for such a task.

But now there's a giant bag stuffed tight with chopped straw, great mouthfuls whizzed up with the sucker end of this mighty blower.  Oh, me of little faith!

There Comes a Time

The hen house needs cleaning.  Eventually, there comes a time.  It isn't the most favored of Things I get to do today, but today's the day.  It's extra warm out, so all the water used in the cleaning will run off and dry up before the girls head for bed at dark.

Nina in the fresh and sparkly mezzanine nest box

The nest boxes will have all the dried egg (from accidents and scrub jay intrusion) washed out,  dust and debris hosed off the tops, and, when they are moisture free again, they'll be filled with fresh, crisp, fragrant straw.

Katy says it passes the "Hens' Housing" inspection

Perches will be scrubbed with bleach water and dusted lightly for mites.  The mezzanine will be hosed and brushed till clean.

Clean straw, ankle deep on a chicken

 Fresh sand goes on the floor before clean straw.

The only thing left to clean up is me.  Toss me in the shower, please!  There comes a time. . . .

Bath House

Every hen needs a bath house.  In the rainy season the bath house is protected and dry, a place to get out of the coop and out of the weather all at the same time.  And just about any problem can be solved with a good bath--all of us girls know that.  For the chickens, that's a dust bath we're talking about here.

One day, a month ago, "build a bath house" was blinking in neon on the list of Things I get to do today.  It could not wait.  But creative inspiration was not sparking very high that week on the subject of hen resort accommodations.  I just couldn't see it.

Turns out that the creativity and effort had already been expended nearly three years earlier when I built a chicken coop/tractor for my first hens.  This lovely structure has been empty of partying poultry for a good two years with the second story now serving as storage space for various chicken related paraphernalia.

Upstairs/Downstairs
Storage/Spa

With a fair bit of shifting, juggling, hefting, digging, lifting and adjusting, the Ladies of Leisure (and major egg production) have a place to lounge in their off hours, on cold, rainy days and on hot, sunny days and pretty much every day in between.

Settling in for well-deserved rest

Lady of Leisure--Lena Horne Hen

Tidying up before heading out

This deluxe resort lacks only a good name.   While the girls are excellent at laying eggs, skilled at flup-fluping in the dust, and dynamite bug eaters, they aren't worth squat at coming up with a name for their bath house.  But they think they could select their favorite from your suggestions.  We're keeping the lines open. . .

Winner will be announced in a future posting along with a photo of the coop and its new sign.

Ahead of the Weather

Open for Spring

Yesterday it was glorious here.  Yesterday the protective vinyl on the coop came down.  Yesterday was warm.  We (all the hens and I) are so hoping that the Things I get to do today do not include putting the clear walls back up over the hardware cloth that protects the hens at night from all the critters they need to be protected from.   The work of the flexible but solid stuff is to keep out the non-chicken-friendly weather.

Today it does appear that they need to be protected from the sideways-driving rain (if it were a real driver, it would lose its license, I'm sure, the way it lashes and gusts about) and from the accompanying, pounding hail.  But as tempestuous as the elements are today less than 24 hours away from the basking, calming warmth, it is sure to be different soon--at least by tomorrow.  In fact as I look, even now, the girls have braved the tail-end of the storm with its heavy mist to wade ankle-deep through the green spaghetti of yesterday's blog.

There's a heat lamp in the most sheltered end of the coop that gives my sweeties a spa-like place to warm up and dry out when needed.  They've spent a wise amount of their day lolling around under its rays.  Tomorrow the lamp will be shut off.  A little sun is back in the forecast, and warmth gains another inch in its toehold on Spring.

Note:  Those of you who read about the amazingly big egg on 2/28 can recheck that post for an update on the number of yokes housed in that giant shell.

Handy Andy's Best Friend

It's winter.  The ice-edged wind told me so.  Wearing my shearling boots or slippers and my bright-hot sweater everyday means I'm not suffering from the cold.  But  when I looked out at my Lovely Laying Ladies  Monday and saw their petticoat feathers blowing up over their heads, "tighten up their quarters" was first of the Things I get to do today--barely waiting until breakfast was over.  I don't know if chickens get goose bumps, but this can't wait.

Good, old friend

Last year, much earlier in the season, I used heavy, clear vinyl to enclose all the open wire part of the chicken coop. My tool of choice, aside from the scissors to cut the plastic to the right size, was, of course, a staple gun.  When spring finally came and the chance of hard frost had melted away, protection came down.  I marked all the pieces so they could be used again in their designated places, cleaned them carefully and stored them away.  The wind says it's time to get them back out.

Now with all my warm woolies on, I'm hoping to make really short work of this project, extra staples in my pocket, vinyl unrolled and sorted for location.  And slick it was, aside from the girls finding sheets of plastic flapping in the wind to be a heart-stopper worthy of shrieks and cackles.  The whole shivering scene lasted only half an hour, thanks to George McGill, a man after my own heart--always looking for a better way to do things--inventor of the stapler 146 years ago.  If I'd had to use nails, or tacks or hammered in staples, I'd be a frozen fixture in the hen yard.  Instead, my girls have a sheltered space that invites the winter sun but keeps out the gusts and the snow.  George, you're my pal, but your stapler is my best friend.