No More Silk Creek Chicken Blog
We have moved all posts and all new posts will be over in the Silk Creek Alpacas Blog.
Building a Chicken Coop
Today I had time to work on getting the chicken coop built. I have decided to put the coop in the shop. This will allow me to watch them closely, have them in a safe enclosed area that is close to the pastures, and wouldn’t take too much work to build.
This is what we had to start with, 3 wall, uncovered windows, and a wood floor.
It took a little cleaning and moving around of some items, but I was able to get everything moved around. What I needed to do was to build a wall with a door in it to close off the area. This wall will also have the nests in it. With the nests on this wall, we’ll be able to collect the eggs without going in the coop, and that should make it a little easier to collect the eggs. Last summer we took down part of the fence and replaced it with a woven wire fence. Here you can see where we replaced the fence, and you can see the type of wood that the fence was:
It was made of 2×4’s. I save the old fence, and took it apart this week and set it inside to dry. I was able to use this wood to make the wall as well as a 2×4 we had left over from making the barn in the back pasture. Also, there was an old coop that was just in a bad place but it had a nice door on it that I was able to salvage and use as the door. It moved over perfectly. So all in all, the wall has cost us nothing so far to make!! I like that cost!! 
I put down a footer and a header. Framed in the door. I will be using old 5 gallon buckets for next boxes (all free so far!!) and I was also able to build the framework for the nest boxes as well. As you can see below, I am not completely finished, but it is coming along.
Door in and framed:
Where the nest boxes will go.
I also built one more shelf above this row of nests for a 2nd row. I’m planning on around 8 nest boxes.
I was also able to take the lights from our garage in Eugene and use one in with the chickens. It has just been sitting in our garage here for a while, so it will be nice to use. I will put this light on a timer once the chickens start to lay to give them constant light year round. Hopefully this will help them to lay better in the winter. If I can give them 14 or so hours of light a day, they might do better.
UPDATE ON CHICKS!!
A quick update on the chicks, they are doing great and getting BIG!!! They seem to be enjoying being out in the larger brooder. It will be nice to move them over in to the coop in a couple of weeks and then to let them out in to the yard for the first time.
They are enjoying the roost a lot as well. I turned the rungs on the roost so the larger side are now flat. They seem to be enjoying this more now. They can now sit on it without needing to balance much.
Also, this might be my last post on the Chicken Blog! I think I’ve decided that it is too much to have 2 blogs. I’m going to move all my chicken blogs back over the the Silk Creek Alpacas Blog. All my next blogs, chicken/alpaca/farm/family/etc. related, will be on the Silk Creek Alpacas Blog.
Brooder in coop is finished!
Today I had some time after dropping the girls off at the church to start work on the coop. The first thing I needed to get done was build the brooder. Our older chicks were getting too big for the brooder we had in the laundry room, so it was time to get them out. Like I showed you yesterday, there was already a small area that had been used for probably baby pigs or sheep. It had hay in it when we moved in, and was just a small area about 3.5′ x 5′. This would be a good size for older chicks.
The first thing I had to do was to enclose it. You don’t want any drafts on young chickens. I added 1/4″ plywood to the bottom of the gate and side wall. This would keep the drafts out. I then finished it out by adding hardware cloth to the top so the chicks couldn’t fly up and roost on higher rungs. I then decided that they would need a roost so I found some wood that would work well and have a 2 rung roost. I screwed/nailed it to the wall so they couldn’t move it around.
We had to run to Eugene today to pick-up some stuff so we stopped off at Wilco and I picked up a larger feeder and larger water that we will use. This will help so I don’t have to fill their feed daily! Water I’ll still clean daily, but it should last longer if needed. I got a 3 gallon waterer and a 12 lb feeder. I hung the feeder from the ceiling and the waterer I just set down on some wood.
I think took out the chicks heat lamp, and hung it from the ceiling as well from a chain. I have it a little closer to the ground than I did inside, but this will give them a nice warm area if needed. So here’s some pictures once I got the chicks in there.
I put some wood on top of the feeder because I didn’t want them to jump up inside there. I’ll probably cut it down some more once I move my skill saw out to the shop.
They sure like the roosts. None of them have jumped up on the top on yet, it might be a little too high right now, but the’ll get there.
Just got back in from checking them out, and they were all laying around the roost and enjoying the heat from the lamp. So I think they like all the extra area!!
Time to finish the coop!
Well, the chicks are getting large (I’ll updated this weekend with 3 week and 1 week pics) and they will need to leave the laundry room fairly quickly. Spring break started today so I’m hoping that I can get the coop finished this week. I have decided to use part of the shop as the coop. There is a side small room on the back of the shop that should work out good as the coop. There are windows so the ventilation should be good, there is a door there to help with the cleaning of the coop, and it is connected to the covered grass area behind the shop near the pastures where a run would be PERFECT!! The chickens will have the ability to have run of the pastures when they get older, and if we wanted, we’ll be able to let them in the back yard or take them over to the garden when we want them there as well.
Here is what I have to start with:
This is looking from the main part of the shop over to the back room. Through this opening, we’ll be using the area to the left for the coop. This is what we have in there right now, a couple of bikes and lots of dirt. There are lights in there and lots of plugs, so running lights and getting heat lamps in there won’t be a problem. There is water right out the front door of the shop, so I should be able to run a hose right to where I want it if I need to.
So I’m going to build a wall of chicken wire where you see the axes. I will put a large door there to help with cleaning. I’m also going to put the nest boxes there in the wall so we can get the eggs without going in the coop. I’ll put the roosts against the wall on the right, and a hole in the wall under the window so the chickens can get out to the run.
This picture is right near the coop, and it looks like it has been used in the past to raise baby sheep or maybe pigs.
I’m going to cover the sides to stop drafts, and I’ll use this as a brooder to start. Once again there is electricity right there so I’ll be able to get the heat lamp right there. It is about 3 times the size of the brooder the chicks are in right now. They will like this!
I hope to get some of this work done tomorrow, but we’ll have to see. Georgia and Lilian are going to the Portland Temple tomorrow with our ward’s youth. I have to go in the morning to to a couple of temple interviews, so I won’t be able to get start on this until later. Watch for updates this week!
We have chicks hatching!!
Well, about 3 weeks ago Lilian and I built our first incubator. We really didn’t have much of an idea of what we were doing, but thought we’d try it anyway. We were hopeful about getting baby chicks, but I think both of us in the back of our minds thought we would get a 100% hatch (100% NOT hatching that is!!) Well last night the girls came running in after family prayer to let us know that they could hear the chicks and one of the eggs is breaking open!! We all ran in there and saw this!
WOO HOO!!! That is a chick trying to get out! Aislyn didn’t want to go to bed, she wanted to stay up all night and watch it. I’m glad we didn’t let her. I woke up this morning around 5:45 and the egg was only a little bit more broken, but not much. My heart sank, I thought that we had lost it. :( I went and got ready for the morning and came back out around 6:15 and saw this:
OK, that is SOO COOL!!! I quickly woke up the girls to come watch (I think Aislyn got up even quicker than she does on Christmas morning!!!) We got to watch a baby chick hatch!! That was so fun!!
She (I hope a she) is soo small. She is about 1/2 the size of our other baby chicks when we first got them (and now she is about 1/5 the size that they are now!!!) She is walking around the incubator checking out the other eggs and waiting for others to hatch.
We have 3 more eggs hatching this morning!! One more bantam egg, one blue Easter Egger egg and one of the brown eggs (can’t tell if it is one of the pure BO’s or a mix).
So by the time I get home from work, we might have 3 more chicks!! I’ll update this evening with more pictures!!
One Week
Just a quick photo update of the chicks and how they are doing at one week. They are getting big. Both Julia and I think they have almost doubled in size in the last week. They are still very cute!! Here are the pictures!
The first column has pictures from last week and the second column is from today.
The Barred Rocks:
The Speckled Sussex:
The Rhode Island Reds:
All in all we are very happy with our new chickens!! Looking forward to watching them grow!!
Chick update
Just thought I would give a quick update on how the chicks are doing (I’ll add new pictures tomorrow when they will be a week old so you can see the growth). They seem to be doing great. The chicks are growing quickly, it is almost like I can tell they are larger from when I leave for work in the morning to when I get home in the evening.
They have been having some “pasty butt” issues (this is where there feces stick to their backsides, and if it builds up, it could cause it so they couldn’t go to the bathroom normally. If not taken care of, they could die). I’ve been cleaning them up as often as needed. I have done some quick research on what might help, and I heard that adding a little Apple Cider Vinegar to their water might help a little. So yesterday when I was cleaning out their water, I added just a little. Well, I don’t know if it is helping, but they sure liked the change!! They drank more water overnight than any of the previous nights. That is a good thing!
Also, I gave them their first treat yesterday, egg yolk. I hard boiled a couple of eggs and mashed up the yolk for them. They LOVED it!! This will give them some good nutrients and might help their pasty butt as well.
In the next couple of weeks I’m going to try giving them some worms and see how they like them. Looking forward to getting them out in the pasture to work on cleaning up some areas!
Like I said, I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow and add them so you can see the growth.
We have Chickens!!!
Well, I went to Wilco Farm Store today to get some things and just to look around. Well, we came home with 6 baby chicks!! They were too cute to just not bring home!!
We ended up getting 3 Barred Rocks & 3 Speckled Sussex. I had thought about these in the past, but hadn’t ordered them yet from Lazy54 so I thought, what the heck? 
This is what they will look like when they get older:
Barred Rock 
The Speckled Sussex 
Here is what they look like today!
The Barred Rock:
The Speckled Sussex:
They are so cute!!! They are also very cute when they sleep!
All around they are cute!!
Well, once we got home, I looked at the receipt from Wilco and noticed that they did not give me the discounts that I should have gotten, and it should have been about $15-$20 cheaper. So Julia and I went back this evening to spend a little time together and to get our money back. It ended up being over $18 that I was able to get back. Well, as we were walking around, we walked by the chicks again just to enjoy looking at them again. Well, we fell in love with the Rhode Island Red chicks! They were soooo cute! So we ended up getting 3 Rohde Island Red chicks.
This is what they will look like:
This is what they look like tonight:
Rhode Island Red:
Once again, they are very cute!! So, we added 9 chickens today, and in March or April I’ll pick up the 12 chickens from Lazy54 giving us 21 laying hens. Not sure if we will need 21 chickens, but we’re looking forward to having them. They all are brown egg layers with the Barred Rock & the Sussex being the lightest and the Welsummers being the darkest so we’ll have a nice variety of browns!!
Also, we have the eggs in the incubator, and we might get some laying hens out of that groups as well. So we might have anywhere from 25 - 30 laying hens by this summer. OY!! Ok, we might be stewing some hens next year!!
Anybody need some eggs? We’ll have a LOT by the end of summer!!
Eggs are in the incubator
Yesterday the eggs were delivered by the USPS around 9:00 a.m. Julia opened the box and took them out and so they could rest from the long trip and come to room temperature. Once I got home, Lilian and I opened them all up. They were individually wrapped so it took a little time. Once we got them opened, we were excited to see what we had!!
The woman we had bought them from had sent us 4 extra eggs so we have even a better chance to get maybe one chick!!
Here is what we have:
2 Pure Buff Orpingtons (front 2 eggs in the back left container)
2 Easter Eggers (back 2 eggs in the back right container) Hard to tell in the picture but they are a beautiful blue!!
3 Lemon Blue Bantam (small eggs in front container)
9 Mutt (mixed flock from many different varieties)
This is to compare our largest egg and our smallest.
Here they are in the incubator! Ready to go!!
We just had to watch them for a while!!
Even with the lights off!
So, today (Friday) is day 1. They should start hatching around day 20-21. So, we’re looking at chicks around March 12 or so!!
We are very excited!
The Eggs are here!!
Julia emailed me today and said our eggs have arrived! We’ll let them sit tonight and then put them in the incubator either tonight or early tomorrow morning.
If all works out well, we’ll have chicks on about March 12th!