Tiny Specialized Chicken Coop

May 4, 2020

Tiny Specialized Chicken Coop

In preparation for our move and new gardening regime (Louis is moving to raised garden beds), we made our specialized chicken coop tractor. I know, that sounds funny, but our goals were lightweight, easy to move, sturdy, storm proof, and hopefully predator proof.

The intended purpose is for this little run to sit on top of the raised garden bed in between plantings. The chickens will dig up the dirt, take dust baths in it, eat every green anything and all insect life (well, most), and fertilize the soil. They’ve done an amazing job of turning compost into fertile soil for 15 years for us (our chicken experience has been pretty much ongoing) and we’ve played with the tractor idea. Normally, we built a larger version with an attached house that is moved by lifting (4′ x 8′ x 4′) or a static house (12′ x 12′ x 6′) raised off the ground that we clean monthly and dump into each segment of the chicken yard for them to scratch around and finish. In that time, we had three chicken door and rotated the chicken’s access to three separate 100′ x 40′ fenced fields. In this spot, we don’t have full fences and for a while we’ve been fighting off the puzzle of very smart raccoons or feral cats who have ripped into anything that wasn’t made of solid 1×6″ walls! (Yes, they’ve even pried plyboard and wire walls off of the frame to get to our chickens!) So our adult chickens have stayed in a 20′ by 10′ fenced and over fenced (we have a very large community of hawks around here) run area with a tight, 4′ x 4′ x 2′ box we closed them up in at night.

This new box is of 2″x4″, 2″x2″, and 1″x2″ construction. It is made in two pieces that connect together with either a hasp or a simple hook. (Picture shows a hook)

The first section is the run.

The run is 2′ tall by 2′ wide by 6′ long. It is constructed completely with 1″x2″s. It is open on the bottom for scratching up compost. Each wall and the top are covered with 1″ chicken wire woven at each connection for a perfect seam. The ladder matched the henhouse portal. The supporting braces for the ladder help to reinforce the structure of the run. Optional would be a hinged opening at the far side of the run that would allow for larger scraps to be dropped in. The pictured run did not need that.

The henhouse is 3′ tall at the peak, 30″ tall at the short side, 2′ wide and 2′ deep. It has a variety of construction materials. (The pictured house has 2’2″ short peak because it was the first one constructed, but optimally it will have a 6″ slope instead of a 10″ slope.) It has two “floors” along with openings for each. Only the bottom 12″ and an access portal facing the run is not enclosed.

The first floor of the henhouse is the sustenance station. This is 12″ tall and open to the ground (once we have this attached to a raised bed, the henhouse will sit on a platform so the first floor will have a wooden floor). It is tall enough to hold a standard one-gallon plastic or metal waterer and a small feeder. This is accessed through either side of the ladder by 8″ gaps which are large enough for a Jersey Giant hen to waddle through. The rear has a lifting door for access. (This door is also lifted for easy holding when moving.)

The second floor is the nesting box and roost area. This is a solid wooden platform floor and enclosed with sliding doors to access either side of the nesting area easily. (This was their first hour & they already laid their eggs inside!) The box is covered with a plastic waterproof roof that extends over the peak to as to help keep the water out.

It took about a half-day of work to complete.

The chickens are happy!

This size works for three large hens (ours are between 5lbs and 7lbs) or up to six bantam chickens. This design could be customized easily to accommodate larger flocks, wider garden bed areas, or to be a home for one or two bunnies. See our Guinea Pig outside home too!

Thanks for Reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Easter Cuteness

April 30, 2019

Easter Cuteness

Easter Sunday was so much fun for us this year!

Not only did our little Thea officially turn two months old on Easter, but neither Louis nor I was working, neither of us was tired, and we had the whole weekend to ourselves!

20190421_0843456386291845152263886.jpg

Baby Thea dressed up (minus her cute socks and shoes) in her Easter dress from Aunt Becca & sister-cousin Anastasia!

Louis and the girls dyed eggs – our brown and pink eggs made some unique color experiments and tasty “angel eggs.” (Grandma Joanne started that; she redeemed the deviled eggs so they are “angel eggs” now.)

Louis was waking me up almost every night in the week before Easter as he excitedly told me about the newest item he got for the girls’ baskets – crazy plastic grass, cool candy, a bag of change for the plastic eggs and such.

We love family time!  On Easter, we got up early, went to church, and talked all about the first Easter Sunday and Jaquline decided we had to watch a Jesus story movie – “The Greatest Story Ever Told” is the go-to for us.  About lunchtime, we snacked on angel eggs and fruit while Louis crafted an amazing ham – this would be early dinner.

And… Egg hunt.  The girls learned that Spring Egg Hunts were a result of people letting their hens and ducks out to range in the spring grass and then having to find their eggs for food – young children were tasked for this job and finding the eggs meant the end of winter harshness and the beginning of spring’s bounty.

20190421_111542.jpg

But for us, Easter Egg Hunt means “see who can hide it best” (for the hiders, adults and teens) and “see who can find the hardest eggs” (for the younger ones).  Kimberly decided she is still a youngling for Easter and joined the hunt as a hunter!

Becky took some pictures.

20190421_112612.jpg

Christina’s hardest eggs were teal, Becky’s were green, and I hid the hard-boiled ones.  Mine I wanted found quickly, so most were just rolled in the patches of clover so their stickers showed.

Down to four remaining eggs… One Teal, one Green, and two Boiled!  Mom ended up winning with the “hardest” egg being inches from the walkway in plain sight!

20190421_112627.jpg

Becky made up some adorable pictures with the baskets.  Check this link to see her Guinea Pigs in the Easter Basket pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

The Bossy Hen

Chickens can be very entertaining!

July 16, 2018

The “Bossy” Hen

Chickens all have their own personalities, but like humans, they tend to fall in categories.  Today, we’ll discuss the bossy chicken.

This is the hen who thinks her feathers are better than everyone else’s.  (That’s because she doesn’t see the white spots on the top of her head or the drooping rump feathers!)

She has the loudest cackle in the yard announcing when she laid an egg.  (Her screaming can be heard over ten miles away and the other hens wish they had fingers to plug their ears!) She is absolutely sure that the most beautiful chicks in the nursery pen are hers, and will argue this point by pecking the other hens mercilessly.

She is the first at the water trough (unless Rex, the king rooster, is there) and shoos the other hens away from the fresh scraps tossed in the yard.  (Of course, Rex doesn’t like a hen bossing his other hens around, so he will crow loudly, puff his feathers, and announce his dominance.)

Sometimes bossy hens will actually steal eggs from other hens and roll them into her nest!

They are fun to watch – and discuss.

One such hen is our Pearl.  She is an old White Rock who seems jealous because she doesn’t lay eggs anymore so she swipes everyone else’s eggs and sits on them, cackling as if she just laid them!  We keep her because she’s laid lots of eggs in her 4 years and she’s a pretty addition to our flock.

Another bossy hen is one of our Plymouth Barred Rocks, White-Head (so named because she has whiter feathers on her head than most females of her breed).  She thinks all scraps are hers!  She will chase every younger pullet away from the feeder too.  If one of the roosters, especially Red, her favorite, goes after a younger pullet, she will act all fluffy (chickens fluff out their feathers to “fight”) and try to chase the younger pullet away!  The roosters do not like this!  White-Head lays 6 eggs every week and is an “Irma chick;” only about 8 months old.  She just graduated from “pullet” to “hen!”

There’s plenty of entertainment “hen-watching” in my backyard!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

Red n Rex Company

June 28, 2018

Red n Rex Company

So I just discovered the name of our chicken flock: Red n Rex Company

20180625_194407.jpg

This is Red (Rhode Island Red Rooster)

20180624_194608.jpg

This is Rex (Plymouth Barred Rock Rooster)

20180626_173656.jpg

And this is Company (all the other hens, but all the colorful ones like our Buff Orpingtons, Pheonix, and an Easter Egger are not in this picture).

Red is a newcomer who has claimed Prissy and the red hens as his.  Rex didn’t like that, but we love it because Red will make full blooded Rhode Island Red babies!

20180626_175113.jpg

These are some of Rex’s baby brood, notice the full-blooded Plymouth Barred Rocks.  Next batch will have some of Red’s full-blooded Rhode Island Reds!

A cock-fight (the two roosters stare at each other and fluff up their feathers until one backs down) erupts.

Red is the dark side.  (He’s red)

Rex is the light side. (He’s got some bluish feathers)

I’m listening to the girls narrate Jedi battles as they watch the roosters negotiate over hens.

I am inspired by their vivid imaginations.  And, yes, we are a nerdy family… who else sees lightsaber battles when roosters are doing the wing thing?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Understanding and Choosing Forgiveness

April 23, 2018

Understanding and Choosing Forgiveness

Sometimes things make us irritated.  Loss, waste, and destruction of life are hot spots for me.

We have livestock.

Honestly, I can shrug off an owl or hawk picking off a young chicken.  I can understand the predators are getting food and my unguarded (or less than perfectly guarded) animals become easy prey.  We learn how to build a better pen or protect our animals better for the environment we have.  But I hate waste.

I had never faced a human killing animals indiscriminately.   Until yesterday, neither had the girls.  They love to show off their animals and share their experiences: from soft, fluffy biddies to newly laying vibrantly colored pullets to nuzzling Guinea Pigs.  The girls love animals and wouldn’t think of hurting them just because.  Even the “mean” cockerels (young chickens we will eat or sell, sometimes a rooster just has a mean disposition and they stay locked in the pen for protection!) are treated with respect.  They will be grilled chicken dinner or traded for feed money, anyway, so they serve a purpose.

Once, we had a child swipe a biddie because it was  “so cute  and I wanted  it,”  but her brother returned it the next day because it “looked sick.” (Unfeathered baby chicks have to stay under a heat lamp at about 100o and yes, without that heat, they get sick.)  We could understand that but the girls kept explaining to this little child that if she wanted to hold them and play with them, she could come to our yard and ask, but the biddie needed to stay with her “sisters.” (The other chicks.)

Recently, a child came to the house, systematically killed several hens, stole most of the young chickens to bait a dog, and took eggs.  We didn’t want to believe it was true.  His family returned the two live ones that managed to make it and graciously paid money to replace the lost animals.   One of the accomplices was one of the girls’ friends.  The girls went through many emotions: devastation, betrayal, anger, sadness, joy (when discovering the one rescued young chicken was the last female Buff!), compassion (when they decided they needed to pray for him), and forgiveness.

It took a while to process.  We discussed trust, honesty, betrayal, sin in the world, fallen man, how we shouldn’t be bitter, how Jesus calls us to love regardless of how people hurt us, and eventually the anger and sadness turned to compassion and forgiveness.

For me, I went through the same emotions.  It was hard to swallow and move on because of how hurt the girls were.  I wanted to protect my children from these emotions.  I didn’t want them to feel betrayal – they had allowed “friends” over and shared their animals with them and at least one of these children were part of the attack and theft.

Instead, I chose to help coach them through the emotions.  It was right to feel betrayal, anger, and sadness.  Those emotions are normal.  They had to understand how sometimes good people choose to follow evil and are sad about what they did.  (Case with their friends.)  The girls had to forgive.

And by the end of the next day, they were laughing and playing in the yard with their reconciled friends.  True forgiveness means forgetting and moving on.  That, despite the loss and hurt of the morning, made my heart happy.  Of course, I hope they never feel betrayal, but – reality check! – in this fallen world, it is likely that someone else later in life will hurt their hearts – and they will have to forgive to keep their heart from bitterness.

Yes, I found that if I allow God to move on my children’s hearts, He can turn their hurts into joy.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

A Storm and Chicken Story

A sneak peek at Long Tail and the Big Storm

August 26, 2017

A Storm and Chicken Story

One day we were playing outside and a storm came up.  Not a cute little Pooh bear thundercloud with a few raindrops, but a giant, hurricane-wind, flash-lightning-fireworks-in-the-sky, shake-the-whole-house-thunder, all-people-hide-inside kind of thunderstorm.  (Okay, it was a simple, everyday, Florida thunderstorm.)  The winds were swirling chicken feathers and fluffing them out like towel-dried cats.  Smaller chickens were hop-flying to stabilize themselves as they fought for the safety of the henhouse.

After drying off from the first wave of rain, the girls peeked outside and giggled at the chickens until the raindrops were so large we couldn’t see the henhouse anymore.  The late summer winds blew the tree limbs around like strong autumn breezes scatter just-raked leaf piles.

“Mom, can you tell us a story with a storm?” Asked Rebeccah.

“A Long Tail story!” yipped Kimberly.  She was five, and she loved Long Tail.

So we snuggled on the couch with lightning flashes illuminating the room through the big windows and started what would become “Long Tail and the Big Storm.”

The chickens of the yard were ruled by Long Tail, the great yellow chief, and guarded by Long Tail and Alfredo, the white rooster imported some time ago.  Under this rooster team, the hens and pullets scratched and gossiped and laid eggs all day with no worries.

On one autumn day the bright sky darkened with angry clouds.  The sun hid.  The birds in the woods started crying warnings and flying away.  Two small humans who were playing in the henhouse with the baby biddies, heard a booming crack of thunder and jumped!  They put the baby biddies back in the safe brooder and left the henhouse.

“Look at those little humans!” cawed Alfredo, laughing, “running like rabbits!”

A giant bolt of lightning lit up the sky just behind the woods and a cannon-loud BOOM of thunder shattered the air.  Alfredo scrambled into the henhouse and hid under the brooder.

All the hens laughed at the silly rooster.

Even Red Feathers and Golden Eye, two of the youngest pullets, laughed at him.

Long Tail strutted by, “when the water falls from the sky, we come in.” Long Tail was not afraid.

A big wind shrieked through the henhouse.  It blew the people door open!

Can Long Tail save his flock?  Be sure to check out Long Tail and the Big Storm to see just how this courageous rooster accomplishes this brave feat!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Capturing Places

June 24, 2017

Captured Places

Have you ever walked through a place you loved so much you drew scale drawings of it and built models?  I love architecture.  I plan each building and area – in most of my stories, even down to the plants and what color flowers are in season!

Once, I walked through a house with my parents.  This house was three levels with huge seat windows in every upstairs bedroom – the architecture of its large, open, bright rooms inspired the castle rooms in The Princess and the Swans.

The drab gray stone buildings in the K’vell training complex in Web of Deception came straight from a series of compact, functional, barracks-style buildings on an old property we explored once.

The Ann, Mary, and Susan Mysteries take place in my second-favorite childhood home.  The inside of that house is exactly as it is in real life – including the wrap-around second-floor deck and the loft-lookout bedroom on the third floor.  I added the aviaries, fields, and barn the way I wanted them (the only real-life outdoor structures in the stories are the dilapidated pool and the little next-door house) but even most of the bushes the girls hide in are on the real-life property.

In the Adventures of Long Tail, the chicken yard is exactly as we had it in the house Kimberly and Lucas were born in. (But the time stamped in those books is just before Jaquline was born.) Even the hen house is set up exactly as we had ours with the 4-level biddie brooder and incubator on top.

For me, it helps to visually see places in my worlds.  Lego bricks are great for scale buildings!  I even make maps and blueprints for most worlds and buildings so I never mess up my directions as I bounce from one storyland to another.  Continuity is very important to me (my perfectionist nature, I guess, but seriously… if Long Tail’s hen house was different each time, or if Ethan went down a different corridor each time to get to the Observation Deck, wouldn’t that be odd?)

Writing also helps me capture the best of places I remember (or dream up).  If I love a house, shed, barn, park, or yard layout, it will be in a book someday!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Eggs of Giants

June 13, 2017

Eggs of Giants

One cool thing about keeping a flock of chickens (aside from the 5am alarms) is that they pop eggs out!

Before we had chickens, I thought all eggs were white and exactly the same size and shape.  With the first time our Buff Orpington hen announced to the world that she plopped a smooth, clean, egg in the nest box, my preconceived notions about eggs were shattered.

It was BROWN!

It was TINY!

This giant, beautiful 6 pound hen had laid an egg that may have weighed 3 grams (okay, maybe a little bigger than that).  It didn’t have a yolk!  Maybe our chickens were broken.  Of course, they weren’t broken.  Most heavy breeds lay brown eggs.  Buff Orpingtons are heavy breeds.  Most first eggs are small and even the most proficient layers occasionally have an egg without a yolk.  They never did lay what I previously thought of as “normal” eggs, instead they were huge eggs (extra-large) with the occasional super-giant egg containing two yolks.

Currently, we have a rainbow of large chickens in our flock.  Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, and Plymouth Barred Rocks lay various shades of brown eggs (actually, pale apricot to medium walnut brown) and some have speckles!  Our Easter Eggers lay green, pale pink, and occasionally spotted eggs.  We also ended up with some White Leghorns, who are smaller than the others, but lay extra-large white eggs.  Our Golden Phoenix (who is a mottled English walnut color with a ring of golden feathers around her neck and scattered about her dark head) lays a torpedo-shaped almost pink egg 6 of the 7 days in a week.  Just like each of us are unique, each hen lays an egg with her own distinct size, shape, and color!

Young pullets (a female chicken is a pullet until she starts steadily laying eggs) will sometimes start out producing small eggs for the first week or so.  In the picture, we had a new layer’s tiny, a “regular” sized, and a double-yolker from our White Leghorn.

Another fun thing about having chickens is observing the variety of egg colors and shades when packing our eggs in their cartons.  We have at least one white and one green in each dozen but most of our hens lay an assortment of pink-brown shades called “brown” eggs.  They say you can tell what color a chicken will lay by the bottoms of their feet! (In our experience, not exactly, but pretty close)  In our last batch of biddies, we had three with blackish green “soles” of their feet. The girls are hoping to find a dark olive egg or maybe even a purple egg!

Yes, the girls name our chickens.  These names (usually for attributes or specific colors) usually find themselves playing hens or pullets in the Adventures of Long Tail.  Sometimes their creative names end up inspiring an actual story character (like Jasmine Rose in The Devonians).

The girls’ favorite part of chickens is the raising challenge.  They enjoy plotting color mixes as they separate them for breeding, watching the incubator for 21 days and squealing “babies are coming soon,” tending new hatchlings, encouraging them to explore, helping them grow, and seeing their breeding experiment results as they become pullets and cockerels.  Then they usually say goodbye to newly laying pullets about 18 – 26 weeks or promising-looking cockerels about 10 – 14 weeks as they prefer to sell them when they are “past the danger stage.” (aka too big for most hawks and no longer needing brooder care)

I love their learning adventure (as Rebeccah says, breeding in chickens is more colorful than Mendel’s peas) and we all enjoy the rainbow of eggs in various sizes the happy hens provide.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Rise of a Rooster

May 20, 2017

The Adventures of Long Tail (Rise of the Rooster)

   Fun Fact: The “Adventures of Long Tail” stories started with a dream my little brother had!

We had just moved to a house where the neighbor had dozens of peacocks and peahens (boys are cocks, girls are hens) that lived in her house.  They roosted all over our yard, her yard, the next door junkyard, and almost everywhere.  We had chickens.  These peacocks were chicken-chasing masters.  We were always shooing peacocks away from our henhouse to collect eggs and feed our hens.

My little brother came down one morning telling us his dream about when he was a rooster fighting all the peacocks away so he could have all the hens himself.  He ended the battle by snapping a peacock feather in half with his sharp beak and crowing.  He said the feather tasted like bacon. (That was probably because I was frying bacon.) He said he was a rooster with a long tail.  Instantly, my crazy brain created “Long Tail.”

My Long Tail is a huge yellow Buff Orpington rooster at full boisterous maturity (big, brawny, and full of confidence).  He is the top rooster (in the stories, I say “chief” rooster).  He rules the chicken yard and likes to crow.  He has red feet and giant spurs.

My girls loved my “Long Tail” stories.  (I would never have put them on paper without the girls’ encouragement – they seemed too silly!) When they started their chicken flock school project, our best Buff Orpington rooster was instantly named “Long Tail!”

The world of “Long Tail” and his adventures is the house where the first “Long Tail” was hatched, with the big white henhouse and chicken yard we spent hours building.

When Rebeccah colored the illustrations for “Long Tail and Red Hawk,” she used our “Long Tail” as her model.

However, in the DVD books, “Long Tail” is played by “Woody” and “Woody Jr.” – two Barred Rock roosters from the “school project” flock I started as a teenager!

Inspiration comes from many places!

Check out the current “Adventures of Long Tail” stories:

Long Tail and the New Rooster

Long Tail and Red Hawk

Long Tail and the Big Storm

Long Tail and the Egg Thief

Long Tail and the Lost Biddie

Long Tail and the Big Ball

 

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~ Nancy Tart

Follow me!

Get my latest posts delivered to your email: