Chickens

I finally got my chickens!!!  I have been wanting to get a small flock of six for awhile now, but decided to wait until after the 3 Day, which was all-consuming for the past several months. I started out by looking for coops, and found a PERFECT set up on Craigslist for $75 -- complete with a fenced chicken yard.  off we went o Oakland with the truck and trailer, and loaded that baby right up.

It sat in the yard for awhile until I got my first consulting check, and then I hired a day laborer to lay footings and set the coop up so that no critters could burrow underneath.  Perfect!   Then I found one nesting box (I actually need one more) and bought food, shavings (cheaper than a bale of hay), cracked corn, and critter-proof storage bins.  From the last time I had chickens (FIFTEEN YEARS AGO -- YIKE!!) I had a feeder and water tin.

Dennis had promised pullets, but when the time came, there were no pullets available (from Dennis' source). So it was back to Craigslist.

In Petaluma, I found a source with ready to lay (8 to 9 month old) chickens -- perfect!!!  Not only that, but they were  variety of different breeds -- Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, and  others that I have to look up because I forgot already what Richard (the chicken guy) told me.   Because they all look different, I could name them and tell them apart.  Richard had lots of chickens  and also had turkeys, including two huge toms with blue wattles and iridescent feathers.  He corralled six different chickens, we paid for them (the price of chickens has really gone up since I bought them last - FIFTEEN YEARS AGO- YIKE!)  and we loaded them into cat carriers and off we went!

backyard coop with the girls

Front: Goldie, Sapphire
Rear left to right: Ruby, Jewel, Pearl, Opal

 Are they not beautiful?????  Already the cats have been sitting goggle-eyed in front of the coop watching to see what happens.  This morning when I went out to open the coop and put the water tin up on bricks,  a big old potato bug was under the water tin.  Those girls jumped on that bug and had it for breakfast!  I have already painted a "Coop Sweet Coop" sign to hang on the front.

We have also secured the whole garden area so that after a couple of days, I can let them out to be more free range (within limits, of course! ).

Next on the agenda is to get the planting beds built.  I have already started two compost bins, so between the chickens, composting, and recycling, our garbage should go down to one can every month or less!!

Rod took a little flip video of me and the chickens, but I am not sure how to put it into the blog, and not sure that I want to anyhow, since it has more than one unflattering shot of my big old rear end!!