our new roomies

Move over Teddy, the ladies have arrived! I have always wanted backyard chickens. With our new living arrangement we have a great set up to have the clucking machines in our backyard without bother any of our neighbors. And our neighbors all have chickens as well, so I don’t think they mind! The chicken hobby was born after I successfully passed boards and don’t have to worry about studying anymore. I spent a day reading all things chicken and learning things like, ‘Do you need a rooster to get an egg?” (the answer is No) and ‘if you have rooster can you eat the fertilized eggs?’ (the answer is Yes as along as a hen didn’t incubate the egg for a couple days). Did you know there are different breeds of chicken? Well after spending a day doing my homework, I recruited David to accompany me to the east bay where we could buy our one week old chicks! We decided to get four total, all different breeds. We brought them home and but them in a cardboard box with a heat lamp, gave them some chick food and water, and sat back to watch them grow!

little chicks in a box!

Hazel, the friendliest in the group.

Teddy gets acquainted with his new ‘chicken sisters’. He was surprisingly gentle with them when they were chicks and would beg to go into the laundry room to have a peak at them!

The chicks were very cute at one week old, small, soft, and making pleasant chick peeping noises. But boy was I ready to get those boogers outside! They were messy ladies who needed frequent litter, food, and water changes. They don’t start laying eggs until they are 20 weeks old, and have to have a heat light until 8 weeks old or until they loose their down and are fully feathered. Once they outgrew their box (aka started hoping out of the box), I moved them into Teddy’s old dog crate. Besides the girls scratching out their bedding, this worked great as an intermediate house. The girls now only needed the heat lamp at night and were starting to look like overgrown pigeons! They were also learning to ‘perch’ and loved to try and make their way to the highest post.

“The Grower Pen”

Now it was time to get serious about moving the girls outside. I had searched and searched on pintrest, craigslist, and chicken forums about coop design. I finally decided I didn’t have it in me (nor did David) to construct one myself. So while it wasn’t necessarily economical, I paid extra for someone to bring everything to our backyard and construct the coop for me. It was oh so convenient. I moved the girls outside only a few hours after the coop was finished and they took to the outdoors right away! I decided to keep their heat lamp on them at night while they adjusted to the lower temperatures.

The Coop, not too shabby for a couple chickens

Teddy acts as the surrogate Rooster

We did end up constructing an automatic waterer out of PVC pipe, a 10 gallon bucket, and copper fittings. This was a lifesaver, holding almost two weeks worth of water and stays very clean. I HIGHLY recommend this method for anyone with chickens. I also bought a baby pig feeder for their food, holds about one weeks worths of feed. These two items made the chickens very low maintenance. I normally spend about 30 min on Sunday refilling food and water, changing the bedding, and washing out the coop. Otherwise their daily routine just includes letting them in and out of the coop in the AM and PM. (and David almost always does that part for me!)

Exploring the yard, the love to drink the water from Teddy’s bowl.

Fast forward 8 weeks, the girls have just been eating and growing. David was wondering when they were going to start earning their keep around the house. Well, today someone proved their worth and we have out first brown egg! It was small, but we scrambled it up and it tasted delicious, can’t wait for more to come!