Flower Bulbs and Spring

I planted my flower bulbs in the front yard in September of last year. A few weeks ago they started blooming, so far only the daffodils have bloomed, but the tulips are also coming up. We've had some weird weather this year. Two years ago at this time I already had vegetable plants in the ground. We still have some freezing weather this week plus my whole garden is gone now, so this year will be an interesting one for vegetable gardening.

Well back to flower bulbs...This is one of the areas in the front yard where I planted bulbs in September. I was concerned that the squirrels had dug them all up.

I thought that I planted a variety pack of daffodils, but so far only the yellow ones came up.

 They sure are pretty flowers though!

I also planted them on the left side of the house. Turns out this is the area where we are building up the yard, so I had to move these flowers.

Over the weekend with a little help from a friend, I replanted the daffodils and tulips that were in the area that would be affected by the yard rebuild. They looked good for about an half hour then got all droopy, so instead of wasting them I cut the flowers off and put them in water, so we have a nice bouquet of flowers in the kitchen now.

I learned a lot with my first attempt at flower bulb planting. First of all, it is extremely easy to do and second of all, it is not good to move the bulbs once they have bloomed. I look forward to planting even more bulbs in September of this year!

Building the New Coop, Part 4- Chicken Run Move

The new coop has been ready for a few days now and we've been working on the run the past few days. The chickens have finally been released into the run as of a couple days ago and they are happy to have the new outside space. We're still tweaking the whole thing and discovering along the way (and with the help of the chickens) what else needs to be done.

Just a reminder, here is the old coop

We took out the run, all the fencing and the garden boxes. Step by step, the destruction began.

The city had the perfect machine to smash up the old metal shed coop. Someone wanted the scrap metal to recycle, so the clean up of the main part of the shed was pretty easy since someone else took all the metal.

 Here is my garden before we took it apart, that took a lot of time too.

The yellow vehicle is actually sitting where the above garden used to be. We removed all the fencing and wooden boxes and they pushed all the soil and compost further up our yard. The city is now parking some of their vehicles in that spot.

So out with the old and in with the new...

Converting the new shed over was actually a lot easier then moving the run since we had 4 walls and a roof already and there was no need to move the building, just modify it. This is before we started, you can still see the old coop and run in the background.

Building a run on a slope is not an easy task. My husband tackled the challenge well although we probably do not meet building codes and are probably not really level, but it's a chicken run. They do not care and it looks okay.

The biggest challenge was the last side with the human door, that really took some time to figure out how to attach it.

Once we got all 3 walls of the run up and we covered the bottom where it meets the coop with hardware cloth, we realeased the chickens with a temporary ramp. One of the EE's was the first one out.

The broody hen was a little skeptical. She is no longer broody after being in a cage in the new coop two nights. That was an easy fix, break a broody hen by moving her to a new coop. Who knew?

The Buff Orpington was excited to get outside. They had been locked in their coop almost 3 days.

The Rhode Island Red decided that the ramp was not needed.

 Eventually they all made it out.

The Columbian Wyandotte decided flying out was the best option. Yes, chickens can fly!

I locked them up after they went to bed that night and yesterday morning we started working on their covered patio. Lucky chickens!

Building the patio...

Patio complete except for paint

The chickens spending the day out all day with their new patio. We are going to landscape around the run and hide everything below the bottom of the run so the cement blocks will not show.

A closer look at their patio. On rainy days they can go out of the coop and stay under one of the two levels.

After spending the day out I locked them in the run one more time and painted the coop before the sunset last night. That way it could dry over night. We are getting rain today and the next few days so I needed to get it done before it rained and let it dry while they were sleeping. We learned last night that some of the chickens have trouble jumping up to the patio, so put a temporary pallet ramp in there for now until a dry day and time to build a better ramp.

They were happy with the new paint job and they are starting to lay more eggs now since the move, they did slow down a little while they were locked in the coop for a few days.

So the chickens are safe and sound and we're taking a construction break. We have a lot of cleaning up to do and a few more things to add here and there. My garden is a whole other story, I am not even sure where to start there.

Building the New Coop, Part 3

We got a lot done yesterday and today on the coop. Yesterday I painted the nest boxes and roosts and also some of the floor wood. The rest we'll leave as is, since it's for chickens and they really don't care. They ended up with a soothing lavender color though since that is what I had on hand. My husband said that he hopes it will relax them to lay more eggs. Not that we need them to lay more eggs, we have way too many now. 

 We added the 2 braces to the lower roosts too.

 and the window is all set with hardware wire on the outside and an hinged door on the inside.

 It will be so nice to just shut the window and pop door with the doors and not have to use plastic anymore! So excited about that point especially!!!!

 My husband got the base of the run complete and leveled.

 He used Handi Blocks for the construction. It is supposed to be an easy way to build decks and other things. Not sure if anyone had used them for a chicken run. The run will end up higher on the end then the top, but it will be level with the shed.

 Here is the back view of the window installed. It will be just above the run.

 We also cut two vents on opposite sides of the coop and installed vent covers.

 The cutting was not perfect, but it looks good on the outside and that's what counts.

Since we are clearing out all the land where the coop and the garden is I let the chickens lose on my kale, Swiss chard, carrots and spinach. They made fast work at it and destroyed it. I was kind of sad to see all my hard work gone so fast. They will repay us in eggs though and the eggs should be full of nutrients from all that good healthy green food.

I opened up the garden bed that had my garlic in it too. They worked on it for a while too.

 I actually was growing garlic, but since we have to move everything, I won't be able to finish growing it this year. I am going to plant more for next year though. I really want to be successful at growing garlic and produce some for us. Oh well, it is a good thing that we'll be building up our property, so I need to relax and go with the flow this year. I am hoping to get a few relocated vegetable beds in this year somewhere with tomatoes, cucumbers and squash still.

So all that was yesterday, today we got a lot more done. My son and daughter helped out and we ended up dismantling the run completely and we've already moved over half the chickens. The rest are the wild ones who do not like to be touched, so we planning on moving them tonight when they are asleep. I hope that goes well. Here are a few pictures from today's adventures.

Here is the old coop and run before we touched it.

 Here is the run partially dismantled. It was not an easy process. We built it very strong which meant there was a ton of screws and nails all over, plus even buried hardware cloth for digging predators. We did an awesome job reinforcing it from anything breaking in which worked against us since we were now taking it apart.

 My son and husband tearing down the run bit by bit.

 Here is my daughter, son and husband working on attaching the moved run to it's new location. Of course, our dog Maxie was supervisor, as always.

Here is most of the run up.We still need to put the end piece and the door. It will sit higher off the ground so the door has to be moved. I also need to block a lot of the area under the coop from the chickens going too far under and predators having access to them.

So we have about 13 of the chickens moved in already. The Easter Egger really likes the new coop and window. I think they all are wondering when they'll go back to their old coop and roosts.

So there is a lot more to do still, but the big majority of the work is done and it was great to have some help today too. There is no way we would have gotten the run moved without our kids to help!

Building the New Coop, Part 2

 The Coop is coming along very nicely. We went to Lowe's and purchased some vinyl flooring. The cheaper already rolled up vinyl was too short. It was 8 x 12, but we needed 10 x 12.

The lady at Lowe's was very helpful and offered a remnant of vinyl that they needed to sell. She marked it down to $4 dollars and both rolls together ended up being around $40 even. So not too bad. Plus it's for a chicken coop and it will be buried under deep litter soon. I don't believe the chickens will care.  

So I got busy doing the very detailed work (not) of stapling down the flooring. The wood floor would rot under the deep litter so I am hoping this will protect it. The floor in the older coop seems to be holding up fine and we also put vinyl on it when will built it. Anyway, I stapled down the whole perimeter of the coop and also where the two vinyls overlapped.

I definitely would have done a much better job if it was for our house, but like I said it's for a chicken coop, so stapling it down and overlapping it is no big deal.

We installed the roosts on the right side of the coop. They'll have 3 different levels and each roost spans the whole coop wall to wall which gives them 10 feet of roost space for each, so 30 feet of roosting area which should be plenty for 22 hens. Some of the high flyers that I have will love that they'll be able to roost over 5 feet up and the bigger hens have a lower one just a couple feet off the ground. They'll also be able to hop roost to roost to get to the higher ones and there is a window close for a cool breeze in the summer. They'll be living in luxury compared to their current coop.

We have attached the nest boxes we built yesterday and also attached the top. We were going to make the lid easy to lift up and down with hinges, but then decided to just screw it in. I decided I really didn't need hinges.

The inside will be done as soon as we add a chicken door, two ceiling vents and another window or two. I need to put a coat of paint on the roosts and nest boxes and I need to cover the windows with hardware cloth.

We thought about leaving it natural, but decided after reading that paint helps to prevent mites getting into the wood, preserves the wood better and makes it easier to clean. I am not sure what color I will use, I think I have some white leftover paint or brown. I'll use whatever we have on hand.

We are hoping to have the inside done by the weekend or during the weekend depending on the weather. We have winter storm warnings right now and if the storms hit, we may be behind a day or two. The chickens will be moved in as soon as the new coop is ready. 

The next big project will be leveling the ground for the run, taking apart the chicken run and installing it next to the new coop. That will be the hardest part of this project.