More Coop Progress

Last weekend found Sean and I hard at work once again on the chicken coop. It is admittedly a huge project but it seems we would have had it completed by now had other priorities not jumped up constantly to cause us to put our efforts elsewhere. The impetus for this burst of activity was complaints from the neighbors about our roosters loudly crowing in the early hours of the morning.

Up until this point, the roof of the coop was merely tarps stretched over the roof trusses to keep the rain out. Unfortunately, this arrangement does little to dampen the racket raised by our alpha rooster, Marco, when he is in full cry. In the interest of being good neighbors, we set aside a day to see what we could do to enclose the coop more completely.

Working together, we sheeted in the roof with plywood and then tacked down roofing felt to protect it from the rain. At first I only used staples to hold it in place. After a few windy days of seeing it partially blow off and attempting to secure it with staples again, I finally resorted to screwing thin boards along the lower edges to prevent further movement. I have placed an order for sheet metal to cover the roof and hopefully the current arrangement will hold until that is installed.

We also completed the task of sheeting in the exterior walls on the back and southern wing of the coop (the right-hand side in the photo). Having that complete, we tacked housewrap around the entire building to keep it dry until we are ready to install siding. We also tacked sheets of plywood over the window openings on the inside to further contain the noise.

The coop now remains completely dry and is very dimly lit within even at the height of the day. The combination of the substantial muffling that the newly enclosed coop provides and the fact that it remains dark in the interior until quite late in the morning has led to rave reviews from our neighbors.

One of the next steps will be the installation of the windows and remaining doors. This will once again permit light into the coop. Hopefully the interior windows plus the storm windows will be sufficient to keep the crowing volume low even when Marco can once again see the sunrise and feels compelled to do what comes naturally.

I also have to add that it is wonderful to work on projects like this with the children. They are interesting and pleasant company as we carry on a continuous banter about whatever comes to mind. I am also happy to be teaching them skills that may come in handy some day on projects of their own and instilling in them a sense of pride at the completion of a job well done.

Flower Garden

Janet has always loved decorating our home with flowers. Upon purchasing our farm last fall, we began to discuss the best spot for the flower garden. Before long we settled on the patch of grass in the center of the circle drive directly in front of the house.

The plan didn't move beyond that stage until Mother's Day. We used that occasion as the impetus to get things moving forward. The children and I took Janet out to the nursery where we purchased a wide assortment of wildflower mixes and individual seed packets.

I also borrowed my father-in-law's rototiller to tear up the sod and prepare the ground for seeding. Unfortunately the project hit a major snag when I managed to break the tiller by snapping an old welded repair that had become rusty and brittle. I removed the part and Dave had it rewelded at a local shop. Borrowing equipment is always risky but he has been very forgiving and helpful.

When the tiller was finally back in working order, I broke up the very hard packed soil and removed a fair number of rocks. Aidan and I mixed all of the seeds in a bucket with some potting soil and then broadcast them as evenly as we could. After a few weeks of watering, the first seedlings were well on their way.

We were concerned that a flower garden created in this way would just end up looking like a big patch of weeds. Fortunately the blooms have been increasingly plentiful and it is finally beginning to fill in and look nice. We are trying not to overdo the harvesting of flowers so that enough will go to seed to provide for next year's crop. Regardless of how many manage to emerge after the long winter, I'm sure we will have to supplement it with a fresh batch of store-bought seeds next spring as well.

Beauty Brought Indoors

Now that the flower garden is blooming, the interior of our house is full of colorful bouquets. Every few days, Janet has been picking a combination of wildflowers and our garden flowers and placing them everywhere. I even found a water glass with some sitting on my desk in the basement.

I like the country charm that they impart and appreciate the fact that we grew them ourselves instead of bringing them home from the grocery store or floral shop. It's a shame we can't have them during the long gloomy Michigan winters. Perhaps someday we'll invest in a little greenhouse out back so we can enjoy them all year 'round.

Twenty Little Indians

A few nights ago, I reluctantly tore myself away from a project in the house to complete my nightly chore of shutting the chickens in their coop. I headed to the mud room to don my boots as Freya announced that she wanted to come along as well.

I had recently added a simple roost to the coop made from two boards and some branches. The chickens are so happy with this addition that it has become their favorite place to hang out. At sunset each evening, they begin jostling for the favored roost positions for the night. By the time that I arrive to close them in, they are generally already inside and prettily perched in neat rows.

As Freya and I emerged from the house into the late evening air, our noses told us right away that a skunk had recently sprayed somewhere very close by. While I have yet to see any skunks on our property, the smell is common enough that I gave it little thought. Crossing the back yard, Freya commented, "It really stinks out here!"

We made our way through the gate and arrived at the doorway to the coop. Immediately I noticed that the floor of the coop was littered with large clumps of feathers. I entered and peered around the dimly lit interior to discover the partially eaten body of a chicken in one corner beneath the new roost.

I carried the poor bird out into the light where Freya and I could examine it. It turned out to be one of the roosters. One side of his body had been stripped of feathers and we could clearly see where something with a relatively small mouth had dined on the muscles of his chest and belly. In the manner of a forensics investigator, I felt the temperature of the meat and checked for any stiffening of the remains. I concluded that the crime had been committed recently, most likely within an hour of our discovery.

The culprit was clearly a very different animal from the last predatory visitor to our hen house. On that occasion it was either a cougar or a coyote that had simply jumped clear over the 4 1/2 foot fence. The two chickens that died that night showed signs of a large-jawed creature that had consumed all but the foot of one bird and cut the second one cleanly in half. This time, the apparently much smaller creature had simply nibbled away at the easily accessible meat and had worked around the bones rather than chewing through them.

I returned to the coop and counted the jittery chickens. Prior to this event, we had 21 birds. My count only came up with 19! That meant that there was still a second bird missing somewhere. I counted a second time paying more attention to the sexes of the birds remaining and reached the conclusion that the second missing bird was a hen. The loss of a rooster that we had planned to slaughter this fall merely meant one less roaster for the table. The potential loss of a hen was much more serious because I had intended to keep all of the females as breeding stock for next year's flock.

By this time the light of sunset had dimmed to the point that we could not see very well. Freya and I retrieved flashlights from the house and began our search. We looked over every inch of the chicken yard but failed to find any sign of the missing hen. Since the predator did not seem capable of eating the bird whole and probably could not carry her off, I found myself hoping that perhaps in the panic of the attack she had managed to fly over the fence. Maybe she was out there in the woods somewhere hiding. If she could survive the night full of owls and other deadly creatures there was some chance that she could be found by the light of day.

Braving the ever-present mosquitoes, Freya and I made two circuits around the 300 foot long perimeter fence looking for any signs of entry. I was sure that I would find a fresh pile of dirt where the culprit had dug underneath. Despite our efforts, we failed to turn up any obvious point of entry. Since most of the chickens were safely closed in the coop, we surrendered the night to the damnable mosquitoes and made our way back to the house.

Believe it or not, it wasn't until quite a bit later that I finally made the connection between the reeking skunk smell in the backyard and the dead rooster. In my defense, my reluctance to reach that conclusion was fueled by the lack of an obvious entry point. In the absence of that evidence, I was forced to conclude that whatever had made the attack, had done so by climbing over the fence. While I believed that an opossum or a raccoon might climb the fence, I felt pretty sure that a skunk would not attempt the same feat.

At sunrise the next morning, I headed out to release the chickens from the coop to spend the day in the yard. As I reached for the door handle, I heard a faint cooing sound coming from the area behind the coop. As I turned to look, the missing hen emerged from the cover of one of the pine trees in the chicken yard and walked out on a branch toward me. I quickly opened the coop door and then walked over to pick her up and make sure she was unhurt. She allowed me to pick her up as she continued her cooing and sing-song hen sounds. A quick inspection revealed that she was none the worse for wear except that she smelled strongly of skunk spray.

I stood there for a while petting her as the rest of the chickens poured from the coop to greet the day. I was relieved that she had survived the attack and the long night in the tree. Before long the morning routine of the roosters, which involves chasing and attempting to breed with every hen in sight, began in earnest around me.

We have dubbed the alpha rooster with the name "Marco Pollo" (the latter word intentionally spelled and pronounced as POI-yo as in the Spanish word for "chicken"). He is naturally our most aggressive bird who nips at our hands and legs any chance he can get. True to form, he emerged from the coop and came straight at me and began pecking at my shoes.

My remedy for this behavior has been to pick him up and give him a forced petting until he behaves nicely. To do this, I placed the poor hen who survived the night in the tree on the ground and enduring a few pinching nips on my fingers, picked Marco up to pet him. Right away I noticed that Marco did not smell of skunk and I started asking him where all of his aggression had gone when the skunk came around.

Roosters being roosters, they began a noisy pursuit of the surviving hen around the chicken yard. She had three of them in tow as she squawked and ran figure eights around my feet begging for rescue from the unwanted ardour. Before I realized what was happening, she had taken flight over the heads of the roosters and came in a wildly flapping arc toward me. She lit on my shoulder and from there stared down at the perplexed roosters.

After work that evening, I resumed my search for the hole where the skunk had breached the fence. I used my gas-powered weed whacker to mow a wide swath around the fence while I looked carefully at the ground for any sign. The solution to the mystery eluded me once again as I completed the circuit of the fence and returned to the front gate.

It was at that moment that all finally became clear. As I put down the Weedwacker, I noticed that the bottom of the coop yard gate had a large opening in the chicken wire. It was easily big enough for a skunk to walk right through! This hole was caused indirectly by poor carpentry. When I built the gate I had failed to account for sagging. This omission on my part means that the gate sticks at the bottom corner and requires a light kick with your toe to get it open. Over time, our misdirected kicks had overshot the bottom board of the gate and gradually pushed the chicken wire in the center so far away that the staples had pulled out. This left a huge opening in our defences which the opportunistic skunk had exploited.

I have since repaired the gate by adding a second board to close the hole and act as a larger kick plate for opening. Perhaps I will eventually go so far as to properly support the gate so that it will no longer sag. In the mean time, I believe the chickens are once again safe from skunk attack. As far as we know, the skunk has not returned for a second course. Our neighbor mentioned that he had watched a young skunk amble down his driveway in the direction away from our coop. Let's just hope he found easier pickings somewhere else!

Waiting Impatiently For Eggs

We have been anticipating the day that our hens would start laying for a long time. Unfortunately we are still waiting. Tomorrow they will be 21 weeks old and it's seems high time for some eggs to appear. The young roosters have been making their clumsy attempts to move things along much to the annoyance of the hens. They invariably get chased, squashed, clawed and have a few feathers yanked out in the process. So much for avian romance.

As with everything else, I have been overdue in providing the hens somewhere to lay their eggs. Every few days, I have scouted among the weeds for eggs but their brown color decreases my chance of finding them. Perhaps they have been standing around with their legs crossed and holding their breath waiting for me to get the maternity ward in order.

Last weekend, I finally managed to put a few hours into this task. The pictures show the result. I copied the design from a sketch that I found in the book "Barnyard In Your Backyard". I'm not sure why the ceiling of each nest box needed to be so high but I think they'll suffice. The book claims that this three nest unit will accommodate up to twelve hens. Since we have thirteen, I'm hoping I can stretch that number by one for now. We hung it on the wall just inside the coop doorway at the recommended height.

I lined the bottom of each nest with a square of cardboard and then added straw to make a comfortable nest. Per the advice that I have seen in a few books, I placed a golf ball in each nest to act as a clue for the hens of what the boxes are for. Each time I have been in the coop, I have picked up a few hens and placed them on the roost at the front of the box.

After getting over being rudely handled by the brutish human, they stand on the roost and peer at the golf ball in the nest with interest. Each hen eventually has stepped into the nest and poked about in the straw for a minute or two before making their way back down to the floor. I have no evidence to date that these little training sessions are of any use, but if they start laying golf balls we'll be rich!