by Seasonsgirl
It was a BEAUTIFUL day today. The sun was out, the temperatures were warm, and there was an occasional light breeze blowing through. The dogs and I spent much of our day outdoors on the deck. I was cutting chicken wire to add to our current fence and the dogs were sunning. We have a couple of our chickens that have learned to jump the current fence and now that spring is here I don’t want them in our front flower beds scratching out all of my mulch.
So hubby and I are adding extra chicken wire to the top of the fence bent in to keep them from jumping the current fence. Hopefully the new wire will not allow them to jump up on the current fence posts and then over the fence, as they have been doing this winter. Once hubby got home we put up the new fence. The dogs helped us out supervising our work. Then we ran some errands enjoying a ride on all the back roads to our destination. Chase loved riding with his head out the window. Once back home we hung out on the deck together as a family. Hopefully we can have many more beautiful days like this… welcome Spring 🙂
Seasonsgirl 
So pretty!
Thank you 🙂
Ugh I hate you and your perfect flower!!!! Just kidding, I like them, it just makes me upset that mine were wilted and buried in snow and ice this morning! Grrrr spring blizzards! Spring is my favorite season. Good luck with your chickens, how many do you have?
Ya we had another frost last night and it ruined my garden. There was snow and ice to go with it, luckily it didn’t stick. We have 16 chickens right now. Rhode Islands and Buff Orpingtons. Where do you live?
Nebraska our Mother Nature is bi polar here.
That’s where my Mom is from and my Grandmother and Uncle live 🙂
Is that picture from this year?! A little jealous! No flowers around here yet. 😛
Flowers we bought and were going to plant but didn’t because we had a frost coming. I had some like them last year as well I love them. We just have daffodils and tulips here right now. 🙂
Hi, this is Ashley Grace. My mom said I should ask you my chicken questions. So, here’s the first round…..
1.What do you feed your chickens? Do you buy food or give them scraps? If you used chick starter, would you recommend the medicated or non-medicated?
2. When you say free range, what do you mean? We have four cats that would love to eat them, so they would need to be protected. Do we need to build a fenced in area other than a run?
3. How big is your run, and what size would you recommend if we had four chickens?
4. How did you build your coop? I really have no idea how to do this, so any guidance would be appreciated.
5. How high should we put the nesting boxes so the chickens don’t sleep in them. Is 12x12x12 big enough for the Rhode Island Reds you suggested?
6. What did you use for your roost?
I’m sure I will have more questions in the future, but that’s all for now. Thanks for your time and Happy Easter!
Ashley Grace
Ok Ashley Grace here is your answers to the best of my knowledge. Sorry it took me so long. I have been swamped for weeks.
1. We feed our chickens layer pellets food, scraps, and scratch (a combo of grains like corn crushed). I strongly recommend medicated starter food it has may things chickens need to stay healthy their whole lives and need early.
2. Free range means they get out of the coop in the day and peck around in the grass, dust bath in the dirt, etc. during the day. If you are worried about the predators then a fenced in run area is ideal and one you can move around is best with a moveable coop. We have a 8x8x16 foot run for when our chickens have to be in. If you can build a moveable one then I would suggest a fenced in area for them as well as the run.
3. See above question. Plus we have about a quarter acre in that they can roam in (but that’s not necessary you can have a smaller fenced in area). Also you don’t need a 8ft tall coop we just find it nice as it allows us to hang heat lamps in the winter (you will need 2 heat lamps for a coop/run our size) and allows us to walk around freely without hitting out heads as well as we built in the laying boxes into the back of the coop so they go higher up. You can build the size that works for you. We have 16 chickens in a coop/run our size and we could get in a few more).
4. If you e-mil me I will send you details on this and web sits we looked at to build ours. seasonsgirlblog@hotmail.com
5. This one we still haven’t figure out totally some of our girls like to sleep in them and then we have to clean them daily. We think the best bet would to build the boxes where you could close them off somehow at dusk when the chickens go back in at night to sleep. For the nesting boxes some we built to suit us. A good starting point is this: We went to our local feed store and measured their prefab boxes and then built ones slightly bigger and taller. The important thing is it has 3 sides and a top they like to feel secure. The Rhode islands and our buffs aren’t too particular. For 4 chickens 2-3 boxes will be good. They usually fight over the same box no matter how many you have, but you have to give them options ;).
6. For the roosts we use dowel poles form Home Depot and built them between boards. Check out this post and you will see them: https://seasonsgirl.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/new-roosts-and-boxes/
Our old coop we kind of did a make shift job on from a old rabbit hutch and it worked for 10 chickens for a long time and only 6 boxes.
Hope that helps you get started. Also a books I would recommend are: “The Joy of Keeping Chickens” by Jennifer Megyesi and “Chickens for the Backyard Homesteader” by Suzie Baldwin
I am excited you are considering this and keep the questions coming 🙂