The Not-So-Urban Experiment

To much to do and never enough time...

As our weather graduly starts to warm (gradually being the key term here) I find that my 'to-do-list' seems never ending! When I start working on one of my 'projects' I feel like I only end up finding three or four more items that need to be completed before i can finish the first!

All in all... I may be over exerting myself... and it would then make sense as to whey I have come down with some sort of cold/flu bug.

There have been some updates with the status of chickens and the coop!

So There has been some going back and forth on the coop and how I was going to "finish" it. I did not have the time, nor the carpentry know how to build my own coop, so I bought one from a guy on craigslist. I was acutally surprised by the number of people here locally that build and sell chicken coops as a second income. Apparently living out in Puyallup/Grahm area there are lots of city farmers. So... I ended up buying a pre-made 7' x 4' fully enclosed run and coop from one of them.

The coop has a sliding door that can be locked and opened or closed from the outside of the run so that it will be easy to close the girls in for the evening. Closing them up for the evening will be essential to keep them safe from the multitude of raccoons that we have and also from the neighbors nosey cat.

The finished product! The left end is the coop where they can
sleep and lay their eggs, and the right side is a run that they can
peck around and scratch in from the safety of the predators

I also made a few modifications to the coop to help make it easier to clean and better suited for our weather here in Western Washington. I put a double coat of prime and a double coat of USDA approved farm safe paint on the exterior of the coop and run to keep the wood protected from the constant rain. I also covered the floor inside the coop with leftover lineloum tiles from our bathroom re-model project. Before covering the floor it was just exposed cedar slats, and the lenolium will be much easier to just wipe clean of poo.

Inside the coop in the nesting area where they will sleep

This is a view of the nesting area. The lower tier roof is hinged
for easy access egg harvesting and cleaning.

I also added wheels to the end of it to make at a 'tractor' coop (just one of my new chicken lingo terms) that will wheel around the yard. This makes it easy to give the chikens fresh pecking ground where they can constantly fertalize my lawn and eat small bugs and worms.

Today I stocked up on all the necessities such as feed and bedding. Interestingly enough, I live in a rural enough area that I have a Del's farm and feed supply just down the road from my house. This should make for easy re-stocking, and save me from driving through the awful traffic getting out to Grahm. I really would hate to drive out that far just for chicken food!
The gal at Del's was really helpful and I ended up getting a 50lb bag of the 'Laying Chicken Pellets' that have extra calcium to help the hens produce the eggs shells. I also got a feeder, waterer, chicekn scratch, and dust free saw dust for bedding. Honestly I am still a bit confused about the conundrum of 'dust free' sawdust. All in all, I actually walked out of the feed store having spend less than $50.00! I was quite surprised at how inexpensive the feed was! it was just under $14.00 for 50lbs, which means about 2-3 weeks of food for 3 chickens. I guess I am just used to the outrageous price of dog food... so it was a nice surprise to find out how low-budget chickens acutallty are.

I had to buy a mouse-proof storage bin for the chicken food.
It took forever to find a bin large enough to hold 50LB's of feed
and a lid tight enough to keep out those tiny mic

Del's was also a great place to go because the manager's daughter raises chickens to sell too! I was really glad to hear that she had the breeds that I have been looking for also! She can deliver the chickens to my house for no fee! SCORE! I was really not looking forward to stuffing three chickens in three sepparate boxes and strapping them down to the bed of Jordans truck. Nothing seemed appealing about that!

I hope to have the girls delivered either tomorrow or tuesday depending on when she is available! I am really excited. I have a list of names in my head but think that it is best to wait until I see the personalities.

As if I didn't have enough to do getting ready for chickens, we have also been working the garden to get it going for 'Garden 2011'. But since the weather has been less that permissable we have yet to get things completed. We have 1/3 of it tilled and hoed into rows, and the other 2/3rd's still left to un paper and weed.

This is the garden as it stands now, on the left is the tilled portion,

the lighter colored paper on the right is from last year still and not yet tilled.

Last year, Jordan and I decided to experiment with the black weed block fabric that people lay under their bark and in their beds. We covered the whole garden in it and cut holes for the plants and seeds. For the small amount of work it took tacking it down, it saved us hours upon hours upon hours in time weeding later!!! We really could keep the garden clear of weeds with less than 2 hours of weeding every week! I will never go back to exposed dirt ever again! I upgraded this year and we will be laying down better quality paper so that hopefully for the next few years we can just re-use the same stuff.

But anyway, I lost focus... we have not yet gotten the garden going! The only plants in the garden are the ones that made it through the winter and that would be the thyme, chives, and the strawberries.