it’s been a week now since beatrice, edna, dottie, gladys, harriet, myrtle, opal, tillie, gertrude & brunhilda got here and our new friends are already starting to lay eggs!
lauren and i pulled the trigger on welcoming 10 new chickens to the farm last week. she had reached out to a local organic farm to see if she could find out where they got they get their chickens from. as it turned out, they were about to make a run up north to pick up their annual order of 18 week old hens, and were more than happy to add 10 more to their order.
knowing they would be arriving any day, we quickly got to work getting their coop together. we converted a part of the smaller of our two barns into a bachelorette pad i can only assume chickens dream of. it all came together pretty quick and without much up front cost other than the organic bedding and feed that we would need. we had a couple of older dressers laying around that we converted into nesting boxes and used some leftover wood, chicken wire and screen material to make some windows to vent the coop. we also had a couple of old stair railings laying around that we used for a place for our new friends to roost.
now that they had a nice comfortable coop, we got to work on their outside area. we got a couple rolls of 6’ chicken wire and some 8’ rebar to create a fence for them. we also used a couple of extra 2x4s to build a covered feed station so their food wouldn’t get wet in the rain and to also provide some shade in those upcoming summer months.
it’s been a fun adventure going in there each day to see how many eggs we have. i’m pretty sure about half of them have started to lay and the other half might be starting any day now. they seem to be pretty happy and really like to be around people. they like to follow lauren and i around whenever we are outside. we probably have enough space for 50 chickens. maybe someday we will get a few more dressers and add to the flock, but for now we have really enjoyed the new addition to the farm life.
let us know if you are interested in some farm fresh organic eggs!
bryan
