One Month of Chickens!

 We have officially had the chicks for a month!  Actually, one month and two days.  They have grown quite a lot!  They have feathers and giant (icky) feet and they enjoy roosting (sleeping on a bar), and they are starting to experiment with their wings.  They've also managed to grow out of two different brooders.

Chicks in their first brooder on day 1.

Chicks at one month trying to roost!

Take a look at our before and after photos!


Gertrude, our Buff Orpington:

First day!

One Month!

Pearl, the Americauna

First Day!

One Month!

One Month!

Nellie, the Silver Gray Dorking

First Day!

Hazel, the Barnvelder

First Day!

One Month!

Harriet, the Barred Plymouth Rock

First Day!

One Month!

I was wrong before thinking that Gerty would be our leader.  She's the biggest of the group, but size is nothing in the flock.  It actually looks like Pearl could be our queen which would be interesting since she will be the smallest of the girls weighing in around 5-6 pounds at maturity.

Harriet has turned out to be quite an escape artist.  She was breaking out of the brooder on regular occasions.  Hopefully in the newly constructed brooder she's a bit more contained.

Speaking of the new brooder.. Here it is!  It took John about an hour to construct it and then I put the chicken wire on.

They love the roosting bar in the middle!

In one more month they'll be heading out to live in their coop!

Gramma Comes To Visit!

Just a mini-post with a little story and a little family information.

This past weekend, my mom called to tell me that my Gramma was coming to visit.  I know most people say this, but I basically have the best Gramma ever.

My Gramma (you'll notice its not Grandma, or any derivation there of such as Mee-Maw or Grammy, ugh) has an interesting history.  She was born as one of six children in Manchester, NH and although she was the youngest, she did a lot of work around the house from the get go, including cooking nightly suppers.  This means that she has many talents that most people I know do not.

Gramma is a fabulous cook and will not let you go hungry in her presence.  Eighty-plus years of cooking for large groups of people will allow you to hone a skill to perfection.  One of the things I constantly request is Chicken Spaghetti.  In reality its a simple baked spaghetti casserole, but as far as I'm concerned its the ambrosia of the Gods.  I have the recipe and have tried several times to make it and I can't even get close. Everything she makes is delicious, but that recipe stands out.  That recipe is all good memories.  It is family reunions, birthdays, special visits, holidays and love.  My apologies if it seems sappy, but the dish is REALLY good.

I should also mention the pound cake.  Gramma puts a dime in hers and if you find it in your slice of cake, you are rewarded with good luck!  This is, in hindsight, not a great thing for children since its a choking hazard/tooth hazard, but as kids we would eat as much pound cake as we could manage without making ourselves sick in hopes of acquiring the dime.

I can't describe the pie crusts.  You'll just have to look and be jealous.  I should also mention
that Gramma doesn't like to have her picture taken and remind her that I probably said "smile" so
when she sees this she's not too mad at her oldest grandchild.

Gramma also does a lot of needlework and crocheting.  She has made nearly every member of my extended family (20ish people plus the courtesy family members and close friends to bring the total somewhere in the vicinity of 30) a combination of mittens, potholders, ornaments, blankets and many other things.  I have recently acquired said potholder skill and am actually pretty good.  Our gray cat has learned to open drawers and uses that skill to spread my collection of potholders all over the house.  I finally gave him one that I made so that he wouldn't destroy the ones from Gramma.

Check out those potholders!

Now, the family part (try to keep up!):

Believe it or not, this picture is missing half of the cousins and then some, but its the best picture I have of the group.

Gramma and Grampa have 5 children.

My mom, two aunts and two uncles.

My mom is the oldest.

In all their glory.

She and three of my aunts and uncles are married with offspring (the grandkids).

There are 10 grandkids (or "the cousins") as we are referred to in a group setting.

We also have one second cousin.

We also have a courtesy aunt, and a "second family" The Walkers (consisting of two grandparents, two kids with spouses and four grandkids in the immediate setting for which we usually see at the yearly reunion).

I am the oldest of the cousins.  Does it sound like I'm bragging?  I'm not.  Its really more like gloating. :)

Anyhow, I am the oldest of the 10 cousins/1 second cousin/4 similarly aged people.  This means that by nature I was the first of a lot of different things.  I was the first talker, walker, school-aged, first one old enough to hang with the adults (a HUGE deal when you're eight), first to go off to college, first to be engaged and first to be married.  I am now recently first to buy my own house.  Most of these things are simply age related, I'm the oldest, so unless one of the younger cousins ended up being a certified Sheldon Cooper, I was probably going to be the first to go to school/college anyway.  For a brief period I was also the favorite grandkid, but then other cousins came along and Gramma insisted on loving us all equally.

This picture was taken once I had to share my "favorite grandchild"
status with a bunch of other people.  Actually, that happened in
1989, so this is far into the future.

This past year I also became the first cousin to require a cabin at the reunion (a big deal too, and one which I am very excited about/horrified about since I do not care for change).

This summer one of these cabins is all mine.

The reason I'm putting all this out into cyberspace?

Last weekend, my mom called to say that Gramma was coming to visit and that if I was going to be around on Monday, she'd like to bring her down to see the new house and chicks.

You don't say no to that.

Gramma and Harriet.

(Especially if you're the oldest!)

She still loves me even when I ruin our pictures... 

Coop Building Part 2

Another big weekend of construction out here!

The first weekend was largely measuring, cutting and starting the assembly.  In that first weekend the coop team completed two sides.  This weekend the team got all four sides up as well as the roof and insulation.  Its a pretty intense process, but there's a lot that goes into coop consideration.

I hate that I ruined this picture with a closeup of my hand.

Our area experiences all four seasons, so we have to prepare for cold winters, wet springs, hot summers and breezy autumns.  Not to mention the constant onslaught of wind we face regardless of the season.  The biggest rule when building a chicken coop is preventing any dampness or chill from getting inside.  We are doing this by insulating the walls which will retain heat in the winter for those cold nights.  We also added a vapor barrier so that the inside of the coop will stay toasty and dry.

Another big part of this task was assembling the nesting boxes.  We have five chickens currently but we don't actually need 5 nesting boxes.  We just need enough boxes so that the girls won't fight over them or be able to chose a "favorite" which leads to a lot of issues, not the least of which is egg-breaking/eating.  Chickens may accidentally break an egg, discover that they can eat it, then figure out that they can break it themselves with their beaks.  Once they learn that behavior the only way to stop them from doing it is to remove them from the flock.  Permanently.  Did I mention that if you don't catch them fast enough they'll teach the skill to the other chickens?  Yep, that happens.

I basically made these myself.  I may have had some guidance.

So three nesting boxes for five chickens should be enough, we hope.

Anyhow, the only bit of the coop we have left to do is the floor and final wall before we start on finishing touches and the run.














In the mean time, the chicks are getting huge!  They're just over three weeks old and they're already starting to look like small chickens!  Our Orpington named Gerty, the fuzzy yellow chick, is the biggest one.  She's always been a little larger than the others which makes sense since she'll be the biggest chicken weighing in at about eight pounds (although potentially she could weigh up to ten).  The other birds are not far behind, most will reach about six or seven pounds by adulthood with the smallest one, our Americauna, Pearl, getting to only five or six pounds.

Even cute little chicks like Gerty go through an awkward phase.

I recently expanded their brooder and had to put wire over top to contain them as they discover their wings. We also added a small roosting bar for them to practice their roosting.

Brooder-topia!  You can see the roosting bar in the bottom box.

 As adults they'll perch on a bar when they sleep.  This is a behavior that dates back to their chicken ancestors' habit of sleeping up in trees at night to stay out of reach of predators.

Building the roof

John's Dad used to be a roofer... Very handy!

The current look of the coop.  We can't get the cat to stay out of it...

We were also happy to have a weekend of beautiful weather!  We took the chicks outside for a little fresh air.  They are funny to watch.

Everyone liked seeing the chicks.

Chicky friend! 

Mom and Lane. 

Big day out!

Coop Building Part 1

What a day!  This post is going to be a series of installments because it turns out that building a chicken coop is much more work than we previously thought.  John and I were up bright and early at 7:15 partly due to excitement, partly due to the terrible curtains in our bedroom and the fact that the sun rises outside of our window.

John's dad showed up just after eight with his truck so that they could go and retrieve the required lumber for our specific coop.  Once they left I cleaned like a mad woman so that once my parents arrived they would feel confident that their daughter was indeed a good, tidy adult and not a homeless degenerate ironically living in a house.

Lumber delivery is very exciting stuff...

Men love trucks.  They will spontaneously gather whenever one is near.

Lumber, lumber everywhere!

Insulation and 2x4's to make a cozy coop!

    Anyways, everyone ended up back at the house just before 10am raring to go.  I knew from the get go that although this was my project and I was the self-proclaimed project manager, I was not going to actually have any part in the construction.  One of those "too many cooks in the kitchen" things.

Getting the walls assembled.

    The boys set to work in the garage and my mom and I went upstairs to tackle the guest bedroom.  We sanded, cleaned and painted for the larger part of the day (more on that later).

Look at that technique!

    Although we had a cut list (a sheet of paper detailing all of the necessary materials, especially important since we needed a lot of lumber from the hardware store), blue prints, tools... lots of tools, and several able-bodied workers, the project still took the better part of the day and we were only able to get half done.

    Today we tackled the right and left sides of the coop and started on the side that will have the nesting boxes.  We also managed to get the holes dug in the ground where the coop will be, allowing us to set up the existing walls (which look pretty sad right now).

Grounds committee... Same as the work crew.  We have a tight budget.

Little brother breaking ground.

I call this "Man Digging Holes."

The work crew!

 Next weekend we will finish the coop  There is still plenty left to do since we will have to insulate the walls, put in the windows, add the floor and roof and assemble all of the doors (whew!).  And the fun part, painting, window boxes and the trim!

As a side note... we are not hoarders.  All of that stuff in the garage is slowly finding places in the new house.  Well, most of it will.

And a sneak peek of the guest room side project...

All of those speckles (spackles?) were holes in the wall.

Mom helping to take all of the hardware out of the window trim