Chickens update

Miss5 takes most of our chicken photos. An endless fascination.

I recently had someone ask me for a chicken update - especially with how well they are coping as the weather turns cooler. So here it is!


The girls are doing well. Belle went into her molt almost as soon as she arrived, but after a few weeks started laying again. Abigail looks like she's just starting her molt now - we've had only one egg to 'harvest' for a few days now (although back to two again today), and there are feathers starting to fly around the coop again. I hope she gets it over with before the winter arrives properly or she'll be a little chilly for a week or two!

While we were in Wellington for our holiday a couple of weeks ago the weather down South here took a turn for the worse. (Remember, in this part of the world, 'South' means closer to the Pole and further from the equator - i.e. colder). I got a worried text message from our friends who were chicken-sitting - would our chickens cope if it snowed and what should they do?

Well, actually I had no idea :) But there wasn't much they could do anyway. Before we'd left we had moved the dome to the most sheltered part of our section - right under some trees that would provide protection from the wind and rain. The chickens still like to sleep in their beer-crate nesting box, so would be out of the wind and close to each other for warmth. I also know that plenty of people keep chickens in this city, and I've not heard of a chicken freezing to death. (Trust me. It would make the newspaper. "Unseasonal Cold Snap. Feathered Family Pet Falls Fowl of Freezing Temps").

So my advice was not to worry. To give them extra food the next day (they eat more when they're cold), and to make sure they had plenty of straw in their coop and nesting box.

In the event the snow never arrived (or if it did, it was not in this part of town), and they coped just fine.

Chickens are pretty hardy animals. They will go off their lay if they get too cold and miserable, but they don't lay in winter here anyway, as there are not enough hours of daylight for them.

Advice I have heard includes feeding them warm porridge in the morning and making sure their sleeping quarters are dry and draught free. Also to make sure their water is neither too cold nor too hot - I guess warm water in the morning on those really frosty days.

The key thing to remember about chickens in this climate is that our climate isn't really that cold! People keep chickens in places like Russia and Canada (with fancier and warmer accommodation than I'm providing, to be sure).

My plan for winter at this stage is to continue converting the rabbit hutch into a nesting box/roosting house that we'll set up next to the dome over winter, and use the dome more like a deep-litter run. This is a 'work in progress' (which means that it has been started and not finished...).

Changes made since the 5th dome post:
- water container. When we were given the chickens, we were given one of these

Self-filling water dish

Or at least, something that looks very similar (you wouldn't believe how long it took me to find a photo of this on the 'net. There are too many products in this world for cats to drink out of). This works very well, so long as you peek in whenever you wander past the dome and scoop out the dust and straw and muck that they've kicked into their water in their scratchings. Once a day to clean it out and refresh the water is fine. The chickens drank more in the warmer months, but I really like the security of knowing that they will have water if we forget for some reason - especially now that Miss5 has the responsibility of feeding the chooks in the morning. So long as I have fed them and topped up the water the night before, this is not something she needs to worry about.

Okay, that's probably the main change :) Everything else is pretty much the way it was the last time we took a tour of the dome.

The biggest thing, really, has been that we've started using the dome over the veggie patches. Having done this for two patches, now, I can say something with feeling. Do NOT feed your chickens wheat seeds while they are on a veggie patch. Linda Woodrow feeds hers sprouted wheat, which would be okay since it is unlikely to survive the chickens and the elements to turn into wheat. But I now have a lovely veggie bed with seedlings of cabbage, cauliflower, red cabbage, kale, kohl-rabi, and turnip... and wheat everywhere! Am not impressed.

I am not feeding them wheat any more, since they clearly aren't eating much of it, and am giving them pellets morning and night. I found that with the size of this dome, the chooks devastate everything growing inside within 24 hours and are back to depending on outside food sources after that.

However, the veggies are loving being in the freshly chickened veggie beds, so that part of the permaculture equation is working well!


For our instructions on building the dome, start here

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An irish omelet in our garden

We did some harvesting yesterday! It's so cool when you can head into the garden and get food out of it.


No photos, sorry, cos we left our camera cable at Merl's parents' house, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

It all started because the chickens were in dire need of a change of location. They had been in the same place for the 2 weeks we were away, and then a further week while they waited for us to get around to shifting them. The dome was starting to smell and needed some fresh ground.

But, of course, before they could go onto the next veggie bed, the potatoes needed to be dug. Merl did a valiant job of digging up the two rows of potatoes I'd planted at the back of the bed. From an initial 'investment' of about a dozen or so smallish potatoes, we got a bucket and a half of good-sized tatties - most of a paper sack full. So that was awesome.

While we were lifting up the droopy tops of the potato plants I discovered a row or two of onions that I had completely forgotten I'd planted. Most were on the small side and some had started to go slimy cos I'd not harvested them soon enough, but I'm pretty darned excited. I have never grown onions before, and now I've got about half a dozen lovely onions to braid up into one of those old-fashioned onion strings. Of my own onions!

Having seen that I'd left the onions a bit too long, I went and pulled up my elephant garlic. This was a little disappointing. Next year I'll plant them somewhere sunnier and just generally better. Only three of the cloves I planted grew to produce a flowerhead, and each of the three bulbs when I pulled them were underwhelming in terms of clove size and number. But the bed that they were in is in shade for most of the day and alternates between being terribly dry and extremely wet. Not ideal. So I hope for better for next year.

While I was prowling around the garden I noticed that the parsley I had left to seed was indeed seeding, so I harvested an envelope of seed from that too.

So there we have it - potatoes, onions, garlic, parsley (from the other, younger plants) and the continuing supply of eggs from our cooperative chooks.

Sounds like an Irish Omelet to me!

Now all we need is a milk cow so we can make our own cheese... (Well, okay, that might be a step beyond what our suburban section can handle - but what good is an omelet without cheese?)
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Making a Chicken Dome - Day 5

Mission accomplished!

If you want the stepwise instructions, begin your adventure with
Day 1 - making the frame
Day 2 - crossbracing the dome
Day 3 - making the door
Day 4 - covering the dome with chicken wire
Day 5 is populating your dome with chickens!

As you can see in the photo above, we attached the door using sophisticated rope and bungee cord technology. The 'hinges' are loops of nylon rope at top, middle and bottom of one side. the 'latch' is a bungee cord or two at the other side to keep the door shut.

Bungee cords are also working well at keeping the tarps over the top of the dome. The tarpaulin is important in this setup as chooks don't like getting wet. (They also don't like things flapping above them, so there is possibly a better way of doing this. I shall give it some thought).

You can also see the roost/perch. This is a pruned treebranch, painted with motor oil to kill any mites that might be lurking and hung up using tie wire. Apparently chooks like roosts of about 5cm to 8 cm wide (2 to 3 inches) so they feel nice and secure. We've since found that our girls prefer 5cm, not 8cm.

On the left is Mk1 of the water bottle. It's a recycled milk bottle with the sides cut out and enough room at the bottom for water to sit. Not ideal. This needs to be topped up about three times a day at the moment and I'm going to use a different system. To the right is a tuna can with shell-grit in it. The chooks can help themselves whenever they want some. The tuna can for the shell-grit came with our chookies and it works really well.

Here are our ladies and their nesting box in the background. The nesting box is an old beer crate with a couple of planks nailed on the front to give a bit of privacy. In the front is the lovely Abigail - she is our egg-layer at the moment as Belle (in the rear) has started her moult. They are Brown Shaver hens which are a modern hybrid breed, bred for egg production. We get brown eggs - one a day from Abigail.

Things we have changed since the photos were taken:
These photos were taken the day after we collected our hens and settled them in. That was about 10 days ago and there have been a few changes.

nesting box - this is now raised off the ground on a couple of cinder-blocks. Abigail started laying her eggs on the floor of the coop, and one book we got from the library (Free Range Poultry by Katie Thear) suggested that raising the box up will help clear up any confusion as to what constitutes a nest.

This does seem to work, although I still find the odd egg on the floor - I suspect it gets kicked out of the nesting box at night because both ladies refuse to sleep on the perch and instead cram themselves into that little box to sleep. This is not a long-term option since their feet will start to get hurt if they stand flat all night. It seems that the classic 'Linda Woodrow Dome' will need some modification for our quite cold nights (and chickens who are used to sleeping shut away in a box). I have plans to modify a rabbit hutch we have lying around to turn it into a nesting box/perch house which we can sit alongside the dome - so the dome will be more of a 'run', rather than a complete housing solution.

perch - The one in the photo is too fat - the chooks wouldn't use it. We now use a more slender branch - more the 5cm end of the scale than 8cm - and they happily sit up on that during the day (but not at night - see above).

water - I've attached the water container to the dome using wire, instead of rubber bands. This is neater, doesn't warp the container and is easier to get the bottle out for cleaning and refilling. I am, however, going to spring for a watering system, because this one needs filling morning noon and night, and chooks can die if they get too thirsty. It's just too risky.

food - I've made another container, just like the water one, for layers mash pellets. The chooks get plenty of garden and kitchen waste, but it is of variable quantity and quality, especially at this stage when we are just establishing the system. With a supply of mash off to the side the chooks can top up when they feel the need. Some days they eat it all, other days its hardly touched.

sand - I did add a tray of sand so they could have a place to dust-bathe, but they pecked it a few times, covered it up with mulch and dust-bathed in the dirt instead. So I took it out again.

orientation - we swung the whole thing around a bit to provide better protection from the Southerly that came up during the weekend (the Southerly is the cold wind at this end of the world - there's nothing between us and Antarctica except a couple of uninhabited islands and a few penguins).

In all, it has been a very successful first week of chicken ownership, even if the steep learning curve (and my pregnancy tiredness) has meant that we've only just gotten around to sharing it with the world! If my kids can't find me, they're learning to check outside at the coop, or inside at the windows overlooking the coop - I am enjoying sitting and just watching them go about their business.

Oh, and one other chicken link. Radio New Zealand's National Program has been running a series on keeping backyard chooks, where the presenter converts his Wendy House into a chook house. Lots of good advice and chicken photos at the Funky Chicken Farm, including a video on how to check the pelvic space of the chicken to see if she's ready to lay (videos on Page 5 'book book book'). This has been very timely and I keep 'shushing' the family so I can hear what they're saying - thankfully each episode is only about 15 mintues long!

Edited on 7 April 2009 to add
Chicken Update - How we're doing 3 months on - found here

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Making a Chicken Dome - Day 4

Hopefully this is the second-last post in our epic chicken-dome/tractor/coop making adventure!

Day 1 is making the frame
Day 2 is crossbracing the dome
Day 3 we made the door
Day 4 is covering the dome with chicken wire...

I got an email yesterday from the current owner of 'our' chickens letting us know that the time was getting close for them to be re-homed. This engendered a flurry of activity at the homestead as we had only half-covered the dome with chicken wire and it was definitely not ready for chickens!

The easy step-wise type instructions are simple for Day4. "Cover the dome with chicken wire, remembering to leave the doorway open".

That's it, really. But there are some handy hints to go along with this.
1) Wear gardening gloves. Your hands will thank you
2) Use tie-wire to attach the chicken wire to the dome. A pair of needle-nosed pliers can be helpful for this, but not strictly necessary
3) The pointy cut-ends of the chicken wire can be wrapped around neighbouring wire to anchor them together, instead of using tie-wire.4) If dogs are a problem, make a foot-long 'skirt' of chicken wire to lie on the ground, out from the base of the dome. Cut darts into the wire so it will lie flat.
5) If you think sparrows and other scavenging small birds will be a problem, use fine-gauge chicken wire - bird netting I think they call it. This is the stuff we were able to buy easily from the garden shop. We also re-used ordinary chicken wire that we found under our house, so our dome is a mix of the two. I don't think I'll mind feeding sparrows, but I don't know how I'll feel about that in a few months :)
6) Tying the chicken wire to the frame is much easier with two people - one on the inside and one on the outside, pushing the tie-wire through to each other.

We collect the chickens on Monday or Tuesday evening, so our next post on this topic will include pictures of our finished dome, complete with inhabitants!

I can't wait!

In the meantime, for those of you with unsatisfied chicken urges, Rhonda is having a "Kitchen Table" post this weekend all about chickens. Lots of excellent advice from Rhonda and everyone else who has contributed to this fine idea.

Day 5, Chicken Dome Completion!
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Making a Chicken Dome - Day 3

The continuing story of our Chicken Dome.

On Day 1, we erected the frame
Day 2 was crossbracing day
Day 3 sees us make the door.

Linda Woodrow gives instructions for making a snake-proof door in her book, The Permaculture Home Garden. Something fairly sophisticated would also be needed if you have raccoons to contend with. Here in New Zealand, however, we have neither snakes nor raccoons and need only to worry about the neighbourhood dogs. Therefore, a simple hinged door will suffice.

Step 1 - Locate the offcuts from the arc-pieces from Day 1. We found ours in various places around the section, having been used as hobby horses and swords for a couple of weeks.

Step 2 - Choose a place for the door and measure the size of the frame. This picture here, taken from the crossbracing day, also serves to show where the doorway is. The door will go in the space bounded by the purple and red lines.


Step 3 - Cut the piping to fit, taking into account how the pieces will attach to each other.


Step 4 - Drill holes in the ends of the pipes, and securely attach with tie-wire.


Step 5 - Ensure your door is not twisted, and is 'square' (as square as a rhombus can be - symmetrical I guess)


Step 6 - Cover the door with chicken wire. We are using a double layer of wire to help deter those neighbourhood dogs. We'll likewise also cover the whole bottom half of the dome with two layers of wire.

Day 4 is covering the frame with chicken wire.
Day 5 - chicken dome completion!
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Making a Chicken Dome - Day 2

The making of our chicken dome continues. Day 1 is here. We managed to erect the general frame of our PVC pipe chicken dome but hadn't crossbraced it (made it stable), or put chicken wire and a door on. Day 2 is crossbracing day.

You will need:
twine (we used sisal 'garden twine')
a crochet hook (or equivalent piece of wire)

The bracing is really important for giving the dome strength and stability. At the end of Day 1 the structure was very wobbly. Now it can be picked up easily from the side without it losing its shape.

First you make a 'skirt' of diagonal crossbracing, circling the dome, between the base of the dome up to about 30cm from the ground.

This is followed by horizontal crossbracing between each vertical strut, at that 30cm level, creating a support ring made of twine, 30cm from the ground.

The third lot of bracing is bowbracing and runs vertically from the top support ring (made of plastic piping) to the middle support ring (which you just made from twine) at the point of each vertical strut. I combined this bracing with a bowbracing around the inside of the top support ring as I threaded the twine from one strut to the next, but I don't know how much extra stability this gave the chook dome.

Here's the step by step version, with helpful and informative photos! Since it's almost impossible to see the green twine that we used for the bracing, we've added exciting coloured lines to show where the lines are for one wedge of the frame.

bow bracing - connecting two points on one of the vertical struts, like stringing a bow (coloured purple in the picture)
horizontal cross bracing - connecting from one vertical strut to a neighbour at the same height (coloured red)
diagonal cross bracing - connecting from one vertical strut to a neighbour at a different height (coloured yellow)

Step 1: Make the extra hole

Mark off about 300mm above the ground on each vertical strut. Drill a hole big enough to comfortably fit the twine through twice.

Step 2: Crossbracing

Tie all of the diagonal cross bracing at the bottom.


Tie all of the horizontal cross bracing and the bow bracing.

And you're done.

Day 3 is making the door.
Day 4 is covering the frame with chicken wire.
Day 5 - chicken dome completion!
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Making a Chicken Dome - Day 1

Exciting news. We will inherit a pair of chickens in January. Now they need a house. The handymum found in her most excellent book The Permaculture Home Garden instructions in how to build a chicken dome, which is a lightweight chicken 'tractor' that can be moved around the section. It's a compromise between free-range (which isn't practical because of our vege garden and the neighbourhood dogs) and a permanent coop.

Armed with this knowledge our brave heroes ventured forth (pictures and details below the cut).

Linda Woodrow gives instructions in her book for a dome 12 metres in circumference - this is large enough for about a dozen chooks and far too large for our section. So we had to adapt things a little.

Our chicken coop is a hemisphere with a ground circumference of 6m. This will give enough room for 2 to 3 chickens (the recommendation is 1sq meter per chicken) This is what you will need:
5x 6m class 12 PVC pipe, 20mm wide
pvc glue
tie-wire
(you also need a drill, pencil, tape measure, hacksaw and maybe even cellotape)
plus some other stuff you might need but we haven't used yet:
baling twine
shadecloth
bamboo or pine slats
small dark box as a laying box
woven plastic tarp
4 tent pegs
water container

Step 1: Making the base

Take one of the 6M pipes.
Put some pvc glue in the female end of the pipe (the instructions are on the glue) and make the pipe into a circle.

Step 2: Attach three more pipes as the frame of the coop

Take three of the 6m lengths and cut them until they are 4.2m each. If you use the full 6m length for the frame your coop could look more like a bullet - like the picture on the right....

Make a mark with your pencil on the base circle every 1m, so there are 6 marks in total. Drill a small hole through each mark going from the outside of the circle to the inside. This is what you will attach the frame to.

With the 4.2m lengths drill a small hole about 15mm from each end, making sure that both drilled holes are in the same orientation (so the pipe doesn't have to twist).
Then bend a 4.2m length over the base circle so that the ends touch two holes on opposite sides of the circle, with the middle of the length arching into the air. Use tie-wire to connect the arch to the circle, with the end of each arch inside the circle. Repeat for the other two arches.

Tie-wire / Cellotape the three arches together at the apex to form a primitive frame:

Step 3: Add a support circle
I wasn't sure whether the PVC pipe would be flexible enough to bend into this smaller circle so I opted for the much softer and more flexible Polybutylene pipe.

We used the sophisticated method of marking 1.25m high on the frames with a pencil, and holding it up on the inside of the frame to determine what length we want it. After marking that we chopped off the excess, made it into a circle with the connecter, and marked out six equal portions on it (which turned out to be 730mm).

Then out with the drill again to put six marked holes in the support circle and six in the marks on the frame. I again drilled through the support circle from outside to inside, which this time around was a little inconvenient since the Tie-wire didn't line up neatly when going from one pipe to the next.

Handymum showed off her needle threading prowess by doing four connections in the time it took me to do two.

Voila!

Day 2 was a week later :) Crossbracing the dome.
Day 3 is here. Making the door.
Day 4 is covering the frame with chicken wire.
Day 5 - Chicken Dome Completion!
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