One possible rotator cuff tear and a new drill set later, we are now the proud parents to three adorable ten-week-old hens. They live in their newly homemade pen and coop in the backyard of our very small lot. While it was not the easiest job to raise the chicks to the point where they could call the backyard home, it has been a lot of fun and surprisingly educational in terms of how we (hubbie and me) work together.
One very beautiful Spring day in mid-April, my husband and I drove out to the Apple Valley Desert Feed Store to pick our newly arrived chicks. The drive was very pleasant at about 9 a.m. and very quiet. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Daniella, who advised us as to what we needed before we selected our three chicks. We picked up some food for them called starter mash. It looks a lot like the instant cereal fed to babies except you do not add water. We were also advised that we needed a feeder, which is a long rectangular metal box with a lid that has lots of holes the size of large walnuts cut into it. The lid slides to one side or the other so that the box can be filled with the mash and then closed back up. The chicks poke their tiny heads into the opening and can feed from there. We also purchased a waterer, which is more or less a plastic cup turned upside down over a bowl. The cup is filled with water before being turned over and screwed into the bowl and water will fill to the lip of the bowl which allows the chicks to guzzle whatever water they want. We also picked up a large bag of wood chips for the coop floor. Finally, we also purchased the all important heat lamp and bulb designed to keep the chicks at sauna temperatures of about 85 degrees. These items are not cheap but are factored into the cost of owning backyard chickens, and they can be reused for later flocks.
Once the necessities were purchased, we moved onto the reason for the trip, our purchase of the chicks. The chicks we were picking up were already two weeks old. They are vaccinated and most of the dangers associated with chicks dying had already passed. They could eat and drink well and were not sickly. Chicks are very inexpensive at about $3.00 each. When I saw my first chick in person, I was truly overwhelmed with their cuteness. They are tiny balls of fluff no bigger than the palm of your hand. They weigh almost nothing and when you can settle them down, they sit stationary in your palm. You can pet them with the thumb of the hand you use to hold them. We had originally wanted to purchase varieties of chicks that were somewhat exotic but after some more contemplation settled on three more common breeds: Rhode Island Red, Silver Laced Wynadotte, and the Ameraucana. Each type was held in a different box or kennel and had to be plucked from the flock of chicks in that box by an experienced chick catcher--they are fast little girls. They were taken from the big box and put into a tiny box with air holes that fit just the three of them. After the feed store helped us load everything, we were on our way and home before noon. The ride home was not nearly as quiet because the chicks spent most of the ride chirping loudly.
Once home, the girls were transferred from their small box to a large box they would call home for the next 4 weeks. In their new home was a brick with the waterer on top of it, a feeder filled with the mash, all kinds of wood chips on the floor, and over top was the heat lamp sitting on a chicken wire ceiling. I actually had two boxes so that I could clean the house every 2-3 days and put them into a clean box while I aired out the other. If you don't clean those boxes out regularly, your house, where you have to keep the chicks while they are young so that the temperature never gets below about 85 degrees, will smell terrible. It didn't take more than a day before they were named. The Rhode Island Red is Rose, the Ameraucana is Meri, and the Silver Laced Wynadotte is Lacy. Once into the temporary home, we did not handle the chicks much. We left them to get to know each other and their environment. They were picked up on box-changing day and periodically over the next four weeks but not often. They were never played with for the sake of playing. They ate, drank, slept, practiced flying, chirped and pooped. And, they grew to the point that during their last week in the house, we had to tape two boxes together so that they had more room, they simply didn't fit in one box any more.
In the meantime, while they were in the temporary housing indoors, outdoors we were constructing their new pen and coop. In preparation for building, I purchased two books: Raising Chickens for Dummies, and Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. Both books were extremely useful in helping me design and place the chicken accommodations.
I won't bore you with the details of our building experience except to say for two people who have never built anything before in our lives, we did a very credible job on this project. The home is large enough at four feet by six feet on the bottom and four feet by four feet at the coop level. There is a framed floor, walls, and roof (with hurricane strength rafters in place), a nesting box on the side of the coop, a large door, lots of ventilation, a roost, a 39 degree ramp for transitioning from pen to coop, a cement floor in the pen, and linoleum covered floor in the coop. We screwed in wire everywhere so that no unwanted visitors will intrude on these girls. For those interested, we used treated wood so that it is weather resistant and we used outdoor screws instead of nails. The roof is shingled as is the nesting box lid. The entire structure is painted green so that it blends with the foliage and is barely visible, even within our own yard.
The girls seem to love the house. They are variously upstairs or downstairs, playing, sleeping, eating, drinking from their homemade waterer (a 2 gallon igloo cooler with a drinking nipple drilled into the bottom and suspended from the wall post), or chasing down flies or dusting in their dirt box. They seem interested in everything and, likewise, they are fascinating to watch.
In the next post, I'll describe the more mundane aspects of caring for the girls as I learn more about it.
