Power washing the house leaves paint chips in the run

Today was day #1 of the house painting project.  To be clear, by "project" I mean "paying someone to pain the house." They guy came to power wash and I moved the hens to a temporary pen out by the garage.  They seem happy and unconcerned.

I, on the other hand, am now a little p.o.'d about all the paint chips in the chicken run.  I don't know for sure if there's lead in our paint, but seems safe to assume there is.  I asked the power-washer to tarp the chicken run and he did, but not that well.  It's pretty well covered in 3-molecule pieces of paint.

So now what?  I haven't moved the hens back to the run yet.  Andrew's on his way home from work.  Maybe we'll just swap out all the mulch from the run and start from scratch (no pun intended).  Ugh.  What a pain in the butt.  But I've just spent 20 minutes scaring myself by googling "chickens + eggs + lead paint."  It's probably worth it if we don't want our future offspring to have lead poisoning, to say nothing of the poor chickens.

I also read here about getting eggs tested for lead levels.  That could be an interesting science experiment.  I may start bothering the extension office for information on getting eggs tested in Columbus.  If I find anything, I'll post.  If anyone else knows, please share.

Fancy plastic egg container

I splurged on a fancy plastic egg holder for the fridge.  This one is by Fridge Binz.  Pretty cool.  And bleachable -- which is important because we put the eggs straight from the coop into the fridge without rinsing off the bloom (which also means we don't rinse off the poo).  

This was a complete luxury because certainly free cardboard ones work just a well.  But it's so pretty and clean...

Awesome new urban farming shop in Clintonville

We just stopped by City Folks up in Beechwold and it was really great. It's a cute little locally owned shop with rain barrel supplies, gardening, bee keeping, cheese making & chicken feeding supplies too. Check em out!

Diatomaceous earth camo

Joan is pretty well camouflaged after dusting the run with diatomaceous earth. It's our new anti-fly strategy. Apparently food-grade diatomaceous earth (basically the dust of ground up diatoms -- who knew this even existed!?) will kill grubs & larva of flies by both cutting them & desiccating them. Not so lovely - but it seems better than those poison traps we used last year. I'd love to dust the compost but I have a hunch it'd kill the worms, too. Does anybody know?

Hello Delaware!

Delaware, Ohio, our sort-of neighbor, is considering the chicken issue.  It seems there are many Delaware residents who are interested in owning a few pet hens, and a few Delaware residents who are concerned about the unknowns.  I'm so pleased that, for the most part, Delaware seems to be fully exploring the issue with patience and amicability.  Way to go Delaware!  If I can be a resource, or if City Council wants to take a field trip to our house, please let me know!

When others come to our website, I always feel compelled to (1) invite them over to check out the chix in person, and (2) explain/apologize for how our back yard must look in photos.  Please understand that the pictures of the chicken run are shots of a small area on the side of our house.  The area is probably 5x24 ft (I'm terrible at estimating).  We've packed too much into that area, but it's all behind privacy fencing.  If we had this run out in our yard, in view of the patio, we wouldn't have loaded in nearly so much.  For example, we would've thought twice about that second (unnecessary) chicken coop.  In fact, we're moving in 2 weeks to another house in Bexley, and I'm already thinking twice about that second chicken coop.  How on Earth are we going to move all this chicken stuff?  I suggested making a Conestoga wagon out of a kids' red wagon and dragging them to the new house, but I've been vetoed :)

Sealing the escape route

In an attempt (so far successful) to seal off Sally's escape routes from the run, we've created an elaborate cats-cradle lattice over the taller structures in the run.  Even after we clipped one of her wings, she was hopping up on to the coop and then hopping onto the fence in order to get out.  The last thing we need is a chicken on the loose, but we also didn't want to permanently affix anything to house.  This was our compromise, and for $3 in string, it seems to be working.
It strikes me that this might work well for bird-of-prey proofing a smaller run.

Rabbit hutch

This photo is the rabbit hutch up close.  Again, this was totally unnecessary, but for $60, it gives the ladies something else to do.  And the busier they are, the less they hassle Sally.  Sally, BTW, has finally settled in pretty well.  Joan is molting and I think the power vacuum in the middle of the ranks has made things slightly easier on Sal.  Peggy is still #1 chicken in our back yard and she doesn't let the others forget it.  She's not the nicest hen, but I guess someone's got to be the boss.

Notice Andrew's ingenious chicken ladder (a board with wine corks nailed in for traction).  The ladder/board that came with the hutch seemed too steep for the ladies to give it a try.  Truth-be-told, they could hop in without a ladder if they wanted.  But they didn't want.  And we're suckers.

Chicken Hooverville

The chickens are back, full-time, in the fenced run on the side of the house. Their Shangrila of summer, with the run of the back yard, is over. Frankly, I was getting sick of hosing chicken poop off the patio. And in looking ahead to the winter, when hosing isn't an option, this just seems more sensible. The chickens have adjusted well.
There's a lot going on in the run these days. We've added a rabbit hutch as a second get-out-of-the-rain option (totally unnecessary, but we found it on Craigslist for not-too-expensive). We put out an old
chair and a roosting bar as vertical options. They like the chair quite a bit and largely ignore the roosting bar. We hung that one measly CD to mesmerize them with its reflections - they've started to notice it exists. They're getting more kitchen scraps, too, mostly to assuage our guilt. All and all it's so much better & I'm cleaning the floors in the house a lot less often.

Our first issue of Backyard Poultry has arrived.

Thanks, Dana & Brent, for the thoughful Chicken-warming gift! (Who would've ever thought I'd be anxiously awaiting its arrival!?)

View from the inside...

Chickens check out the new digs

It's getting harder to take pictures of the ladies - they move faster than my phone can focus. They haven't figured out how to get from one level to the next in the coop, but under Joan's brave leadership they've dispatched with a few bugs.
Today's field trip will end once the tub dries from the scrub-down. Then it's back to the garage.

The coop is in the run!

On wednesday Andrew critter-proofed the coop (hardware cloth stapled over every opening) and we put it in the dog run. Now we have to figure out how to keep hawks out of the run and chickens inside the run. While the girls are small they'll be pretty good fliers. They're flying all over the 'brooder' (aka Rubbermade tub) this week.

Andrew & I are building the coop today!

It's going together really easy. Jack & Ben are supervising.

Turns out we're not in it for the money

In case the dee-lux chicken coop wasn't a tip off, it looks like we're not about to make money off these little ladies any time soon.
Josh Levin at the Good Eater Collaborative did the math. If we hadn't spent all that money on the coop, we might break even in about a year. With the coop? Probably never. And considering these ladies will only be active layers for 2 years or so (after that, as Betsy says, we'll be running a chicken retirement home) we'll probably never be able to quit our day jobs and survive on the backs of Joan, Betty & Peggy*. There goes that plan.

*This from the girl that just spent $50 on 2 week's worth of canned dog food hoping that 'ol Jack'll eat any of it.

Baby chick set up: less than $70

Our baby chicks are snug in their set up in the garage. 60 bucks covered the following supplies:

• Lamp w/ infrared bulb (to keep the box at ~90 degrees)
• Chick feeder & 50 lbs of chick feed (though with just 3 of them, an empty, shallow can probably would have worked just fine as a feeder)
• Waterer (we got one big enough to work when they're full grown)
• Pine shavings for months
• Electrolyte powder which was completely unnecessary
• Day 1 gel food that they didn't touch (went straight for the chick food)
• We had the big plastic tub already
• We had a digital thermometer, too

I can't believe that's all you need to take care of tiny lives.

We can start to feed them treats in a week or so, but nothing that would require grit in their gizzard, yet. That limits us to yogurt and hard cooked egg. Something feels wrong about feeding them egg, though. Right?

OMG Chicks!!

Today we headed to Meyer Hatchery and picked up 3 baby chicks and chick supplies to last us through the first month. Total bill: $70-some dollars. About $7 of that was the chicks.

They're just about the most adorable things you've ever seen! From the bottom, they're Peggy, Joanie, & Betty.

Peggy is a Black Australorp.
Joan is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.
Betty is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

The Coop is purchased, now on to the chicks....

We ordered a coop yesterday, which is, other than a couple books and magazines, our first real investment in our chickens. Here's the coop we ordered:

http://www.chickencoopsource.com/chickencoopdeluxe.cfm#

We liked the shape and size of it, and the fact that the shipping cost was only $10! We saw a similar coop that cost $100 more, plus $150 shipping charge. The reviews are pretty good, though, according to most of them, we may have to put in a roosting bar, which shouldn't be too difficult or costly.

We head up to get the chicks this week. More updates (and pics of chicks) when we have them.