Archives for July 2011

Tonight will be the ladies third night in the new coop. Now I’ve never said that chickens are all that intelligent. Entertaining, yes. Intelligent, probably not. They are also creatures of habit. Yesterday we had heavy rainstorms come through late in the afternoon. I thought this would be an easy way to get the girls to jump right on in to their new coop and get out of the rain. I locked the goats in their stalls and opened up the big door. Nope. They would rather stand out in the rain looking longingly at their old coop, and wondering why they couldn’t get in there anymore.

Me and my girls went over to a friends for dinner last night, and when we got home it was fully dark out. I went out with a flashlight to investigate the situation, and was pleasantly surprised that probably 18 of the ladies actually did go into the new coop when it got dark out and were happily settled on their roosts. The other 11 were huddled out in the pouring rain by the ramp to their old coop. I went and scooped them up in my arms, two by two, and put them into the new coop for the night.

Today was a beautiful day, but while my kids were down at the beach playing, I was picking up farm supplies to sustain everyone while I’m away in Wyoming for two weeks. I was so excited upon my return home to discover 2 eggs laid in the new nesting boxes! Yesterday I amused myself by watching the chickens frantically trying to get into their old coop to lay their eggs to no avail. At the end of the day I found over a dozen eggs in the dog house and 7 in the goat’s hay rack.


Tonight my friend and I again locked the goats in their pens (if I didn’t do this they would just jump into the chicken coop and eat the chicken feed, which upsets their stomaches). Then, in addition to the two ramps they can use to enter the new coop, we opened up the big door as well and sat back to watch. As the light began to fade, we were so excited to see that a fair amount of the ladies actually did go into the coop of their own volition. Some chose to use the ramps.


Some chose to go in through the big door.


and some we had to be a little more forceful with.


Over on the goat side of the farm, Grace came down with a bad case of diarrhea yesterday and Kiki wouldn’t drink her bottle for a full two feedings. This is completely normal for a goat of their age and I’d been anticipating it. As baby goats begin to eat more “adult” goat food and hay their rumen starts to develop (goat’s have four stomaches and this is called a rumen). This almost always triggers a bout of diarrhea. Happily, after only one treatment of the medicine they were feeling better and this by last night Kiki was again drinking her bottle enthusiastically. They were actually both always in high spirits, but they just had upset tummies. They will stay on the medicine for four days total just to make sure it doesn’t come back.

I gave them a bath yesterday afternoon for the first time. Not because they were dirty, but they just didn’t feel as clean as they did a few weeks ago. They’re goats. They live in a barn. I don’t know what I expect. Anyway, they felt so wonderful and smelled so delicious after I could have eaten them right up.


That’s about it for the farm today. We’re hoping for a full attendance roster at light’s out tomorrow night in the chicken coop.

While the new chicken coop is not completely finished yet, it was finally finished enough to move the ladies into it today.

As it started to get dark and they were all gathering closer to the coop, Maia and I scooped up as many as we could and put them in their new home. There were a few that I couldn’t catch, so I waited until it got dark and they were all settled into the old coop, and my friend Cyrena and I went in and plucked them one by one off their perches and put them into the new coop. With my solar light on, this is what they looked like as the last of them were settling into their new home.

I don’t expect to have a hard time transitioning the girls into this new coop. It’s so much larger and nicer than the old one. And because of it’s size, higher ceilings, and ventilating fan in the cupola, it is much cooler on a dreadfully hot day like today than the old coop is. However, I’ve gone through this enough times transitioning chicks from the brooder coop to the big coop to know what to expect: Tomorrow I’ll keep the old coop locked up. I suspect that at nightfall probably half of the girls or more will go into the new coop on their own, but the other half will fall asleep outside of the old coop because that is what they know. I’ll scoop them up and put them into the new coop, and every night there will be a few less to scoop up. In a few days they won’t even remember what the old coop was like.

Well, it seems like it has taken an awfully long time (uh, because it has), but the chicken coop, while not finished completely, is now ready for occupancy. Sunday I put straw in all of the nesting boxes, the roost was finished today, and Maia and I spread out pine shavings inside. The goats were much more fascinated with the new building than the chickens were.


And I’m not sure what this chicken thought of the new ‘viewing windows’ in the nesting boxes.


So tomorrow I’ll start to transition the girls over to the new house. It will take a few days I’m sure. I’m hoping to have them all happily moved by the time I leave to go back to Jackson on Monday.

In other farm news Grace and Kiki seem to be growing before my very eyes. They have finally gone from 4 bottles a day to 3, and I’m really hoping to get that down to 2 soon. They are eating much more real food like goat feed, hay and other goat foraging-type food, so all of this will help in the weaning process. Grace is now such a skilled counter jumper in the house that I’ve stopped letting them in as she leaps from floor to kitchen table over to counter like Spider Man, wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. Kiki just looks on like she’s either jealous or very disappointed in her sister’s bad behavior.

And the goat house got the upper board-and-batten siding on it’s front and back today! It looks so – finished – with it on!

Once they finish the siding the decking and roof are next.