July 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 2 Comments »
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, mites, nest box, netting, parasites
As I said in my last post, I am intending to move the coop to the back of the garden and swap the netting and run for an electric fence. Although I haven’t got the new fence yet, I have decided to take down the netting, and move the coop and run to a new location ready for the fence. This has allowed me to give the run a good clean and I have applied some mite spray.
The first thing that I did was to move the run away from the coop and to another part of the garden. I pushed the open side of the run up against the fence and put the chickens in there so that they couldn’t escape whilst I removed the net.
When I removed the run this is what was left behind...
I think the chickens enjoyed the grass when I moved the run
The next step was to remove the netting – I have to admit it was a lot easier to take down than it was to put up!
Here you can see what the chickens did to the ground behind the net
With the netting gone, we had access to all sides of the coop so we gave it a big clean out. First we removed all of the bedding, and then scrubbed everything down with hot soapy water. I let the coop dry and then sprayed everything with some mite spray (we used 2 cans of the stuff). I even removed the perches as they were not being used and provided more hiding places for the mites. I have included some pictures to show you the extent of the infestation.
This is the bit of wood I put in for the new nest area
Here is a (nice?) close up of the creatures...
This is the slot that the floor slides into. There were mites all along the back edge.
When I removed the percehes, this is what was lurking behind them.
As you can see the mites were everywhere! Once I had finished cleaning out the run I moved it to a new position – ready for the electric fence. I have replaced the wooden nest area with a plastic box. Hopefully this is the last of the mites…
This is the cleanest the coop has ever been!
The run in its new position
July 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 1 Comment »
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, feed, mud, netting, poo
When I got up this morning, Meg was fine and was scratching around as much as the other girls which was a relief.
I have recently realised that my setup is not working very well for me. One reason that I think I have got so heavily infested with mites is that the coop is virtually impossible to clean out in it’s current location – in order to get to the nest box I need to squeeze into a small gap between the coop and the fence, and I only have access to the rest of the coop from one side because of the netting at the back of it and the run at the front. Also, because of the nest area that I screwed into the floor of the coop, I can’t slide the floor out to clean it.
The run itself is also causing me problems: Due to the fact that it is so long and only about a meter high, it is virtually impossible for me to clean it. This means that over the past few months, the land underneath the run has turned into a bit of a swamp. As well as the vast quantities of chicken poop that have built up, I have had a problem with one of my feeders. When I moved the feeder into the middle of the run the weather was dry and it caused no problems. The girls like to empty the feeder onto the floor, but then over then following days will eat the pellets up so nothing is wasted. Since the weather has been so wet, all of the pellets on the floor have been turning to mush and being scratched into the floor and creating a disgusting smell. This means that the floor of the run has turned into a mixture of chicken poo and fermenting layers pellets and the smell is awful! They were also getting through twice as much food as usual so I have had to move the feeder back under the coop.
The final thing that I hadn’t really considered in my setup was convenience. Due to the fact that I have to move a load of flower pots, and squeeze under the netting to get to the back of the coop, changing the girls’ food has been a nightmare.
To fix all of these problems I have decided to have a bit of a move around in the garden. I am going to move the coop to the area behind the netting, remove the netting and the run and put up an electric fence. This will allow me to enter the chickens’ area and keep it clean, and will allow access to all sides of the coop for cleaning. This should hopefully solve most of my problems…
June 8th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, fence, free range, netting
Today I went out in the garden to change the chickens’ water and the girls were really misbehaving. I opened up the back of the run to let them out in the netted area and then left a small hole at the base of the net while I went back to the house to fill up their drinker. On my way back to the house I got distracted and did a little bit of weeding, and when I turned around all 3 girls were out in the garden, and Victoria had made a bee line straight for the flower beds and was having a great time digging up all of my poppies. I had only turned my back for about 30 seconds!
I put the girls away and put the flower pots back on the bottom of the net to stop the girls from getting through, and went to fill up the water. When I got back out Victoria had managed to escape again through a tiny gap at the end of the net. I then had to chase her around the garden for 5 minutes to get her back in the run.
I always used to leave one flower pot on the net when I was out in the garden but it seems that the girls have learnt how to get out of that now. They really love trying to mess up my garden…
May 28th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, comb, fence, netting
Today I decided to put up a bit more netting around the chicken’s area. They have recently been escaping by jumping up onto the fence and then onto the coop and down the other side. I decided to extend the netting so that it runs along the roof of the coop and all around the fence at the side. Now it must be un-escapable!
I have added netting up the back of the coop and along the fence at the side of the enclosure
While I was in there I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a few mug shots of the girls. Their combs are looking so big now!
Daisy's comb used to be so tiny...
This one is a little bit blurry - it's difficult to make a chicken sit still!
May 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, fence, free range, netting, treats
This weekend my girlfriend was on holiday so I decided to go away for the weekend and see my parents. My girlfriend’s mum offered to come up and look after the chickens which saved me paying pet sitters to come around and look after them.
I was a little bit nervous about leaving the girls for the weekend, and to make things worse as soon as I let the girls out on Saturday morning, Victoria jumped up on the fence. That was the first time I had seen any of them go up onto the fence and I was worried that she would end up in next door’s garden.
In the end I had nothing to worry about and the girls were fine – although they did make a few attempts to escape the netted off area of the garden! Apparently whilst I was gone the girls had managed to find their way into the rest of the garden a few times. When I got back I let the girls out and within 20 minutes of doing so Daisy had escaped and was scratching about in a pile of grass clippings by my compost bin. She was only out there for about 2 minutes but she managed to spread the pile around half of the garden! I think I am going to have to put some netting around the fence and the top of the coop before I let the girls out again.
One more thing happened today that made me laugh. I went out into the garden and put some meal worms in the run for the girls, in an empty washing up bowl that I put in the run about a week ago. I went back inside to watch tv, and when I looked out I could only see 2 chickens – Meg was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed the washing up bowl was upside-down and moving around by itself! I realised that Meg had somehow managed to get trapped underneath it and was walking around with it completely covering her. It looked really funny and she didn’t seem to be at all bothered by it (I think she was still hoovering up some meal worms that were underneath).