The Ladies Have Arrived

We now are the proud parents of four Rhode Island Red hybrid pullets courtesy of Rufus Martin (who's farm is down by the battlefield). They are still in a bit of a cultural shock, being taken today  from a flock of several hundred free range birds, crammed into a crate, driven down Sharpsburg pike in the back of an open truck, and then plopped down into a chicken tractor; all on a cold rainy day. Not to mention all of the sounds of being close to a major state road. Rufus' farm is on the back side of the battlefield and the quintessential bucolic country farm. Hopefully some old strawberries and some mixed grain will help ease them into our backyard hobby farm experiment.

These ladies were hatched out in mid-December and apparently are starting to lay. It will be interesting to see when we get the first egg.

The Chicken Tractor is Finished!!!

This damn project has taken about two years off of my life. But after about a year of planning and engineering it is finally finished. I was able to complete the run enclosure by adding an end gate for when we need to let the ladies our into the yard or a larger fenced-in area like the garden, a top hatch to access the water and food bins (square white buckets), the ramp up to the pop door, and the rest of the wire to round it all out. Needless to say, I've had enough carpentry for a while.

Now its time for a whiskey sour, the last of a bottle of Blood of Ragnar (raspberry mead), and some high volume Demon Hunter!

Hard to believe this is how it all started last summer.

Chicken Tractor Update (wheel and handle assembly)

 Spent the afternoon adding on the wheels and lift handles to the chicken tractor. Like all the other parts of this project it was engineering on the fly, not really knowing whether it would work out until it was built. There were several contraptions on the web with rather elaborate mechanisms for raising and lowering the wheels. I decided to go with a simpler approach that turns the whole thing into a giant wheelbarrow. Is this project overbuilt? Yes! But I wanted something a little bigger that would give our girls more space to get out and graze. That is the whole reason for this project in the first place; healthier-happier hens theoretically should lay healthier eggs or so the story goes. And to get back to the concept of backyard eggs; something that was common place a generation ago.

I scratched my head for most of the winter trying to decide how best to attach the wheels. The coop portion is fairly heavy. I settled on a 4X4 wood axle with the wheels being attached with 10-inch lag bolts. Now all that is left to do is to finish the run enclosure. This also will require some careful planning as I will need to be able to access the water and feed bins so that they can be removed easily. I am thinking of some kind of top hatch. It also will need an end hatch so that the hens can be let out in the garden when conditions allow.

First Turn Over for 2014

I finally was able to get into the garden for an initial turn-over. It was still a bit too wet on the lower half but I did have time to remove the straw from the strawberry beds and take down the winter tunnel. If it would have been a mild winter, we would have had some nice greens. Unfortunately that didn't work out. We even lost our entire rosemary bush. Surprisingly the Red Russian kale did partially survive so I left it in place to see how it develops over the next few weeks. At least now I have some real estate to get in some of the seedlings that have been stacking up due to the extended cold spell.

Two months and counting to strawberries !

And the chicken tractor is nearing completion in time for the May arrival  of the pullets. Here is the completed pop door.