And then there were none....

I didn't realize how much the chickens had become a part of my daily routine; every time I open the kitchen door, I can hear them "purr" to let me know "Hey lady. We want out!" They get louder as you get closer to the coop and they literally bum-rush you when you open the door. They know the sound of the sliders and come running. The 'tsk-tsk' noise we use to call Knowledge, Jay's cat, also summons the chickens.

I knew when we got them, we wouldn't be keeping them forever. It was more like a science experiment; what's it like to have chickens? 

Well, it was pretty awesome. 

I know we made some memories and we'll always be able to say, 'Remember when we had chickens??' 

From little baby chicks to full-blown egg-layers, it was a interesting adventure, to say the least. I have a feeling I will forever be known as The Chicken Lady in this neighborhood; it's hard to avoid a title like this when you have to carry your escapee chickens out of your neighbor's front lawn...several times. 

While I'm sad we have to close the Chicken Chapter, I'm glad we got to open it at all. 

What happened? you ask. Well, with the pending move (to a townhouse) we realized that we definitely couldn't take the chickens with us. So Thursday, I posted an ad on Craig's List and just a few hours later, had my first response. I thought she was going to flake yesterday when she wasn't here between 1-2 PM like we agreed but she finally called 20 minutes after two and said they were on the way.

She & her husband picked up the girls and took them back to Grass Valley to join the five hens they already have. Since they didn't need the coop, I sold that to another family as a "Starter Kit". For $100, they got a good-size coop, a full bag of shavings, a half-bag of laying feed, a waterer, two feeders and the infra-red lamp for brooding. A good deal, if I do say so myself. 

It was weird to walk around & not see the chickens running around; I love that I don't have to worry about my toes being bitten but still...I miss them.

No more 'purring' when I come outside or go to the garage. No more chasing them through the neighbors' yards. No more eggs. 

When this Townhouse/No Chicken Chapter is done & over with, it's our dream to have enough money saved to buy a chunk of land with or without a house on it. Then we can get our chickens going again. And some Pygora goats. And a horse or two. 

We'll call it Murphitropolis and it will be awesome. Until then, I'm back to being a regular ol' city girl; no longer an Urban Farmer with a mission to teach her children the joys of being self-reliant, I'm just another stay-at-home mom (but that's enough for me).

Say "Hello" to my little friends

Watch out!!

There's some new chicks in town and they're cute, cute, cute!! 

We finally picked up the chicks from Phoenix's school on Friday night and ended up with three Orpingtons & a Barred Rock to add to the Rhode Islands. I'm not sure but I think we may have gotten a few roosters; two of the new chicks are pretty "aggressive".

The Barred Rock is Blackistan (Jay obviously named this one), then we have Sonny, Green Legs & Ham and The One Who Shall Remain Nameless. 

Paxton is in love with them and follows them everywhere; we working on the concept of "gentle" right now. 

I've decided Breakfast is a rooster too; his comb is turning red and starting to flop over...Plus, he pecks the new guys if they come near him or Ruby. Needless to say, we keep them separate.

Green Legs and The Nameless One should be going to their forever home soon, leaving us with four chickens (which is plenty in my opinion.) They won't start laying till 18-20 weeks old so I think it'll be July or August before we get any eggs but they're a ton of fun to have around. 

Breakfast (right) & Ruby (left) look like full-grown chickens now and have starting flocking to the coop door whenever they see us outside, assuming we're letting them out to roam. 

They've gotten big enough that I don't worry as much about them getting eaten by the cats in the neighborhood; our cat Knowledge, seems to have gotten the idea that these flapping, feathered things are not food. but I've caught the same black cat that used to steal Knowledge's food, eyeballing the coop with her tail a-twitching. Thankfully, she spooks easily and I rarely even have to open the door to scare her off.

Now if only we had enough space for a goat or two... 

Building a Chicken Coop!

It's been three weeks since we got our first two chicks and they have almost all their feathers! Time to build them a coop, an easy task when you have a general contractor for a life partner; even easier when said life partner is so incredibly charming, he got most of the materials for free! Our friends with a real farm, donated a couple 2x6's & some chicken wire while our neighbor threw us a sheet of plywood. 

People are awesome.

We went with a fairly basic design:

 

This is the Wichita Cabin Coop and was the inspiration for our little coop. Ours is definitely not this nice but for what we had, I think we did really well.

We started by ripping the 2x6's in half , then cutting them to length of course. Since we only want three or four hens, ours is also a bit smaller. We got the frame assembled & painted in a day then put some walls up for the hen house and threw some more paint on those. We're going to add a door to the side of the hen house and one to the whole coop itself; the nesting box still needs a lid and dividers inside but should be big enough for  everyone to have a nest.

 Jay started putting up the chicken wire to enclose the whole structure; this way the chickens can be "out" but won't be vulnerable to predators like cats or raccoons. I think we may need to add a second layer of smaller chicken wire to keep the raccoons from sticking their little paws in there but we'll see.

I'm pretty sure we'll be able to finish it tonight which means we could move the girls in! They're growing real fast and we want to use the brooder for the new chicks we're going to get from Phoenix's school this week. Next, I want to do a garden; it's time to start planting and I don't want to miss the chance for fresh veggies and herbies! But that's another blog...