The new orchard has been watered via a temporary hose & sprinkler recently, but I’ve finally got around to installing proper irrigation.
First I needed to fix a broken tap:
Thusly:
Then I dug a trench and added a pipe and tap for a new row of the orchard that didn’t have a tap before:
While I was at it, I intercepted a pipe and added a tap by the white gazebo, for the new cherry trees there:
Then I could add irrigation sprinker heads around those trees:
And each of the orchard rows:
About once a month I make a trip to the local post office to check the PO Box (usually just junk mail), to the feed store for chicken & bird food, and the gas station for mower gas.
The feed store supplies include medicated chick feed for the youngsters, layer chicken feed for the adults, sunflower seeds and peanuts for the bird feeders, and pine shavings bedding for the coops.
We go through about 10 gallons of gas each month, mowing all the lawns & field. (Usually I also fill a 2 gallon container, but that wasn’t empty this time.)
The chicks are now two months old… and they’re definitely getting bigger! It’s hard to realize how fast they are growing when I see them every day, but after going away for a few days, I certainly noticed the change.
They’ve still got lots of growing to do; they’ll be about twice the size when fully grown, and their combs and wattles are just starting. But almost all of the baby fuzz has been replaced with feathers now.
My first attempt at a custom chicken feeder didn’t work so well — the feed tended to not make it far enough past the 90° elbow to reach the holes where the chicks eat.
So I modified it to use a 45° connector instead (which Jenn kindly picked up on the way home from work). I didn’t want it quite that steep, so I joined the parts with some duct tape:
The new angle works much better; the food freely flows down to fill the tube, but doesn’t overflow:
Having four hole heights means chickens of all sizes can reach the food without a platform, too.
Hopefully this will work reliably; time will tell.
Yesterday Jenn planted the chicken coop’s window boxes, with oregano, catnip, and spearmint — plants that help to deter pests from the coop:
Meanwhile I added second pulleys and ropes to the windows, to hold them open more securely, and replaced hook-and-eye latches with slide bolts:
I also added bolts on the vent doors, and added weather stripping:
Oh, and I recently replaced the temporary latch on the center door with a proper latch, and a bolt to join the two parts of the door. A cord goes through a hole in the frame so the latch can be opened from inside the coop:
One project for the chicken coop that I deferred until after they had moved in was a custom feeder and waterer for them.
I made them out of 2″ PVC piping, and other bits. Firstly I drilled and filed holes in one piece of pipe, for the feeder:
I then assembled other pipe bits for both:
Here’s the waterer, in two pieces (so it could be inserted through the center wall hardware cloth). It uses drinker cups that dispense water when the chickens nudge the yellow tab:
Building a stand for both dispeners:
Both installed. The height is set for adult chickens, so I added a temporary platform so the chicks would be able to reach them:
Closeup of the feeder; I hope it works properly — I have a concern that the feed might not make it down the tube all that well, but we’ll see:
The waterer cups:
The feed and water bottles (only partially filled for now, just in case):
I have a folding chair in the storage side of the new coop, which I bring in to sit on when spending some time with the chicks. I also have a towel that I put on my lap, to protect it from the inevitable poop.
They seem to appreciate that; I had up to five chicks on my lap at once. And they all let me pet them. I guess we did a good job of socializing them.
Of cource, once they’re fully grown my lap won’t fit more than one or two.
Now that the chicken coop is basically finished, it’s time to move in the chicks! They are almost two months old now, so not a moment too soon.
We transported the chicks from the house in a plastic container (that has a vent in the lid, used in the past as a baby chick brooder). Here’s the first of three batches:
The second group:
And the last arrivals:
Exploring:
The aftermath upstairs, after the crates were removed; a thick layer of dust from the bedding material over everything:
Merida:
More exploring:
Domino on my arm:
Merida & Domino:
A sleepy pile:
Curious chicken on my lap (actually probably considering if she can get onto my shoulder):
The new chicken coop is almost complete!
There are a few things to finish off: some latches and such for the windows and doors, the custom waterer & feeder, the pop door controller, and the nesting boxes. But those can wait; it is now finished enough for the chicks to move in, at last. Probably tomorrow.
By popular request (i.e. Jenn said she preferred it), I’m going to go back to captions above the photos in the blog. Sorry for any confusion.
Here’s the center door under construction: hardware cloth sandwiched between two 1×4 boards:
And finished:
The center doors installed. It’s a split door, so I could have the bottom half closed and the top open, if desired. The two halves will have a slide bolt tying them together:
View of the door from the coop side:
Finishing the hardware cloth on the wall, plus a temporary barrier below. The nesting boxes will go there, so will have a solid wall where the temporary one is (they won’t need nesting boxes for a few months, so no need to add them yet):
Roosting bars installed, and a temporary poop tray below. I’ll later build a frame with fencing wire on top to keep the chickens off the poop tray:
A closer look at one end of the roost bars. They are removable for cleaning:
A temporary latch for the center door, until I get a chance to go to Home Depot for a nicer one:
Electrical cord and timer for the light:
Why settle for a boring light when the chickies can have a chandelier?! A multi-color one in keeping with the Caribbean-inspired paint colors of the exterior:
Just some fish swimming and eating, and the sound of the waterfall.