Chicken Pics Bok Bok...

Above: This is Hawk--He is the king of the castle so to speak :)

Above: Hot summer days means leaving the coop door open for some extra fresh air

Above: In the process of alternating the fence pens. This way they will get all new grass and I will replant the pen area that they have eaten all the grass area.

Above: Hawk again with just the butt end of our Hen MilkShake

Above: Three of our newest flock-They are polish breeds. The white one's name is NERD because he is so funny and flighty. He reminds us of a Tall Bird Version of a Nerdy guy with glasses. He is one of our favorites and his personality makes him so unique!

Above: This young pullet is supposed to be a plymouth rock? I'm not sure if they accidentally gave me something else at the hatchery. Well...I love her all the same and she is a loner, does her own thing when free ranging and I often have to find her because she is not usually with the flock. Sweet as can be-Boo is her name.

Our rabbits hang with the chickens. They are to fat to fit through the fence and they have yet to learn or are just so well feed they don't try to dig under it.

Above: This little polish suddenly just dropped dead. The day before our cat jumped out at her and I think she just dropped dead from fright. poor thing!

Above: So this silkie is named Sushi and  he needs a silkie girlfriend. He is shall we shall to short of legs to quite reach his lady friends. LOL

Above: This is the sweetest Polish. She has taken it upon herself to follow me esp. my feet and she wants to be pet. I love her-Molly is her name

Above: She's the bee knees so she thinks! so that is her name! she is the boss!

Above: We had to cull this rooster as he liked to attack the kids. He tasted great!

Above: This is Meg she lays blue eyes! Love her

Above: Our favorite bantam Little Milkshake. He is tame and loves my youngest son the most. When we are outside sitting on the porch he comes up jumps up on the arm of the chair then into our laps.

Above: Before we knew this girl was a well girl ...we named her Flaco. Love polish breeds.

Above: These chicklets are my own........

Above: This is Dot-A fox got ahold of Dot when they were free ranging one day. I loved everything about Mrs. Dotty!

This is perdy-She eats when she's nervous!

When I was out of state handling the sudden sicken and death of my poor DADDY....all of my ducks were taken over a few weeks by that sneaky fox.

Funny Little Polish--

Here are a few pictures of my 15 new chicks and 1 duck. I got them in the beginning of Febuary and they have been living in the garage. I recently moved them to the coop and sectioned off a quarter of the coop from the first group of chickens. Therefore giving these little ones time to grow and safety from the roosters or crabby apple hens lol...If your in the market for a super fun chicken that is so friendly and interactive with people then get a few polish chickens. See the one above He/she just loves my cell phone esp when it's on speaker and someone is talking and he/she sits on my shoulder as I walk around outside. What friendly chickens the polish breed are and pretty cute too. Along with 6 straight run polish I ordered 9 hens and 1 duck. The hens are a variety of large egg layers and one the austrolope even lays tinted easter egg blue eggs or will eventually. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I get all of my chickens and ducks & turkey from Idealpoultry.com they are fantastic! love them!

Funny polish chickens

The New Coop--

It feels like a long time coming that I've needed a chicken coop. But really I just started this whole chicken adventure in June of this year. I went through many different makeshift coops and finally the day came when my official permanent coop was built.

My Dad came to visit and built it for me all the while saying things like "why exactly do you want chickens?" lol...I guess I can't blame him. He doesn't understand like I do the joy that comes with raising chickens. Aside from eggs you get constant entertainment! throw in a few turkeys and some ducks and the fun triples:)

I gave him a general idea of what I wanted from research online. I told him it needed to have perches, nesting boxes, good ventilation and be reasonably draft free. I told him I planned on putting a heated water source in the center surrounded and lifted off the ground with cinder blocks as to prevent a fire. I also planned to have a hanging feeder inside so that in the harsh heavy snow months they could just stay inside the coop.

I've decided to do the heavy layering method for the droppings. Even though I hadn't thought about that or planned for it in the coop design. It works anyway with layering straw, corn cob, wood shavings. I also bought 50lb alfalfa to lay in the nesting boxes because it comes apart in compact layers and lays nicely in the nesting boxes. Whereas the loose straw they'd just scratch out and the boxes were getting soiled. This way they don't remove the alfalfa and I can just add or take it out like a mat and shake the dried droppings off.

Here are a few pictures of the New coop! We have snow now and I'm so happy I have this coop!

BBBBB Prepared!

The best advice I can give you if your deciding to venture into raising chickens or ducks; any poultry for that matter! Is to be prepared or you'll end up scrambling and trying to keep of with the ever changing needs from hatchling,chick and ultimately chicken.

Housing is one of those things that is essential! I was frantic and panicked and worried sick about what I was going to do come winter months. My makeshift shelter was great for warm weather but the cold is coming and quick.

There a quote out there that goes something to the effect of "some of the ugliest coops produced the best chickens." not sure who said that or where I read it but it's true! You don't need a Thousand dollar chicken coop; the chickens don't care. It just needs basic elements like shelter, perches, reasonably draft free and predator proof.

Here are a few pics of my OLD-me myself and I built it chicken coop and run....built from an old rabbit hutch we found for free, donated fencing, pallets, and lots of chicken wire.....



In the upcoming post I will be showing you my new chicken coop my DAD is building for me. He has to travel and I needed to save a few dollars to get this done. My new coop is being built for $300.00 or less budget. Keep coming back for updates and to see that you can spend a reasonable amount of money and have good DIGS for your Chicks..........

Recycled Material Chicken Coop/Tractor

PHOTO: The Neighbor's Chicken-Fancy-likes to visit and lay her eggs in the rabbit hutch :) She loves the scraps I throw out to my chickens and she loves to snack on my garden vegetables--Isn't she great?



Here are a few photos of my amazing (not really!) Chicken coop/tractor. I was in a tail-spin trying to figure out how I was going to house all of these chickens,ducks, turkeys when the sky opened and a ray of sunshine shone through umm...well...that is when I found or rather my teenage son and his girlfriend found a old green rabbit hutch on the side of the road that said "FREE". He texted me and asked if I wanted it and I couldn't reply "yes" fast
enough. Well.....he came home and loaded up three of his teenage friends and they set out with my minivan to get it. A few minutes later I got a text saying it was to big to fit in the van........boo hoo...... Luckily my neighbor being into chickens before me and having a hand at getting me interested helped us out...or rather he husband did with his truck :) It's great to have chicken loving neighbors...

I was very happy to see that it was a double hutch....and that each end had a outside door that lifted up. Perfect in the future for my Silkie Bantams as they don't get very big. I removed the center wall that sat atop the plexi glass divider. So in the meantime while I'm coming up with a better Chicken Coop they can perch on the plexiglass ledge and use the "nesting boxes" (each end of the hutch) to keep out of the rain etc....I then had some leftover wood from my sons tree house project and I hinged it onto the hutch and used an old hose as treads for the chickens, just cut to size and nailed on with roofer nails. I actually really liked the hose idea because it's easy to cut and nail on and you can wash it down when it gets full of poo....Later on down the road I will use the hutch for new baby chicks.

My other neighbor is always adding to his landscape and has it delivered or he picks it up on pallets...So I asked if he needed them and he gave to me grateful to get them out of his yard. So I decided to build an A-frame housing for either the chickens, ducks, or turkeys...I first took a old pallet and stapled chicken wire to it then I tilted two pallets against each other in a triangle pattern and wedged a piece of wood between them, taking a drill and drilling screws through the pallets into the wedged piece of wood on either side. Then I had some wood left over from my sons tree house project and I actually used a circular saw? (not sure if that's its name) and two saw horses that my Dad left at my house after he build my sons tree house. I was able to cut the wood just fine...made sure nobody was around (like children) I was a bit nervous and had a slight shake, but all worked out fine. anyhow...I then took roof paper and shingles again left over from the tree house project and waterproofed the A-frame. I was also offered a bunch of fencing from the chicken loving neighbors because they sold their huskies and didn't want or need the fence. I used it to build an outside run for the A-frame..wiring the top together and staking the outside 4 pegs down the outside on either side as to not have it collapse outward. That way if it slips it will rest on the stakes and not flatten out. I then covered it with chicken wire at the entrance and some on the top just to make sure predators remain out. (We lost 13 chicks, 2 turkeys) when I first started this adventure due to lack of proper housing.

So check out the photos and leave a few comments or ideas on how to improve them if you like...also send me photos of your recycled materials coops and I'll post them here........

Chicken bok--bok!!

Welcome to Chicken bok--bok!!,

I decided to start a new blog aside from Chewychewsup.blogspot.com/
because I quickly realized, that I love chickens,ducks & turkeys and in a short amount of time have become consumed and obsessed with them.


I have to say they are fantastic entertainment for the entire family. My daughter and my youngest son spend hours playing with them, helping come up with housing solutions, and asking lots of questions that I am still learning myself. They forage for eggs left by the Pekin duck (more about her later) around the yard. And squeal with excitement if they find one. They help change the straw bedding and mend fencing. They love to observe each chicken, duck, turkeys personality and tell which is feisty and which is meek. I think they love it more than watching television and as their MOM, I have not one problem with that!

First thing in the morning I have to drag myself from the nice warm bed due to the fact I have chickens, ducks and turkey's that need my attention. Slip on my flip flops and through the garage door I go turning on the hose as I unlock the back garage door. Grab the mile long hose and yank irritably as I slosh my morning coffee on the garage floor followed by a trail from the cement just outside the garage door all the way to the makeshift chicken area. I always set my coffee cup on the rabbit hutch then with both arms dump the ducks tiny pool, refill the water feeders, and add some fresh water to the shallow pan I have put into use for the baby ducklings (as not to drown). It always brings a smile to my face to see November and December (Turkeys--that my husband still thinks are really tall chickens....) perched patiently in the makeshift run. They always just watch me as I put the hose through the old fence that I made a A-frame out of. They sit perched on tomato stakes that I ran through the holes in the fence to make outside perches for them. The three duckling with them instantly start quacking and running up to the water pan ready to play and gulp hungrily from the fresh water. Then I go and get a few level scoops of Chick feed, dumped into a big pan and away it goes with me back to the makeshift chicken area. At the moment my chickens are using an old green rabbit hutch that was "FREE" on the side of the road. I thought about moving our Mini-rex rabbit Thumper to the new (new to us) rabbit hutch but it works great for the moment for the chickens. And in the future I can use it for new hatch-lings, ducklings or what have you. So anyhow by this time the chickens are really noisy...they see me filling the water and the chick feed feeders and are anxious to get out of their hutch. As soon as I twist the little metal knob, before I can swing the door completely open they are on their way out and half flying towards their food. The morning is busy for about 30mins with a feeding frenzy, running around and noise making....then it trails off as they rest their full crops and find shade to hide from the hot morning sun.

I will check on them again around noon..........



The pictures above are: First photo-Little White Silkie Bantam named "Sushi" second photo-Feather legged rare breed named "milkshake" Third photo-Brown Silkie Bantam-Named "Einstein"