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.

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!