chickens Archives - City Girl Farming

04/22/2017 By Kerrie

How to Make a Milk Crate Nest Box

Do you need an extra nest box and in a hurry? Here’s a perfect solution: make a nest box out of a milk crate. It’s the perfect size and only takes a couple of minutes.

Recently, I took in a batch of four new hens that needed to be relocated. That brought my flock up to 15 girls. The new ones integrated into my existing flock beautifully (better than ever before). And all was well…except that my old girls wouldn’t let the new girls lay their eggs in any of the nest boxes. And maybe I wouldn’t have minded so much, except the spot the new girls picked to lay their eggs was the absolute hardest place to reach in the whole coop.

I decided I needed a new nest box on the opposite side of the existing boxes, just to allow everyone to have their own space. But I didn’t want it to take me very long and I didn’t want to spend any money on it. My solution ended up as a milk crate nest box. It’s a big hit with my flock and has actually become the favored box by both my old and new girls. Go figure.

SIMPLE STEPS TO A MILK CRATE NEST BOX:

Take an old crate and laid it on its side.
Cut a small piece of scrap wood to create a ‘lip’ of sorts on the bottom and screw it in with screws (this is to keep the bedding from falling out).

That’s pretty much it! I also lined the bottom with a scrap piece of linoleum (just did it because I had it, it’s certainly not necessary). As well as added scrap wood to the top (because of where I needed to place it in the coop, I wanted to protect the nest box area from stray poo that might fall from a roosting hen at night).

At first, I just set it in the coop on the floor. I put it in a corner, so that two walls of the nest box were covered by the walls of the coop (for more privacy for the hen). The hens liked it fine, but I didn’t like it on the ground (nest boxes should ideally be raised off the ground by at least 15-18 inches). Where I needed to place mine made it difficult to raise it that high. But, I build a wooden base for it out of scrap 2×4’s (I stacked two on top of each other so that it was 8 inches off the ground).

I would like it a bit higher still, but it works great and the girls are happy . Happy girls mean I’m happy too. Less than an hour of work saves me from crawling into the furthest corner of the coop to collect eggs every day. Yay for simple solutions.

03/30/2017 By Kerrie

Make a Dust Bath for Your Chickens

An essential part of chicken health is being able to take a dust bath. ‘Bathing’ in the dirt helps them control pests that might be hanging out on them. Think of it as a natural insecticide.

If your flock is free ranging, they’ll find places to create a dust bath all on their own. A nice patch of loose dirt will do (yes, they WILL use your garden if they have access to it). They’re especially fond of sunny patches of loose dirt.

Once they find (or create) a place to bathe, they’ll burrow in, roll over, fluff their feathers up and do all sorts of strange moves. They work at getting all that dirt up into their feathers and onto their skin where pests might be lurking (the dust will suffocate the bugs).

A nice dust bath is often a group activity, with many hens squeezing into the perfect location. It seems, often, to have a hypnotic affect on them. It’s common for them to swagger when they get up out of the bath like a drunken sailor.

While dust bathing is crucial to your flock’s health, sometimes a place to have one is hard to find (this is especially true if your flock doesn’t free range, or it’s winter and the ground is covered with snow, or if you live in a ‘rain belt’ like me and the winter and spring are a soggy muddy mess with no ‘dry, loose dirt’ to be found.) Luckily, if you have less than ideal conditions, it’s easy to create a space for your flock to bathe in.

What You Need to Make a Dust Bath:

One relatively dry place that the chickens have access to

Dry, clean, loose dirt (free from dirt clots and debris) or fine sand, or a combination (I use both)

A way to contain the dirt (I use the top of an old broken wheelbarrow that I took apart. I’ve seen them made in old tires, etc)

Optional ingredients:

Wood ash (from fireplace or wood stove) is a great addition. The ash is full of beneficial ingredients like vitamin K, magnesium and calcium. It also absorbs toxins.

Diatomaceous earth (use food-grade only) kills pests (see more about DE here and how to use it with chickens) in small amounts. (It can cause irritation to the lungs so some don’t like to use it in the dust bath area. I do include it, but just in tiny amounts and I mix it in really well with the rest of the dirt mixture).

Stir it all together and wa LA! You’ve got yourself a dust bath solution for your flock. They will love you for it.

12/06/2016 By Kerrie

Chickens and Snow

My ‘girls’ are Pacific NW chickens through and through. They smash the stereotypes about how chickens don’t like to be wet (madder than a wet hen?) while they run around in the rain, soaked to the bone. It doesn’t even phase them to see rain coming down. Their short lives have seen plenty of it.

But SNOW? SNOW? Give them snow and they don’t know what to do. They see it so seldom, they forget what it is, forget they’ve experienced it before (a tiny bit) and don’t have a clue what to do. They don’t want to cooperate with photo ops in the snow. They won’t venture out for the promise of cracked corn. They aren’t having it.

I know my girls are extreme (I did grow up in Montana after all, and the chickens there lived through the winters where there was real snow on the ground, not just a dusting), but there are some things you can do to make snowy conditions better for your hens, regardless of how often they see it.

First, make sure they have a covered area to hang out in. Even though they are outdoor animals and will adjust to the weather, it’s still hard on their feet to stand in snow all day. If they have a non-snowy retreat space, they at least have an option of getting out of it if they want to.

Second, shovel snow for them. Yep, it’s true. If you shovel a path for them, they’ll venture out on the path (where they can see the ground). And a great thing about them venturing out is that they’ll get a bit of exercise and be less grouchy (with each other).

Third, give them roosts or stumps or other structures they can jump up on (that will be warmer than the frozen ground).

Fourth, before bed, give them a bit of cracked corn. The corn raises their body temp and helps them stay warmer at night.

Mostly, they’ll be okay. They might not like the snow, but it won’t (usually) kill them. So, even when it snows, you can sleep soundly at night knowing your chickens generally do better in cold temperatures than hot ones and they’re doing just fine.

PS If you’d like some ideas on how to prepare your coop and flock for winter, here’s 12 helpful suggestions.

06/14/2015 By Kerrie

Rescue Chicks

This sad tale has a happy ending. I thought I’d tell you that right off the bat. It did start out a bit shaky though.

About a month ago, my neighbor- friend, Audrey, drove up with a cardboard box full of the saddest looking chicks I’ve ever seen. These poor babes reeked like rotten road kill. They tottered when they tried to walk because their crops were so swollen and disfigured they couldn’t keep their balance. All of them had droopy wings that dragged on the ground. None of them made any sort of happy chirpy chick noises. They mostly just stood still or toppled over or lay on the ground without moving.

(There are obviously people in the world that should never own animals. This is a good example of some of them.)

My friend asked for advice on how to help heal these little birds. I wasn’t sure what to tell her. So, I did what I often do: I guessed.

First, I helped her set up a temporary chicken coop in my carport. I wasn’t sure if these chicks were in this terrible condition purely from their poor treatment, or if they were also sick. I didn’t want my hens to catch anything that might have just arrived with these babies. I also wanted to keep them safe from my full-sized flock. They were already very weak and didn’t need to be bullied.

Next, I suggested a bath. So Audrey took them into her house and bathed them with soap and water with a rinse in apple cider vinegar in water (to kill potential germs and bugs). She kept them in her bathroom overnight with a heater going and a diffuser wafting an essential oil blend (to build immunity and kill potential germy things they might be battling).

Next, we needed to deal with their over bulging crop issues (Dolly Parton had nothing on these poor girls). I suggested a syringe and gently (and in small doses) feeding them drops of water and of oil mixed with wine. Audrey also massaged the crops to help pass whatever it was that had clogged them up so terribly.

Six pathetic chicks arrived on the property and two didn’t make it. Honestly, I figured the numbers (at best) would be the other way around so we were all happy at their progress.

Then the person who had the chicks to begin with called asking Audrey to come pick up two more chicks. MORE? She had MORE?? Two very sick girls from the same flock were added to the chick hospital. One of these looked as close to death as you could possibly be while still being alive. But Audrey, empowered at their survival rate, determined to save this little one.

This chick couldn’t even lift her head. Audrey fed her little drops of water from a syringe. She did all the other things from above, too, that she’d done for the other chicks, but this one made no progress. She lay so still and lifeless she already seemed gone.

So, on a whim and with nothing to lose, I suggested she try feeding this baby a very watered down solution of my cat’s liver pate in a syringe in addition to the other things she was doing for her. Apparently that stinky cat food was the ticket for this chick as within just a couple hours she went from pretty much dead to roosting on Audrey’s finger.

Now these chicks (whom I affectionately call ‘The Littles’) are making up for lost time. They’re growing like weeds and constantly chirping and eating and pooping and exploring, just like happy, healthy chicks do. One of the places they LOVE to explore is my art studio. If I leave the door open, even for a moment, they all charge in like a herd of rambunctious children. I spend lots of time shooing them out (and yes, occasionally picking up poop after them).

The Littles have had a few recess times in an enclosed fence so my hens could get to know them safely and the last few days they’ve been running around free ranging with the established flock. All is well in the chicken kingdom.

Except of course that they can’t stay forever in my carport and need a new coop built for them (the one my current flock lives in is too small for 5 more birds). But I’m so happy to have new babes on the property. And Audrey wanted to get chickens anyway, so it’s all working out.

And I’m happy, too, that they’re no longer suffering at the place they were before (although truthfully I’m sure they’d all be dead by now). Like I said, some people should never have animals. In this situation it mostly turned out positively in the end. We are happy they joined us. Even my old hens don’t seem to mind.

Yep, when life gives you sick chicks, create a new flock. After all, one can never have too many chickens. (Unless, of course, you’re one of those people that shouldn’t have any animals at all.)

PS: Always remember I’m not a vet and am not advocating anything I’ve said in this post. I’m just sharing my personal story. If you need medical advice for your animals, please seek the help of a professional.

How to Make a Milk Crate Nest Box

SIMPLE STEPS TO A MILK CRATE NEST BOX:

Make a Dust Bath for Your Chickens

Chickens and Snow

Rescue Chicks

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