As you can tell, for those that notice that is, is that I have redesigned everything on here. I went through and made a new banner, not too different than before, just changed a few things about it. The design of this blog is different, and I made an index so instead of hunting around for a lot of pages, people can either search the blog alone, or click on the Index, which brings up every blog I post, and lumps them into "series" so that if interested in general care of chickens, you can follow those posts, or baby chicks, etc. I've figured, that will help others as I personally hate having to go through an entire blog to find only a handful of pages that relate to what I even want to read at the time. And the titles sometimes don't even match the information! Which I even did on here :p
I will be also redesigning the overall chicken coop and run outside. Since the last chicken, Lily, passed away, the rats have taken up residence in the nice comfy home, so we're going to need to take it apart and pretty much clean and disinfect everything. I'm also going to redesign how it's put together, the roof, and the door to the house. We were in such a rush and being pushed by my friend to get the chickens out of her yard, and into mine, because she planned on making them dinner if we didn't so we didn't have much time to get there! So we rushed! I want to make an entirely new home, maybe add some cute "fake" windows, trim, and the like. Pain will be a good idea as well I'm thinking, rather than the humdrum boring wood as before.
My mom has also thought what would be a good idea was to section off a larger part of the backyard for the chickens to have the run for. We allow them to use the entire yard when the dogs aren't out there, AND once they get used to them, when they are out there, but I'm sure when they are penned, it would be a good thing for them to have a larger area to roam. Under the cherry tree and almond tree, plus a small walnut we've put in since Lily's time. So I'll be having to build that once the weather warms back up. Since we're headed into winter, and I've been working on rebuilding the deck since the wood is rotting, I don't plan on pushing myself harder for that until next year. At least soon I'll be taking apart the house so it can sit apart during the winter though.
Here's the backyard, and setup we have currently.
As you can see from this picture, we have the two corners of the yard already gated off. The left is where the chickens were originally, then they were moved to the right side. Currently the left is my garden, or what I'm trying to make as my garden, the wood is only half painted anyway.
My girls showing where the chicken coop was. Now it's a place for old wood to be stored. It'll have to be cleared out, but that's what will be expanded. Just have to take away one wall of the wire and that's a cinch really. The house is the very center roof you see.
The left garden. Kendra saying "yes?"
This is the area we're going to fence off. Or I will be that my mom said "we" could. The tree in the center is the walnut, the right is a cherry (old) tree, and the very left side is the almond. The fence would be right up against the lawn line, or just inside probably. My Aussie, Sabrina, pretending to be the chicken. It doesn't look like much, but that's a good nearly 6-foot wide space from the lawn to fence.
Finally, obviously, we are thinking about getting chickens again, but I'm having trouble deciding which! My current thoughts are at least possibly a Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, and one other, but I am not sure about the one other breed yet. I have Jersey Giant, Australorp, Maran, Brahma, and Ameraucana to decide through as the third chicken. Jersey Giant would be cool since it's so BIG. :)
Next post, will be information, and more decisions!
