We have started the coop!

After a long wait and finally getting good weather we have started building.


Me and Mr. Construction


A view from my deck. The chickens will have a 30 foot run in total. The dirt to the left will become grass and the pavers on the right cover 12 feet. You can see the coop being built on the right, about 16 square feet, which should be plenty of room for 4 hens. We are planning on building a gate to separate the grass from the rest of the run so that we can give it time to grow back. The hens will also be allowed to roam the backyard on occasion under supervision.


Staining the wood with linseed oil


Mr. Construction working hard


Working on the first wall


The first two walls are up! The nesting box will attach on the right side where the hole is.

The work took longer than I had anticipated but this is what we got done in two nights and a Saturday. There will be more pictures to come and hopefully my next post will show the finished coop.

Research.

Well I'm back from vacation and I didn't have any luck finding chicken nipples. However I am going to start work on the coop this coming up Saturday. But since I do not have much to update on I wanted to a post about the research I've done.

The local library has been a huge help! I've borrowed all the books they had on chickens and raising chickens, borrowing is also a lot cheaper than buying. I also have a few books I'm waiting on all about coop design, should be here soon!

Of the books I've read my favorites so far are:

Living with Chickens: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock

Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, 3rd Edition

Both really good reads and extremely informative. Living with Chickens was easy to follow and everything was explained in layman's terms. Storey's Guide is a wealth of knowledge, easy to understand, and they even have a section about chicken communication and what their different sounds mean.

I also use Backyard Chickens a lot, there is tons of information there.

I learned that chickens are prone to cannibalism! If they are stressed, confined in a small space, or just bored they will peck at each other. During the life of a hen they will lay between 200-280 eggs and it takes 25 hours for the egg to be produced. If you want you can also get chicken diapers so you can bring your chickens inside. Not that I'm planning on doing this but hey, whatever floats your boat. There are different types of chickens: hybrids, purebreds, meat birds, egg layers, they also come in many different breeds and sizes. You will be surprised at what your research will turn up. It has been quite the learning curve for me.

Chicken nipples....

I am on two weeks vacation with my wife and we decided to go to Calgary to visit my parents. Being Calgary is an agricultural hub in Alberta I figure I would try to find some chicken nipples. I've tried a few places where I live but haven't been sucessful and I know you can oder them online from FramTek or other websites.

After a few hours and several painful calls to SHAW I managed to get the internet work for my parents, I started my search. I had a hard time finding anything. I found many sites with farm supplies, chicken supplies but nothing locally for "chicken nipples". I one place that was local Vencomatic North America, located just west of Calgary. I sent them an email asking if they had any poultry nipples but the email was returned as undeliverable. Disheartened I kept searching and eventually asked my Uncle. He suggested we try UFA. They have a store in Airdire, 613 Edmonton Trail NE, just North of Calgary. We stopped in to check it out. They had lots of chicken supplies but no nipples. The clerk gave me a catologue for Miller Hatcheries. They carry a large supply of poultry products and can also get chicks and starters from them! I've sent them an email and I am waiting to hear back from them. There were no nipples in their catalogue but the had a whole bunch of info about starting chicks, proper brooder setup and cleaning. It was all very interesting. I will wait to see what their email says but as it looks I will be ordering the nipples online.

I know there are waterers out there but from what I've read and seen on YouTube a system with nipples is easier to clean and maintain. This is what I had in mind, just a 5 gallon bucket with a few nipples in the bottom.

Coop

Well we have started our coop design. After consulting with our neighbors and checking with bylaw enforcement. The neighbors are fine with and actually seemed pretty excited. Not sure if it's that we are getting chickens or that they know the extra eggs have to go somewhere. The bylaw guy was pretty good. Even thou technically we are not supposed to have chickens, he said that if the neighbors are fine with it and he gets no complaints there shouldn't be any problems.

We are still figuring out a design for the coop. I am planning on using a flower bed in our backyard. The bed is raised 4" up, about 4" wide and 20" long. The coop will be built beside the bed which will be converted into a giant run. I'm hoping I can figure out a way to section it. Then I can seed it with grass and alternate the sides the chickens use so it won't get really muddy.

We ran into a little problem that thankfully my wife was able to solve. My buddy and I were in full design mode trying to figure out the dimensions. I had tape measures out on the floor so I could roughly see the shape. I had read that we would need about 2 square feet per bird. We want 4 birds so we need 8 square feet. I'm blaming it on excitement but I can't speak for my buddy as he works in construction. I came to the conclusion that to get our 8 square feet we needed an 8'x8' foot coop. If you lay out your tape measures 8'x8' that is a huge coop!

Mr. Construction pipes up and says it looks way to big...let's just make it 6'x6' so it's a little smaller and more manageable (still a huge coop). Thankfully my wife walked in and asked what the tape measures were for. I told her, and she looked at both of us and calmly said to make an 8 square foot coop we only need a 4'x2'. The light finally came one and we realized our mistake. Embarrassed, we redesigned the coop and decided to build it 4'x6'. That's still a good-sized coop and it will fit in our old raised flower bed that our dogs have destroyed. Where would I be with out my ever so patient wife?

My buddy did redeem himself today when he called. His job site had a bunch of scrap wood to get rid of. I now have a truck full of factory cut and kiln dried lumber. Mostly 6x1s and 2 giant sheets of pressure treated plywood, enough to fill the bed of my F150. We now have all the material we needed except for 1/4 inch mesh and I haven't spent a dime yet. You can't argue with free.

Backyard Chickens

I've decided to raise chickens. The wife isn't quite sure of the idea but she is willing to go along and I'm sure she is hoping she won't regret it.

This all started when we went to the local hardware store to get a few things for the house. The store has a feed section where they carry horse tack, feed, and farm accessories. I couldn't help overhearing a constant peeping coming from the corner, so the wife and I went to investigate. There was a giant watering tub full of young chicks (pullets, which I learned about later). They were adorable! We both looked at each other and said we need to get some. We didn't buy any that moment but it started the ball rolling.

We live about an hour east of Vancouver. Vancouver has recently passed a bylaw allowing "Urban Chickens". I figure if they can, why can't I? We talked it over, discussed the pros and cons, even mentioned it to some friends. My buddy was really inclined to help. So I began to search the bylaws of my city. Think I could find anything about chickens? Nope. I ended up reading 300 pages of zoning bylaws. Well I didn't read them all...I read a large section of it and by scanning it I found out the following: To be allowed "chickens" you have to be zoned as Rural, Rural residential, or Sub Urban. I soon discovered that I was zoned for Urban Residential. No chickens. Apparently we are only allowed to have a green house in the backyard. Given the dimensions of the green house it listed, it would be tons of room for 4 chickens. Looking into it more a report was done in 2009 to find the pros and cons of allowing chickens in the Urban Residential Zone. Nothing was changed as council was going wait until the city of Vancouver decided on their bylaws first. Since nothing has been done after Vancouver's vote, I have decided to do it anyways.