The Day Ranger – Chicken Shelter

The day ranger with front door open.  Paper towels are on the bedding for the first few days.

The day ranger with front door open. Paper towels are on the bedding for the first few days.

Life on a small farm is both science and art. Designing shelters for animals, poultry, or other livestock is based on good thinking, local custom, and what you have  to work with.  In this case, I’m using all three and we’ll see the outcome.

In Storey’s Guide for Raising Chickens, there is a simple  shelter for free range chickens depicted on page 39.  Its basically a lean-to or half gable structure open on the front and side.

Interestingly, as I scouted around the Internet chicken sites, I don’t find many shelters like this.  Robert Plamondon’s site on building chicken coops and shelters has many designs, but none like this.

Using left over roofing panels, I oulined the basic shape.  From this angle, it could be a water ski jump.

Using left over roofing panels, I outlined the basic shape. From this angle, it could be a water ski jump.

As I considered housing for 50 meat chickens, I schemed an idea to be able to build a dual use shelter – that could be a brood house for a few weeks, then re configured to be a night shelter from aerial predators like owls and hawks.  The entire shelter and pasture could be fenced with electric netting, keeping out or slowing down, raccoons, possums, and skunks.

I sketched several designs, based on a couple of limiting factors:

  • I had left over roofing panels from the metal roof from the cabin.  They measured 10’4″ so that became my angled roof dimension.
  • I wanted to use 4′x8′ ply for the brood house floor, and also use a half sheet 2′x 8′ as the front and back panels
  • I was willing to take a few risks to learn from my mistakes
With the front door closed.

With the front door closed.

What resulted is something for day ranging , a concept designed by Andy Lee.  Unlike a chicken tractor, in which the chickens are confined in a movable cage every day, this allows the chickens to range (not quite free range) in a 40 x 40 pen that can be moved as they graze.  At night, the chickens return to the shelter.  As of today, I am undecided about whether or not to “lock them in” at night.

During brooding, the chicks will be in a brooding box built using the structure as a framework.  The floor is covered in bedding and paper towel to start the chicks.  The side walls are poultry wire and will be covered with foil bubble insulation to protect both from drafts and occasional rains.  The front opening is sheltered by the roof and is open for ventilation.

We’ve had a cool July, actually, the coolest on record.  I expect the heat will rise in August, so ventilation is important, but so, too, is keeping the chicks warm in the night.  A 250 watt infrared brooder bulb will be mounted inside.  The chicks ought to be able to find their comfort spot.

Through the side into a brooding area.  The sides will be covered with foil bubble insulation.

Through the side into a brooding area. The sides will be covered with foil bubble insulation.

Once the chicks feather out, I will take the back wall and floor out of the shelter, and line the floor with thick bedding.  The front door is still uncertain, but the top 2 feet of the opening will be covered with poultry wire, slowing down predatation.

The chicks arrived this week, and are in a short term brooder in the cabin.  I hope to move them outdoors in the next day or so.  And then we see how this works out.

Even I don’t believe this duck story

No, I don’t expect you to believe it either, but it happened.

The ducks are laying eggs.  In their duck house, they have scooped out a little nest in the straw, but most days, they lay eggs on the fence line between the duck pen and the pheasant pen.  Ducks do what ducks do.  There’s no telling them different.

A few times, I have found one or two eggs in the nest.  It doesn’t matter really where ducks lay their eggs, but it makes life easier for me.

You see, birds put eggs in nests to keep them in storage until they have a clutch and decide to become broody – that is, sit on the eggs until they hatch.  So a bird will lay and egg, then lay a second, and so on.  If a farmer, like me,  collects the eggs every day, as I do, the bird forgets where it laid the first egg. So the next day it may be in some new place and who knows where it will be.  Farmers who raise true, free-range, egg-laying chickens, literally have an egg hunt every day as they try and find the eggs.

One trick, shared by books and other poultry raisers, is to put a fake egg in the nest a few weeks before the ducks or chickens start laying.  Then the birds learn that’s where the eggs go.  I didn’t do that with the ducks, so I’m behind the times…..and I didn’t have any wood eggs, so I borrowed two plastic eggs that break in half from Easter egg baskets, a blue one and a purple one.  I have had the blue one in the duck “nest” for a couple of days.  There have been no real duck eggs in the nest since I put it in, and the ducks have moved the egg a few inches each day, and I move it back.

The "egg" as I found it

The "egg" as I found it

The with plastic "egg" open to reveal the duck egg inside

The with plastic "egg" open to reveal the duck egg inside

This morning was no eggception (pardon the pun).  The ducks had moved the fake egg a few inches.  But as I started to reach in to move the blue plastic artificial egg back to the nest,  something didn’t look right.  When I picked it up, I knew something odd had happend.  I set it back down and these are pictures of what I found…..as I found the egg, and what was inside the egg.  Yes, thats a duck egg inside the plastic one.

I told you you wouldn’t believe it.

Neighbors being neighbors: Cattleman for the weekend

There are things we do because they are the right thing to do.  This week, I have two examples.

DSC_0035My physical neighbors about a mile down the road have been good to me.  I met them the first time I high centered my tractor while bush hogging the front of the property.  I drove down the road, and puled in the driveway and asked for help.  Without hesitation, they showed up with their tractor, pulled me out.  Since then, I’ve appreciated their friendship and help.  My daughter’s horse, Jimmeny, lives there.

So naturally, when Virlin stopped by and asked if I would feed his cattle while they were gone, I said yes.  Okay, “cattleman” is an exaggeration.  This calving season, they were left with 5 orphan cows.  Rather than graze with the rest of the herd, they moved into their barn and now roam a small electric fenced pasture until they are older.  For the weekend, I’m making sure they have water and letting them share a bucket of sweet feed each evening.

My virtual neighbors (what else do you call friends you know from their blog, but have never met?  ideas anyone?)  shared some great news about a new home they’ve found.  The move means they need to move off their rural land and 17 ducks need new homes.  I told them I would gladly take 5:  two rouens, and 3 chocolate runners.  In jest, they offered one of these:

Crested ducks with the Mullet haircut....'don't break my heart, my achey breaky heart..."

Crested ducks with the mullet haircut....'don't break my heart, my achey breaky heart...'

and I agreed to take two.  Nothing like a duck with a Billy Ray Cyrus mullet that says “business” in the front and “party” in the back.

True Grit -and- The World is My Oyster (shell)

From left to right, the duck egg, last week's pheasant egg, and a store purchased chicken egg

From left to right, the duck egg, last week's pheasant egg, and a store purchased chicken egg

I shared the discovery of the first pheasant egg, and Sunday, I found the first duck egg.  It was broken and was on the wood platform the duck swimming pool rests on.

Whether the duck egg broke on the wood, was stepped on by one of the ducks, or had a soft shell due to it being the first egg and the warm weather?  I don’t know.  But it’s time to think about nutrition. Tuesday night, I found an intact duck egg.  smaller than what they will be in time and with the grey color described in early cayuga ducks.

I’ve been feeding a general flock raiser blended feed that has about 18 percent protein to both the  pheasants and the ducks.   The youngest pheasants are on a 27% protein feed through their 6th week, then tape to the lower protein.

The ducks eat from a dog bowl, and the grit and oyster shell is in the green container

The ducks eat from a dog bowl, and the grit and oyster shell is in the green container

The calcium in this feed is too low for laying birds , Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks: Breeds, Care, Health suggests 3 – 4 percent, so its time to add calcium to their diet in the form of oyster shell.  At the same time, even though the ducks eat on the pond a lot, I don’t know for sure they are getting enough grit for their gizzards, so I added a container of grit for them to free choice from.

The chickens will also need calcium, they are still on a grower ration of about 20 percent protein and I’ll add calcium to the feeder for them to free choice as well.  The roosters eat the same feed, so the hens can ge the oyster shell as they choose.  I’ll  move the hens to a 16 percent layer ration in a month or when I see the first hen egg, which ever comes first.

I also removed the wood platform from the duck run and spread more wood chips around the pool to reduce the mud and make a softer area in case someone else decided to lay an egg or two there.  And sure enough, that’s where Tuesday’s egg was found.

Street Farmer – NYTimes.com

A nice profile of Will Allen and urban farming. There are great quotes in this article and a terrific example of ways to re-think “conventional wisdom” .

Photo from Growing Power Inc

“We need 50 million more people growing food,” Allen told them, “on porches, in pots, in side yards.” The reasons are simple: as oil prices rise, cities expand and housing developments replace farmland, the ability to grow more food in less space becomes ever more important. As Allen can’t help reminding us, with a mischievous smile, “Chicago has 77,000 vacant lots.”

via Street Farmer – NYTimes.com.

The first egg — from an unexpected hen

Pheasant egg

Pheasant egg

I have 4 laying hens, about 12 weeks old.  I also have 3 Cayuga ducks, about 20 weeks old, both all well known for their egg laying.  I also have 38 hen pheasants, about 10 weeks old (although some are looking roo-like in their plumage.)
So imagine my surprise to find that the first egg of Two Mile Ranch is a pheasant egg in the fly pen this afternoon.  The pen is thick with 6 foot tall weed growth, and the egg as at the edge of the weeds, laying on the bare ground.

As thick as the cover is in the pen, it is likely there are other eggs in there.

Weed and cover groth in the fly pen.  The fly pen is 25 x 45 and 6 foot tall.

Weed and cover growth in the fly pen. The fly pen is 25 x 45 and 6 foot tall.

Q & A With Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder – Times Topics Blog – NYTimes.com

In past blog posts, I’ve mentioned both Lou Ureneck and Mark Van Roojen.  If the Internet is the “Information SuperHighway”, then I guess you could call Mark, Lou, and I ”neighbors” on the same “Internet gravel road”. Mark had some weather slow downs during his trip west in June, and Lou spent time away from the university to work on his project in Maine.

Lou posted this Q & A with Mark to his New York Times blog:

Before taking on construction of a timber-frame cabin, he was already a woodworker, building guitars and cabinets. He uses hand tools — planes, saws, chisels.

via Q & A With Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder – Times Topics Blog – NYTimes.com.

Progress in Maine by Lou Ureneck

Progress in Maine by Lou Ureneck

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