DIY Chicken Waterer - Super Easy

I've struggled a bit to find a chicken waterer that works well for my particular setup. The struggle became more real with freezing temperatures. I have no power to my coop or run and wasn't interested in starting now. What I needed was something that (1) I could easily add warm water to if it was frozen, (2) hung from a chain to keep my ladies and lad from kicking yuck into it.

In my many google searches, I ran across this blog from three years ago on Natural Chicken Keeping: Comparison of Poultry Cup Drinkers 

300 Poultry Drinking Cup

The information was so helpful and I liked how she put the cups on a five gallon bucket, even though she kept the lid and put the bucket on blocks. So I decided to follow her lead and make my own.

Step One - Supplies: I started with ordering eight 300 Poultry Cup Drinkers from Cornerstone ($22.14 with shipping), enough for two buckets. Then I grabbed two 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot. I got one that was white ($4.97) and an orange one (2.89) as well. The orange is cheaper than the white, but the white looks a little nicer.

5 gallon bucket, drill with 11/32" drill bit, 4 poultry cups & a tape measurer.

Next, I needed the right tools. I have an electric drill, but not a drill bit the right size. I had waited until the cups arrived in the mail to size them to a bit. It turns out the 11/32" bit is the perfect size. Then I grabbed a tape measurer and a pen to mark the spot for the holes to be drilled.

Now we're ready for action.

Step Two - Measure and mark: The bucket is 33" around. With 4 cups I measured about every 8 inches around where I wanting the cups to be located. As far as the vertical placement, the water is pulled through the holes using gravity. So you will want them low enough to get as much water out of the bucket as possible, while still being high enough to let the bottom of the water hold any sediment that would float to the bottom. You don't want anything that falls into the bucket to clog the cups. Also, I learned that you want to place the cups high enough that when you set the bucket on a flat surface, the cups hover above the ground. If they extend below and the bucket has water in it, they'll snap right off.

Here is my placement

So, the short story is - 1 1/2" inches from the bottom and every 8" around the bucket.

Step Three - Drill the holes.

Step Four - Holding the Poultry Cup at an angle I press it firmly enough into the drilled hole that it stays held itself. I then turn the cup, screwing into place, twisting it a little past when it is flush against the bucket to ensure it doesn't leak.

My steps to inserting the cup into the bucket.

The final placement of the cup.

 And that's it! After inserting all 4 cups, I take mine into the bathroom and do a water test run with the tub. You never know. Everything was in order and I took them to the coop to hang them up.

The orange one is hanging for the large hens to drink from in the main area of the run and the white one is balanced on boards for the 10 week old chicks to have in their area. Mike has been the only one I've seen drink from one of the cups so far, but I'm watching and hoping they all figure it out.

I did throw a water bottle full of salt water into the orange bucket to help with the freezing. I've found that it keeps the water from freezing for about another 5-10 degrees lower and the water around the bottle does not freeze, so it's not ever a solid block of ice.

Final Note - Total cost was about $17 for the white and $13 for the orange waterer. Worth every penny. 

  

9 week 4 day Chick Update

The remaining chicks that were given to me by my coworker are starting to integrate a little - with supervision - with my almost 9 month old Buff Orpingtons. Today I thought it would be interesting to weigh them and do a little comparing, considering I have different breeds and genders, and here's what I came up with.

Amelia is a pullet, one I am very concerned about. She is the white Cornish Cross that I have decided to keep as a layer, which can be a challenge health-wise. On the 14th of January she weighed 6 lbs and today she weighed in at 7.5 lbs. Not great, as she's gained Turtle's entire weight in the last two weeks, but I am making sure she's getting as much exercise as I can in this weather as well as limiting her feed. Instead of providing a feeder for her area, I'm throwing the feed on the ground so she has to look for it a little and walk around. I weighed one of my Orpingtons to compare and the largest one I have weighs 5.5 lbs. So she is 2 lbs more than my full grown chicken. It's not looking good, but I plan to give her as good a life as possible.

Amelia with the other ladies that hatched the same day she did.

Amelia keeping Mike out of the little coop.

Then to the smallest of the chicks, Turtle. Despite a rough start, she's going strong and starting to get some of the beautiful color Rhode Island Red's are known for. She's still high strung and kind of hilarious, but eating well and growing. She weighed in this morning at 1.4 lbs. My Doberman, Elly, has decided that she likes Turtle and this scares Turtle to death.It's hilarious, but we have to make sure no one (Turtle) has a heart attack. If I had a creature 70 times my size trying to play with me, I might be concerned for my safety as well.

Here is a blurry picture of the little monster, as getting her to sit still is pretty much impossible.

Managed to get a non-blurry picture of Turtle. She was not happy about it.

My roo, Rufus (previously Rubeus, but it turns out that saying that is more difficult than I would have thought) is a gorgeous boy. I'm very much looking forward to him being grown. The teal color on his feathers is already stunning. He's just now getting to the point where he is bigger than our Australorp hen of the same age.He weighed in this morning at 2.3 lbs.

Rufus standing tall and looking beautiful.

His feather color is starting to come in. Just gorgeous.

Pearl is my beautiful Australorp hen. She weighs 1.9 lbs, just slightly less than Rufus and is looking more hen-like next to him now. Her feet are a light pink/cream color, so it's clear she is an Australorp and not a Jersey Giant. That's a little bit of a bummer, but she's beautiful and I'll one day get a JG hen and they'll be fast friends. :-)

Rufus on the left and Pearl on the right. She's just slightly shorter and less poofy than he is.

Pearl's feet. She definitely does not have that Jersey Giant orange.

Here is Bonnie, my Barred Plymouth Rock. Poor thing doesn't get as much attention as the others. She's well-behaved, nothing quirky about her, has grown well and is healthy. She's so beautiful. My husband particularly liked the barred color when we were deciding which of the chicks to keep.She weighs in at 2 lbs. She's doing well and will be a good layer, I know it!

Bonnie spends a lot of time hanging out with Amelia.

It is fascinating the role that breed plays in a chicks growth and health. I'm enjoying learning more about it and am making the venture into hatching my first set of eggs soon! I can't wait!

Egg Counting, Tracking, Obsessing...

So, because I am who I am, I have been very interested in comparing egg production when it comes to my ladies. What age they start, comparing breeds, if one is a better producer than another and what are the differences in their personalities as well. Does all of this tie in together?

Who knows, really. But I'm having fun starting to collect data, just in case I need to know the answers to these questions. My Orpingtons started laying in November, so I'm curious to see if their production gets better with the longer days in Spring. Right now, I'm thrilled with anything I get.

Finding a way to track this information was a surprising challenge. I assumed I would be able to find an app fairly easily, but I only found one. And it was terrible. As soon as I finished entering my flock information it crashed and lost everything. Dammit.

The next step was to consider the spreadsheet. I used to be a huge fan of creating databases for folks, but truthfully, people like spreadsheets. They're easy to edit and manipulate and everyone has Microsoft Excel or a spreadsheet program of some kind. Plus, and this was key, I can use it on my smartphone and laptop without losing data if I buy another phone or change equipment. The file sits on my cloud.

I'm tracking egg production daily, weekly, and monthly right now and am curious to see what I end up caring about the most. Also, I have information on each chicken as well; name, hatch date, breed...etc. I can add any fields I would like. I love it.

So, here is where I stand right now: I have nine chickens: four hens, one cockerel and four pullets. The hens all started laying in December and have given us 71 eggs in the last five and a half weeks. Mike is the best layer even though she started producing a couple of weeks after Servo and Gypsy. Crow is my worst layer, and loud, and a general pain. She gives us tiny, speckled eggs that are almost all yolk and she refuses to lay them in the nesting box, laying them in the far corner of the coop so I have to crawl inside to retrieve them. I love her the same as the rest of them though, I can't help it.

Servo's first egg was a rubber egg (very cool and weird) and she's laid nice large eggs since. Mike has laid large, dark,  speckled eggs from day one and is going strong. Gypsy was the first chicken to give me an egg and it was pretty small and they've stayed small. Week one was only four eggs, but there were only two chickens laying. Since then, we've jumped to 18 eggs last week and 10 so far this week with three more days to go. Very exciting.

The average daily count is two eggs, but we have had one day with four eggs collected. The count has grown weekly with more chickens starting to lay.

The only time all four laid in one day. The owners of these are (clockwise from the dark speckled egg with a piece of straw on it): Mike, Servo, Gypsy and Crow gave us the little one.

Our other chicks hatched November 18th, 2015 and I already have them added to the workbook. I am anxiously awaiting their first eggs as well.

The most interesting things to learn since they started laying eggs has been: (1) it's fairly easy to tell who laid the egg by looking at the egg, (2) even though it's the dead of winter and short days, they lay well. I can't wait until the Spring when things pick up even moreso, and (3) eggs are different than when you buy them in the store, not only in quality, but the hardness of the shell and the yolks are very firm as well as deeper in color. If the egg is small, it's still a good yolk, just less egg white is produced.

All of this has been completely enjoyable to learn. I am looking forward to chickens other than Orpingtons laying, so I'll have even more interesting data to share and compare.

If you're interested in tracking your flock in the same way, take a look here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/262286707/tracking-your-flock-2016-spreadsheet

Amelia - Learning Experience #2,082

We have finally settled into having the five remaining chicks from my coworkers original gift in November. I've rehomed 6 and 1 died out of the original 12. Not bad and I'm very happy with the five remaining. As we've tried to figure out the gender/breeds, it's certainly been an adventure and one of our favorites, Amelia, it turns out is not what we had thought. I was determined that she was either a White Plymouth Rock or a Leghorn. As she has grown, she has gained quite a bit of weight, then her ears showed red, I thought making it clear she is a White Rock, for sure. Last weekend I noticed Amelia didn't have much feathering on her breast area. Out of concern, I posted a couple of pictures on www.backyardchickens.com (their forums are an amazing source of information) and quickly got a reply pointing out that she looks like a Cornish X (see pics below).

Amelia looking all gorgeous in the yard.

Amelia's lack of feathers on her breast.

This is not good. A Cornish X is a meat bird, specifically bred to harvest between 4-8 weeks and grow very fast and large. They are not kept as pets or layers generally, as they start having health issues soon after 8 weeks if they are not harvested due to their fast weight gain. Heart problems and leg issues start usually around that time.

One thing I've read about Cornish X that is not the case here, is that they have no personality and just eat and eat. She clearly eats quite a bit, but she's also the mother hen of the chicks. She's their leader and the other 4 follow. When I need them all in for the night, I pick her up and carry her in and they all follow. If I picked up Turtle, it would take them a little bit to notice, except that she would squawk like mad. Amelia is very mellow. When I pick her up there is minimal complaint and she immediately settles into my arm. Weighing her was very easy, as she just stood on the scale and looked at me, waiting patiently. She's a very sweet girl.

Unfortunately, since I have figured out Amelia's breed a little late, she already weighs 6 pounds and does a lot of sitting around. I do free range her when I can and she walks fine right now, with only a little more of a waddle then the other chicks. I have been feeding her chick starter along with the other chicks as well. But this all needs to change and quickly. If I'm keeping her as a layer, she needs diet restrictions and exercise, stat.

So, here is the plan, this weekend is a 4 day weekend for me and I'm going to make some chicken changes.

1. More free-ranging which means fixing this one place in the fence where the chicks could fit through and visit the neighbor who thinks chickens are delicious.

2. I'm going to start to ration feed to certain times of day. I have had feeders out at all times for all the chickens and this hasn't been an issue until Amelia. She's just too big and shouldn't be allowed to eat whenever she wants.

3. Fix an area where Amelia can be away from the other chicks so they can have more access to food and try to go ahead and integrate her with the larger hens sooner than later. They free-range more often and her size keeps her from escaping the fence like the little ones can. Right now though, they would peck her, because they're jerks. They're getting better, but Amelia's brothers getting pecked was my last big learning experience. So, they've been around each other the last few weeks, just separated by fence, I'm going to babysit while they spend a little more time together and see how it goes.

I'm bracing myself for Amelia to not live very long. I understand the risks of keeping her as a layer instead of finding someone to harvest her. I won't let her suffer, so if her legs start to go or she seems to be uncomfortable, I'll have to put her down, but at this point, she seems happy and needs some extra rules.

Crossing my fingers. :-)

Here Are My Doodles

I had been thinking and researching having chickens for longer than I'll admit, but something kept me from diving in, insecurity maybe? But on May 3rd of 2015, I went for it and picked up some Buff Orpingtons at Southern States. They were super tiny and adorable. I bought seven because it was what they had left and six is the minimum here. I rehomed three of them to a friend of mine whose sister has a farm and the remaining four stayed with me, at my little house, in the middle of the city.

They sucked me right in and I am absolutely in love with them. They have been wonderful to watch grow and see their personality differences. I started naming them when I reached the point I could tell them apart. It's still a challenge, so at 5 months old I banded them, but here they are:

Name:  Mike
Breed: Buff Orpington
Hatch Date:  May 1, 2015
Started Laying: 12/24/15
Individual Details: Mike is the largest of my Orpington hens. Her comb came in the earliest and the darkest, but is not the smallest of the four. It looks very rock-n-roll, I think. She's the easiest to take pictures of, but Hates being picked up. She lets me have it when I move her somewhere or have to check her out for some reason.

She is turning out to be a solid layer and her eggs are easily distinguished from the rest, they are large and dark with darker speckles on them. I've noticed she likes to keep sitting on the eggs for up to an hour after she lays them. I predict a lot of broodiness in her future.
 

Name:  Gypsy
Breed: Buff Orpington
Hatch Date:  May 1, 2015
Started Laying: 12/11/15
Individual Details: Gypsy is the most cooperative of these four. She lets me pick her up with relative ease and (as you can see in the picture) runs towards me frequently to see what I'm doing. She was also my first layer. She lays very small, light colored eggs that are all yolk, it seems. But she is consistent. Even though it is December, she has given me 13 eggs in less than 4 weeks.

Name:  Servo
Breed: Buff Orpington
Hatch Date:  May 1, 2015
Started Laying: 12/12/15
Individual Details: Servo started laying the day after Gypsy and gives me my largest eggs. Her first was a rubber egg, so that was fun, but since then, they've been large and a light color. She is our funniest Doodle. She was the first to realize there was fencing between her and the dog and ignore her. It was quite funny. Scaring the chickens is one of our Doberman's favorite past-times. Servo is also friendly and is always following my husband and I around. Her comb also developed the slowest, but she was one of the first layers, interesting. She was also the first hen to become fertile once my roos got old enough to chase her around.

Name: Crow
Breed: Buff Orpington
Hatch Date:  May 1, 2015
Started Laying: 12/27/15
Individual Details: Crow is my troublemaker. She is loud and squawky. She seems to always be letting someone have it. She was the last of this group to start laying, but is finally starting to give us tiny eggs regularly. She is also the reason everyone got their wings clipped at five months, as she decided to visit my neighbor.

Crow's butt

In November, I inherited some chicks from my workplace (as I've
written about in previous blog posts) and I have named and kept five of them to add to my flock.

Here they are:

Name: Amelia
Breed: White Cornish Cross
Hatch Date:  November 18, 2015
Started Laying: Too Young
Individual Details: Amelia has been one of my favorite from the first week. She was the first to start flying out of the brooder (hence the name) and loved to roost on the edge and check everyone out. She and one of my cats would go eye to eye, just trying to figure each other out. It was adorable.

Amelia getting her scratch on

She seems protective of the other chicks. I've noticed she will sit in the entry of the small coop they were in between them and my older hens, who are peckish with the young ones. I have to babysit if they have access to each other right now. She's just lovely and very big. Being a meat bird means she's bred to gain weight rapidly. She's up to about 11 pounds now, but amazingly, the feathers on her belly and bum are grown in now, for the first time. I think she's doing well. Her waddle is entertaining as hell, but she seems healthy.

Name: Turtle
Breed: Rhode Island Red Bantam
Hatch Date:  November 18, 2015
Started Laying: Cockerel
Individual Details: Turtle stole my heart the day I brought him home. He was the last to hatch and kept falling on his back and couldn't roll over. So the other chicks would peck at him. We managed to protect him and he has been eating, drinking and growing, although much slower than everyone else. It took us a couple of months to realize that he was a bantam and a he. He is super high strung and pretty hilarious. This is Turtle's attempt at crowing. He's getting better! He has finally started fertilizing the ladies. His attempts on Bonnie are fairly entertaining, but my son says when he came home from school today Turtle was getting it on with Bonnie and she wasn't fighting it.

Name: Rufus (formerly Rubeus)
Breed: Jersey Giant
Hatch Date:  November 18, 2015
Death Date: March 4, 2016
Started Laying: Cockerel
Individual Details: My sweet Rufus passed on from reasons unknown. I found him sitting quietly in the evening, away from everyone else and he was gone by the morning. He let me pick him up and was a sweet boy. I was looking forward to seeing his beautiful feathers on his giant body. He was my first loss and I will forever remember him.

Name: Pearl
Breed: Australorp
Hatch Date:  November 18, 2015
Started Laying: Too Young
Individual Details: I have wanted an Australorp from the beginning, so I was very excited to figure this one out. She is just lovely and very healthy. She does pretty well letting me take some close pictures of her, as you can see. She has that stunning green sheen on her feathers and is growing into a gorgeous hen.

She's pretty mellow and doesn't really get involved in drama. So when I heard her sing the hen song the first time, I knew she was serious. :-)

Name: Bonnie
Breed: Barred Plymouth Rock
Hatch Date:  November 18, 2015
Started Laying: Too Young
Individual Details: Bonnie is just lovely and so far a pretty easy chick. She's the most mellow of my newest chicks and I definitely would like another one. My husband and I both love her colors and think this breed is a lovely hen. I'm looking forward to seeing her grow. She's starting to fly around a little bit, just like Amelia and I'm curious to see how that goes. I see me clipping their wings as soon as I can. Living in the middle of a city on a main road means keeping them safe and in the fenced-in yard!

Name: Stevie
Breed: Partridge Cochin Dad/Cochin Mom
Hatch Date: February 24, 2016
Started Laying: Too young
Individual Details: She is so far very sweet and fairly quiet. She likes to fly onto the edge of the brooder and hang out and then she naps. At three weeks though, what can you expect.

She was my very first chick to hatch though and is very special.

Name: Rico
Breed:Blue/Black Maran Mix
Hatch Date: March 10, 2016
Started Laying: Cockerel
Individual Details: He's freaking adorable. Seriously, James and I are over the moon for this guy. He is the only survivor out of a hatch the had a heat spike. I lost all the other 17 eggs, which was heart breaking. We're keeping him, even though he's a roo.

Bonnie and Turtle taking a nap. Turtle has reached his fully size, more than likely and Bonnie still has more to go.

The four remaining of this hatch, looking adorable and hanging out.

We also have a few other pets; two cats (one loves the chickens, the other would love to eat them) and a mixed breed Doberman named Elly. We didn't allow her access to the chickens for the first six months. After that we allow them in the same space in the yard if we're also outside. She does well with them, chases a bit, but never nips or even opens her mouth. She loves the chicks and wants to mother them the way she does kittens we fostered recently. It's pretty entertaining.

So these are all my Doodles. They are great fun and it almost maxes us out for chickens. We could probably fit a couple more with the combination of the new and old coops. We have 40 square feet of coop, 100 square feet of run, but we mostly let them free range in our yard during the day with the 6 foot chain link fence. So far we've had one fly over, Crow, but see this happening with Bonnie soon!

I Love My Refurbished Chicken Coop - Post #1

A couple of months back my husband and I made the decision to tear our back porch off the house. We saw that underneath was a concrete patio and the wood deck was rotting, badly. The previous owners had built it, but never stained or protected the wood. We did some work when we moved in, but it seemed to be too little too late. This has turned out to be a wonderful blessing! From the wood we have built garden boxes, small projects and our amazing new chicken coop.

There is still some work to do in the Spring, when the weather is more cooperative for painting. We inherited these chicks, so we clearly have to build them a home.

This is my daughter pushing the cart with the few supplies we had to buy. It was about $100 in supplies. We ended up making a couple more trips for about $25 each.

Here is the beginning of framing it in. The legs, base and some of the framing wood is pulled from the deck. New studs were purchased on our first run to fill in the 2x4s. The deck didn't have a lot of 2x4s, mostly 2x8s and 1x6s.

This is my favorite part of the coop. My sweetie designed and built a nesting box I could access from the patio, just my short self.

Here's the inside, with a 2x8 board separating it into 2 boxes. I plan to hang a curtain giving it a little more privacy. But we have had one chicken (Mike) pay an egg in it already!

Here is the inside with the cool roost I built when my sweetie was still in bed in the morning. I'm super proud of it. :-) I also painted the floor with a bunch of sample paints I have remaining from painting the house. I just tossed them all together, not caring about the color.

Here's where we are right now. We have most of the siding, but we ran out of boards. We're going to have to grab couple 1x6 boards to wrap that up, but we covered the holes with plastic for the time being. 

Here's how they slept the first night transitioning from the old coop. I blocked them from the old one, putting the new chicks in that one. Two chickens slept in the new nesting boxes and the other two slept here, in the open door. Tonight, I think I'm going to block them inside as it gets to about 30 degrees at night right now.