The Story of "The Girls", Part 4

Almost there, folks; just a little more to do on the coop and then I moved the girls in. To hold the bricks in place, my nephew and I laid sand on the floor. I’m also going to be building a complete chicken house inside the coop so I needed to set the pedestals and make the base frame for that before I could actually bring the birds in.

Once that was done, the girls moved in! From left to right in the photo are Cinder, Chowder, Henna, Goldie, Marge, and Roxie.

Ed Rovera

The Story of "The Girls", Part 3

Okay, with the able assistance of my brother-in-law, Jerry Livermore, I finally got my coop built. The mesh it came with was way too flimsy to keep our local raccoons and coyotes out, so I switched over to ½” square galvanized rabbit wire. To further thwart predators and rats, I wrapped the rabbit wire all the way around, including the floor, and sewed the seams with 18-gauge steel wire. I also modified the door to reduce the size of the gaps. This should reduce the ability of rats to enter the enclosure and eat the chicken feed. (The little bastards had a field day while the girls were in the garage.) To further rat proof the coop, I gathered up all the various old bricks I had lying around and put them in the coop as a floor. And, yes, Bonnie and Clyde were my building inspectors

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Ed Rovera

The Story of "The Girls", Part 2

Once my chicks grew into pullethood (is that even a word?) I moved them from the little brooding box in the laundry room to a larger box in the garage. They stayed there until just a few days ago. I had wanted to move them earlier but my chicken coop arrived with missing parts and it took me a month of back and forth with the vendor to get things straightened out. This box is 6'x3'x32" high and I just got them moved into the coop in time. They were seriously overcrowded.

Ed Rovera

The Story of "The Girls", Part 1

I've recently received requests to add my new chickens -- aka, "the girls" -- to this blog. At first, I thought this would be a bad idea. I've since decided it really is reasonable. It makes the name of the blog a bit odd but I don't want to go through and try to reserve something like TheUrbanRanch.com. To heck with that!
So, here's the story in its short form: I grew up with chickens, rabbits, and other farm animals. When I retired, I wanted to get a few chickens and add them to my small petting zoo. In February, I purchased six three-day-old chicks -- three Rhode Island Reds (which was the breed my parents preferred) and three Ameraucanas. Why Ameraucanas? Because the feed store only had three Rhode Islands and I wanted six chickens. Why six? Because three of them are at least nominally my neighbor's chickens thanks to Oakland's three hen per household rule. The one plus to the Ameraucanas is that their eggs are blue and green. As long as they lay eggs the way they are supposed to I think that will be interesting.