Just about anything goes! They cannot eat potato peels, avocado, or junky sweet foods. They eat all our scraps from meal prep and what’s left on kids’ plates throughout the day. RAISING HENS REDUCES WASTE: Our hens are spoiled, I will admit it. They actually argue over who GETS to gather the eggs!ģ. They feed and water the hens and make sure they are all safe in the coop at night. TEACHES RESPONSIBILITY: My children are each in charge of their own hens. FRESH EGGS: Not only do our fresh eggs taste better, they are also better for us! They are lower in cholesterol and higher in Vitamin A, omega 3 fatty acids, beta carotene, and Vitamin E.Ģ. Let me give you my top 5 reasons I think this whole chicken business is a fantastic idea…ġ. I mean, what will the neighbours think? However, I’m really only a wee bit crazy. I know right about now, you may be thinking I’m a little bit nuts to put chickens in my backyard. Oh, move-in day was an exciting one! I couldn’t keep my two youngest ones out of the chicken run! That way we could have more hens in a small space. Now that our coop was ready, it was time to find some hens to live in it! Because our coop is little, I decided to go with bantam hens. I clear coated the entire coop, stapled chicken wire in the door window, put on some fancy knobs, and our hen house was finished! I let it cure for 24 hours before I sanded some of the top coat off. I was looking for a shabby chic hen house for our girls! I used an outdoor grade latex paint for the top coat… I wanted the undercoat to be different colours so that when I “distressed” the coop by sanding bits of the top coat off, the bright colours would show through. Now it was ready for some paint! I painted first with outdoor quality spray paint. I sanded the entire piece with a palm sander when I was finished cutting. I made paper templates of all the holes I wanted to cut, traced them onto the bureau and cut them with a jigsaw. Our chicken coop is a dresser, and not a very expensive one, either!Īrmed with a jigsaw and a piece of paper I had sketched my plans on, I got to work… I purchased a bureau from the furniture store for $199 and began to make plans to turn the bureau into a hen house. Our chicks were in fact, ROOSTERS! What luck! We can’t keep roosters in the city!Īfter we found new homes for our chicks, I decided that raising backyard hens was really something I still wanted for my children. Turned out there was a really big problem. In fact, we decided to keep them instead of sending them back to the farm! What could be better than fresh eggs on your plate every morning? In no time at all, the chicks started to lose their downy cuteness, and they grew older. They even liked to hang out with our dog… They found their way into my herb garden from time to time… The chicks loved to snuggle anyone, anywhere! I was constantly finding them in hoodie pockets, and doll blankets. My children were their parents, and they made sure those chicks were safe and warm, fed, and out of danger. They took turns in the night stimulating the weak little Charlotte who barely made it out of the egg alive. Three of our eggs hatched successfully! Annie, TimBit, and Charlotte. It was so exciting come hatching day, we could hardly stand it! The little peeps coming from inside the shells and then that moment when the children saw the wee birds trying so hard to make their way into the world… We did some research, bought an incubator and procured fertilized eggs from my cousin’s farm. I thought it would be fun to hatch chicks with my children and the children that I care for in my home. It all started with a few eggs and an incubator. We have five clucky hens in our backyard, Frenchie, Lil’ Missy, Hermione, Mrs. Those are three sentences I never thought I would write all in a row, but they are all indeed, true. “Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way. This post is by regular contributor Arlee Greenwood of Small Potatoes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |