Monthly Archives: March 2012

I’ve mentioned here once or twice that we have too many chickens. When I say we have too many, what I really mean is that we have too many chickens to fit in our coop. At night, chickens need a spot to roost and our coop was just a little too crowded for all of our laying hens to roost with the amount of elbow room they desire.

As a result, about half of our chicken flock has taken to spending the night roosting on the fence around the little paddock. This drives me nuts because, 1. I think it looks sloppy to have chickens roosting all over the shop and 2. it results in a lot of chicken poop in places where I would prefer there be no chicken poop at all.

It was a problem that has been vexing me for ages and ages and I finally decided that something must be done about it. So a couple months ago, I visited a nearby shed store and ordered a 10×10 shed, custom painted to match our barn, to be delivered to the farm. It was a bit pricey (considering it was going to be fancy chicken house) but I couldn’t wait to get it to the farm and solve all my chicken problems.

After much anticipation it was delivered, and Zac built out the inside with stadium seating roosts and fancy nest boxes.

Then we did what you do with chickens when changing their address, namely we put them all in the coop and made them stay inside for three days and three nights. Of course, they had food and water and we even put in a fan to circulate the air for their comfort.

After three days in their new pad, we opened the door and let the chickens out, and patted ourselves on the back for meeting a problem head on and fixing it. YAY US!

Only, the problem wasn’t solved. Because that very evening, the chickens went right back to roosting on the fence around the little paddock. Huh.

Not a problem. We just waited until they fell asleep and snatched them off the fence and relocated them to their new digs. And we’ve repeated this procedure every night since. Stupid chickens.

On Saturday, we will try round two of chicken re-education camp, only this time we will be keeping them in their palatial coop for five days. I’ll report back on our progress.

In another, more successful campaign, we have figured out a way to keep from having to mow our lawn. In the past, we’ve let the sheep and goats out into the yard every now and then to munch on the grass, but  they were never very systematic about their approach to keeping the grass down. They more our less ran from here to there, nibbling as they went, but never enough to keep us from having to mow.

But even that level of lawn help is no longer an option, because Zac and Caroline have planted all kinds of berry bushes around the property, and we don’t want the tiny, tender plants to become a sheep’s hors d’oeruvres.

We’ve come up with a solution though, that solves both problems. Instead of turning the whole flock out into the yard, we have put together a team of landscapers- namely, the dairy goats. And instead of letting them flit around eating what they like, we put each of them on a 15 foot tie out stake in the areas where we need mowing.

It works like a charm! The goats are thrilled to get to eat the lush, green grass and clover that was previously on the other side of the fence.

Sam looks like she could give birth in the next 5 days or so.

Bertie looks even closer if it’s possible. Check out that full udder!

While his mama grazes, Cam the peanut plays on the rocks and entertains the ladies.