My gardeners at work!

Yes, I have four gardeners constantly at work in my yard. They are great at pest control, they work for scratch and pay me! How many of you have gardeners that work hard and pay you for the privilege? I was removing spent peas vines the girls love eating the leaves. Yesterday Larry and I spent part of the day at the Clark County Fair. What a shame to see how the local fairs are diminishing, not nearly the participants that we saw 10 years ago. We enjoyed looking at the hens and I thought why don't they have displays that are pertinent to current interest. Urban hens are getting to be such a big deal yet not one exhibit showing people how easy and fun it is to have your own egg producers on a city lot. I have opened my suburban hen house to visitors on weekends. Since we are two blocks from the farmers market we get a lot of foot traffic on Saturdays. It is fun to share this hobby with others the fairs need to take note and get on board with agriculture for all not just large farm operations but also the urban farmer. My neighbor is not building the most wonderful hen house for her chicks, that she purchased several months ago. They are going to be laying come late fall and another urban hen house it born.

Four hens four eggs

This week was the was the first time we received four lovely eggs in one day from our ladies. They are all laying in the same nest box. I have actually seen two hens at a time in the same box laying. They truly love each other. At night they are roosting so close together that you will see what looks like a hen with two heads. I am not able to tell where one starts and the other ends. Just a mass of "heads, beaks and claws" as my husband Larry would say.

Today is market day here in Beaverton. First farmers market of the year. A local family had parked in front of our home to visit the market and the children spotted the hens through the fence. They asked lots of questions about the hens and left with some eggs for their mothers day breakfast. What fun sharing my hobby with others.

At the market this morning we saw many farmers selling organic free range eggs. The going price seemed to be any where from $4.50 to $6.50 a dozen. I enjoy sharing the eggs with other and have given ours to some of my friends at work. Everyone has commented on the rich flavor and the beautiful color of the yolks.

Meet the ladies

The ladies are now strutting their stuff. The speckled sussex turned out to be a welsommer. Agnes is the gold necked hen on the right. She has little pencil marks on her feathers and is a lighter bodied hen than the other ladies. We have been on egg watch but nothing thus far. They love to come out on nice days to check out the yard. We have set the light in the hen house on a timer to extend the days trying to fool them into laying.

The hens have a yard!

I have extended the roof to cover a larger portion of the hen hard and now placed the 1/4 in mesh wire. The girls now have a predator safe yard. They are coming outside and enjoying a visit to the big yard when we are home to make sure there are no problems. They go in each evening at dark and we close the small door locking them in and predators out. All five girls are sharing the house. Now getting along well. But there was some henpecking going on when we first introduced the two younger girls. My husband and I laughed about all the hen behaviors that have now become part of the english language. Henpecked seen that.

Settling in

The girls are starting to roost on the little perch. They are doing great and the work on the house continues. This portion of our yard contained a grass garden and I decided to put down some bark to give us nice footing through the winter. The bare ground will be the hen yard. The girls aren't coming outside yet. But the ramp was set for spacing configuration.

Moving day!

The older chicks are moving out to the hen house. They were in need of more space and the house was done well enough to move them in. The heat lamp will keep them warm and we have covered the inside vents to keep the temp at 70 degrees now that our nights are dropping into the 40s we don't want them getting chilled. As you can see from the picture the house can along pretty well. Ashley and I spent a weekend finishing it. The front window is recycled as is all the cedar trim. The lower front door opens to for collecting eggs. The window tilts open for additional ventilation. The little door on the lets side will give the girls access to the hen yard.

Feathers wow

Our girls are growing and doing great and at three weeks we are seeing feathers. WOW. This was their first trip outside. This was October and we won't have many nice days for them to come out. They loved the grass and stayed safe under a laundry basket while Ashley and I continued to work on the hen house.

You might be wondering from the last post who the Tucker dog is? He really didn't mean to hurt the chick and was so proud of himself as he rounded the corner of the house with the chick in his mouth. He is a great little mouser and was truly sorry. Who could be upset with such a cute little guy? Paige

Two more chicks

So we started with the three barred rocks, and two buff orpingtons. Unfortunately we lost one of the barred rocks to a encounter with our Dachshund. Poor chick, Tucker is a great little wirehaired dachshund that has a good retrieval instinct. When we spotted the barred rock that had escaped from the brooding box he was quick to retrieve it and brought it to me as I worked on the hen house. He was very proud of himself but unfortunately he isn't very soft mouthed.

We decided we really wanted to get another chick and got these two at the local feed supply, a speckled sussex and a red laced wyndott. They are three weeks younger than the older girls. We will now have five chicks. We are keeping them nice and warm lowering the temp in the brood box by 10 degrees every week. They are two days old and 90 degrees. I have named them after my two great aunts Mildred and Agnes.

Hen house continued

The door was framed large enough to give us good access to the inside of the house for cleaning. The space below the window will be the egg door, giving us access to girls nest boxes. This is going to be a good location with shade trees. Happy Hens are our goal.

Hen house comes to life

Here is the beginning of the hen house. We started by building a frame. The uprights are pressure treated since the will have contact with the elements. We created enough pitch to allow for the snow that we get in the northwest to slide off. As you can see we framed a window in the front and a side door. There is a gap at the back and front to allow for ventilation. We don't want to cook our girls in the summer.