Thursday, March 25, 2010

The never ending project...


No rain today meant I could do a little more on the coop tonight after work! Yay - trench digging! Seriously - the things that make my day are starting to scare me :)

The plan calls for either a 12 inch deep trench to bury the hardware cloth OR "burying" 12 inches of hardware cloth on the surface by bending it away from the coop at ground level - to help keep out predators. I chose the trench option, but I didn't dig down 12 full inches - more like 6 and I will bend the hardware cloth so it goes out across the bottom of the trench too. Hopefully this works OK. I don't really have the right equipment for digging a 12 inch deep trench. I may look into a post hole digger tomorrow, or I may call it good and start putting on the wire tomorrow night.

I was also able to get dirt into the last bed I put in - I planted some of the overage red peppers in one end and Yukon gold potatoes in the other end. I think I am going to try to add some blackberries along the fence in front later this summer, but it depends how far I can stretch the garden funds :)


The chicks are really amazing me - they grow soooo fast. They are starting to get feathers on their backs and breasts now in addition to their tails and wings. They also eat like machines. I filled the quart jar of food for them last night before I went to bed and before I left for work this morning I had to fill it again - it was nearly empty. By the time I got home tonight it is nearly empty again! I clearly need to get a feeder that holds more than a quart! They still don't really seem to be bonding to us - I am afraid they think Oliver, our cat, is their mother! He sits by the brooder all day and watches the chicks so they are used to him standing guard. I guess that is OK - they know we bring food, I am not sure "lap chickens" are really what we want anyway. I am starting to think Pouf (behind Cadbury in this picture) may be a rooster - how funny would it be to have a rooster named Pouf! :)



2 comments:

  1. A friend of mine who's a professional dog trainer recalled having seen chickens that were trained with 'clicker training'; which is positive reinforcement using a 'click' sound to mark when the animal has done well, and to bridge the time it takes to put food in their mouth. You might want to try looking it up?

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  2. Worth trying! The only challenge is that once you pick them up they are too nervous to take the treat form you - even if they were eating it jsut before being picked up. Maybe if we clicked before putting them back down?

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