A few months ago we said goodbye to our barred rock chickens so that we could start over and make a better bigger chicken barn, with the hopes of making some more egg money.
This was the set up that we had, a fenced area for Nova on one side and the chickens on the other with a freezer and food storage in the open area and a larger storage room to the side.
It's a bit hard to describe in words... how we took everything out that we had set up, plywooded the ceiling, added a wall and made the storage/service room accessible from the outside... so I drew out a before and after layout.
Jared spent many hours rewiring the barn to suit the new layout . We didn't keep any of the old wiring when we plywooded the ceiling so he had a clean slate to work with.
Daddy's little helper! IF he wasn't making to much noise :)
Jared was able to install a barrel in the chicken coop so that we could have a water line for the chickens. The barrel is filled from a large tote that is the service room, so water supply is much easier to manage for the chickens. The garbage bags are full of sawdust.
Jared installed a vent and fan so we can get some better airflow in the barn.
A vent, a fan, a waterline, nesting boxes, a feeder and heat lamp all installed!
Hazel making sure the water line is working!
The long awaited day arrived, our day-old chicks arrived at the post office, 50 of them!
Most of them were happy to hang out under the heat lamp, but one was warm enough to explore. Hazel was pretty excited to see them especially when they were moving around. Hazel liked the idea of holding them, but changed her mind once she found out they had "pokey" feet.
Can you hear Hazel saying "there's a chicky!" in this photo? π
Absolutely love these cute chicks!
Once Jared got home he was able to adjust things better for the chicks and install another heat lamp, as the weather was still a bit cooler than we where hoping it would be. It was so neat to see Jared quickly evaluate the chicks and change things that made the chicks so much happier so quickly, I'm really glad Jared knows chickens!
We even let Nova meet the chicks as she was going a bit bonkers trying to get into the barn and see them. She was really good with them! Even herding them if one went out of the group π
I absolutely LOVE watching the chicks! (we even set up a lawn chair so we can just sit and watch π) Though they don't do much they are endlessly entertaining to watch and listen to, they move from warmth to water to food, they chirp, peck at the food, and tap the water line. I tried to capture their movement and sound on video as heat lamp pictures just don't really cut it!
We are really looking forward to seeing if we can make chickens and eggs into a side business and how far it will go!