It’s been a bumpy road, but I am thrilled to finally be able
to post the completion of this coop. If ever someone was as happy about a
chicken coop, I doubt it. This was a learning experience, problem solving and ‘making
it work’ all the way. It actually helped that as we finished it up someone gave
us three red laying hens, so we were forced to finish it and now are able to
see how it’s working.
Chicken Philosophy:
Our chicken philosophy is basically the golden rule; treat
your animals’ right and give them healthy food and they will do the same to
you. Through taking this part of my own food supply into my own hands and
personally overseeing the process, I am eliminating my participation in the
industrial food process for this product. Beyond food, chickens are domesticated
farm livestock that, when raised traditionally, contribute to a healthy fertile
farm.
I realize that raising chickens isn’t an option for all
people. With my backyard flock, I hope to provide four people: two of us here
and two of our friends in town, with eggs. We don’t eat meat, but if we did we
would still have to purchase chicken somewhere else. I am providing my household
with its chicken needs and another household with its eggs needs, everyone with
a small flock could do this. We still need sustainable methods of producing
meat and eggs for all people. Joel Salatin of Polyface farms in the Shenandoah
Valley of Virginia is currently spreading the word about how he does this.
“Our whole culture suffers from an industrial food system that has made every part disconnected from the rest. Smelly and dirty farms are supposed to be in one place, away from people, who snuggle smugly in their cul-de-sacs and have not a clue about the out-of-sight out- of-mind atrocities being committed to their dinner before it arrives in microwaveable, four-color-labeled, plastic packaging… The notion that animals can be raised, processed, packaged, and sold in a model that offends neither our eyes nor noses cannot even register on the average bureaucrat’s radar screen — or, more importantly, on the radar of the average consumer advocacy organization. Besides, all these single-use megalithic structures are good for the gross domestic product. Anything else is illegal.” – Joel Salatin, Everything I Want to do is Illegal.
Polyface farm is a 550 acre meat farm which produces beef,
chicken, pork, turkey and rabbit. According to author Michael Pollan and
Polyfaces other fans, this is one of American’s most sustainable meat farming
operations. Through Salatins’ sustainable biomimicry, nutrient recycling, and
animal rotation techniques he produces 25,000 pounds of beef, 50,000 pounds of
pork, 12,000 broilers, 800 turkeys, 500 rabbits, and 30,000 dozen eggs
annually. He does this without using industrial feeds, fertilizers, pesticides,
antibiotics, growth hormones or trucked-in soil. Salatins faming style is
catching like wildfire within a community of American farmers who are searching
for a way to hold onto their livelihood. We must design our farms to operate
post-oil for there to be any hope of them succeeding.
Reading on Polyface and sustainable Meat Farming:
Raising chickens:
Chickens hatch and become full-grown in one year. Once they
are grown, hens will begin to lay eggs given that they have adequate exposure
to light each day. After three years, the laying will diminish and eventually
the hen will no longer lay. Chicken will live between 8 and 10 years on
average. On a typical, small homestead farm, a farmer would keep a rooster
along with his hens. Every time the farmer wanted to harvest chickens for meat
or replace chickens which had died, he would allow a hen to brood (sit on the
eggs) until they hatched. Or, he could take the fertilized eggs to an incubator…either
way, new chickens. A hundred years ago, your chickens were your chickens…they
gave you eggs and when they got too old, you ate them. Nowadays, there are specific
breeds of chicken that farmers raise separately from their laying hens for meat
birds.
Upon learning what we had about raising hens, Andy and I had
some choices. Did we want a rooster? If we were truly self-reliant and had no
one else to trade with then having a rooster would be essential. But we happen
to have two neighbors who both have roosters, and adding another one to the
noise of the existing birds may get annoying. Also, because the neighbors have
roosters, we could always trade for fertilized eggs from them when we need more
chickens.
Even though there’s no visible different until after a
broody hen has sat on an egg and it’s had a chance to develop, there was just
something about eating a fertilized egg, rather than an unfertilized egg that
grossed me out. It is peace of mind knowing that we’ll never have to crack open
a partially developed egg on accident.
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| Brrrr! Cold and Rainy! |
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| We discovered how to make pretty art flowers from recycled plastic bottles! |
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| The run door, ready to go on! |
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| The three access doors... |
It's important to be able to have easy access to your coop, so Andy and I decided on three access doors. A main door to clean out the coop bedding, a door to easily access fresh eggs, and a door to access the far-side of the coop which we may turn into a storage area.
We found a piece of wood on the property to serve as the run door handle. Below, a plastic tub we used as a window. When the coop light is on, the sun shines illuminating the painted rays.
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| Assembling the coop by moonlight! Hens are coming! |
This is the chicken door, which they will access via a ladder. The coop is placed off the ground to discourage predators and pests from entering.
The roof is corrugated plastic; it allows sunlight to come into the coop
even during colder days when they may not want to spend alot of time
outside.
The chicken door can be drawn up from outside the coop. This makes it convenient for us to let them out each morning, we don't have to enter the run.
Inside the coop are wood shavings, and in the run we put straw on the ground. The Chickens like to scratch and spread the straw; inside the coop the shavings or chips (which we will produce ourselves with a wood chipper) will absorb the liquid waste and be easy to clean out. This time we purchased the chips from a local farm store and the straw from a neighbor.
And they arrive! This coop is an upgrade from the small backyard coop they lived in at their previous home. They are about a year and a half old and once they settle in, they should begin to lay.
We didn't get to choose the breed but these hens were free, these are Rhode Island Reds. We will add to our small flock with additional hens we choose and purchase from local farmers.
It was exciting to see them using the roosting bar we made.
A Video Featuring Joel Salatin and Polyface Farm.
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