spring bedding change

Thinking of changing the bedding/litter in the indoor chicken coop to sand in the spring.  Have been reading lots of great things about it and love how the droppings can be scooped out like cat litter.  Looking forward to trying it!

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/09/chicken-coop-bedding-sand-litter.html

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's a cold one again this morning....have been giving the ladies a nice warm bowl of oatmeal in the morning to warm them up after a cold night!

plans to free range!

So currently our chickens are not free range, they live within our inside and outside coop's, which are enclosed.  We have been thinking that it would be nice for the ladies to do some free ranging in the warmer months, allowing them to find all the tasty treats (seeds, bugs, etc) throughout the yard.  So we've started looking into a couple ideas to allow a few ladies at a time to free range safely from time to time.  It is not safe to allow our ladies to free range as we have a large coyote and hawk population in our area and our neighbour is quite fond of toxic chemicals on his lawn, so we don't want them consuming that.
Here are a couple photos of what we're talking about building (well Michael building anyway...not me...)  Final plans yet to be decided...

kitty?

Seems our new barn kitty may have gone AWOL...haven't seen it in a few days and there has been no decrease in food in the barn.  We have a pet door in the garage so it may have decided to go out and no come back in...oh well...back to the drawing board.  Hope it's doing ok...

Garden layout

Here's the layout of the main garden that Michael has created...pretty proud of himself!

Now we just have to figure out seed spacing and how many plants to put in each section.  

Veggies are surrounded by some flowers we will be growing to keep out pests and also that can be fed to the chickens, including marigolds and nasturtium.  Both are packed full of vitamins for the ladies and keep the yolk a nice yellow.

Also going to experiment with a few new things we've never tried before including corn (including a nice heirloom seed called butter popcorn(what!!!??? can't wait), quinoa, ground cherries, etc.)

As a note we will likely be selling our extra stuff that we can't can, freeze or eat...so let us know if you're interested in a supply of anything during the summer, I'm sure we can accomodate.

Name the barn cat!

So we just acquired a grey barn cat with white markings from another barn struggling to feed all the strays around...I have no photos as it has yet to be seen since its release in the garage on Sunday.  Kind of looks like this...

we also have no idea if it's male or female, although that really doesn't matter to us in terms of a name.
"It" will be sleeping in the warm garage with its fire burning stove and keeping away the mice/rats/etc., so that we can keep our hens healthy and vermin free!
So anyway, it needs a name and we need help to come up with one...please post suggestions in comments!

winter, new barred rocks, greenhouse arrived, etc....

I am home today due to a sick little one, and it is actually quite a lovely winter day out there

I also took a few pics of the new barred rock hens that we picked up the other night for free!  They seem to enjoy the snow and winter weather, as they're the only ones hanging out in the outside coop.

The other ladies coming out to check on me as they think I'm giving out treats....which I was of course.

and last but not least, our greenhouse arrived today...which was super quick since we just ordered it on Friday!  Probably won't be assembling it for awhile but will post pics when we do.

Retirement Home

Want to retire to the country? Our hens do. Just took in two beautiful Barred Rock hens that are 2.5 years old from another hobbyist who wanted to retire them because they are 'too old'. I'm pretty certain these ladies actually lower the average age of Lil Acre Farm's flock as most of our girls are over 3 and some definitely over 5. These golden girls are all welcome here!!!

spring on the brain!

With the plunging temps and blast of snow and wind last night we have spring on the brain!  haha

Purchased ourselves a small greenhouse for starting seeds in the next 2 months or so.  Can't wait until it arrives!  

Plan is to park it out between the outdoor chicken coop and the main garden, where it can get a full blast of sun all day!

Michael has worked hard on a plan for the main garden and a list of seeds to be ordered has been made.  Hope to get them ordered next month!  Hope to scan the plan for the garden onto the blog next week!

More eggs!

Been getting 8 eggs a day for the past week, pretty much double the normal amount per day....no idea why...