Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our coop to yours! 

Buffy

I sat with the chickens for about 15 minutes this morning.  Buffy gave me the gift of jumping up into my lap.  She sat there for about 5 minutes.  Thank you Buffy, I needed that.

The sun is shining into the coop window and casting a beautiful light. Riley seems to like to sit up on the perch in it. 

Riley

Holiday Treats

Chickens will eat just about anything we eat.  I haven't tossed table scraps in the garbage for a long time now.  Natural composters.  Sometimes I buy things especially for them.  $0.82 for a small package of collard greens doesn't faze me.  They love a treat of warm rice, cream of wheat, pasta or oatmeal on a chilly morning.  

 In today's treat pan for the chickens were the greens and and apple.  Red and green.  How fitting.  It sends them into a feeding frenzy and is cures any boredom they may be experiencing.  I keep a couple old baking pans on the counter and fill them up during the day with trimmings from veggies and fruits and old bread.  It makes for happy chickens and healthy eggs.

Here is a list of treats for chickens...

Apples

Bananas

Green beans

Bread

Broccoli

Cabbage

Cauliflower

Carrots

Cereal (low sugar)

Cream of Wheat

Corn

Cucumbers

Fruit

Grains

Grapes

Lettuce/Greens

Melon

Oatmeal

Pasta

Peppers

Popcorn

Pumpkins

Raisins

Rice (cooked)

Sprouts

Summer Squash

Tomatoes

Watermelon

Yogurt (plain)

That's a wrap!

Today we wrapped the run in plastic in hopes of creating a bit of a warm solarium for the chickens and to give them protection from the winter wind.  This will also keep the snow from drifting in and mucking up the sand in the run.  Seems pretty cozy already.  All they need now is a hot tub!  Pampered chickens for sure!

The girls were a bit freaked out at first and wanted nothing to do with being in the run but soon they found that it wasn't that scary.  They then discovered that some green goodies got trapped between the plastic and the hardware cloth and had to gobble up all they could.

We also added a homemade water heater to keep their water from freezing in really cold weather.  It was super easy to make.  My 12 year old son made it in less than 15 minutes.  We haven't had to plug it in yet because the temperature inside the coop has not gone lower than 31 degrees and we haven't had to deal with frozen water. It's simply made from an old cookie tin (Thank you fellow Freecylcer) and a lamp assembly bought at the hardware store for about $7.  Add a 40 watt bulb and you've got enough heat to keep the water from freezing.