As I plan for the 2017 year of homesteading, I keep running into things that need to be accomplished before I can proceed with garden plans.
Our chickens have been free ranging for a few years. This was my husband's choice. I've wanted to build a run and monitor them to see their habits and to get a better handle on the egg production. In addition, they have made it difficult and more time consuming to manage the garden. This is not a breed we would have chosen. We were in between flocks when someone our son knew had this flock of Phoenix breed chickens they had to get rid of because there was an ordinance in their neighborhood that did not allow them. Our breed of choice is Barred Rock.
These birds produce small white eggs and do not lay one egg per day. The only good thing about the breed in my opinion is that there are a lot of broody hens. The Barred Rocks never produced chicks. They are also very noisy. There are a lot of roosters being hatched and very few hens.
Two projects that must be completed before planting are:
Our chickens have been free ranging for a few years. This was my husband's choice. I've wanted to build a run and monitor them to see their habits and to get a better handle on the egg production. In addition, they have made it difficult and more time consuming to manage the garden. This is not a breed we would have chosen. We were in between flocks when someone our son knew had this flock of Phoenix breed chickens they had to get rid of because there was an ordinance in their neighborhood that did not allow them. Our breed of choice is Barred Rock.
These birds produce small white eggs and do not lay one egg per day. The only good thing about the breed in my opinion is that there are a lot of broody hens. The Barred Rocks never produced chicks. They are also very noisy. There are a lot of roosters being hatched and very few hens.
Two projects that must be completed before planting are:
- Chicken run
- Portable greenhouse.
TexasPrepper2 on youtube has a great design for a greenhouse that I plan to use for the chicken run and you can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DKlXs8iov0
I will run 1/2" hardware cloth around the bottom to prevent smaller chickens from getting out.
The design I'm using for my portable greenhouse is shown here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAcs-uPTC4&t=331s
Mine will be 4' x 4' and I will disassemble it after the danger of frost has passed. I have most of the parts from constructing bed cages to keep the chickens out.
It's still too early for me to start seeds so when I'm ready to do that I'll talk about my seed choices.
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