by Kelli Bowen
It's getting colder, and apparently, we didn’t get the premium winter-invincible chickens, so we needed to upgrade the bougie outdoor sanctuary into something a little more functional.
I am a professional internet shopper and I found several coops to exceed our critters’ needs. Some of the little colored chick-huts had quaint little Etsy-esque touches that no chicken needs but bougie chicken mamas want. Hubby, wielder of the logic sword, recommended we use the semi-dilapidated shed in the back and use my earmarked fluff hut funds to get a less leaky shed instead of the Egg Taj Mahal. He does have a way with reason sometimes, so Hubby and the girls got to shed-converting.
In all of my internet searching, I found an interesting-sounding deep litter method for composting chicken litter in-coop. There are claims that it requires less cleaning, and you can compost the waste in the coop into garden-ready compost by spring. Fresh chicken waste is too high in nitrogen to use directly as fertilizer, so I’m interested to see if this deep litter method yields some usable fertilizer. We’ll try it and I’ll report back.
With pine shavings for the litter arriving via UPS guy, Hubby obtained a couple used windows from a friend who was deconstructing a house and popped them into the shed for ventilation. Chickens need ventilation for dust, ammonia buildup, and generally better air quality. Hubby also saw a hack online about placing a tarp under the roost area for easy waste catching and cleaning, so a tarp is now under their new roost rods. Who doesn’t love a good ol’ internet hack?
We also added a light to try to “extend the day” of the chickens. Hens tend to lay less as daylight gets shorter. We have gone from an average of five eggs a day to 3-4 so we want to keep encouraging our ladies to keep at it.
Voila! A shelter even a Silkie would love. Miss E said it’s so comfortable out there, that’s where she’ll go when she’s in trouble. Since she has crossed over into teenage years, we might want to just want to save time and move her bed out to the coop now.
Whether it’s a bougie fluff hut or a DIY coop, backyard chickens are fun, entertaining, and hopefully are supplying breakfast.
Kelli, a North Dakota girl through and through, has made her home from the eastern prairies to the western badlands with her supportive Hubby, two daughters, and ever-growing menagerie accompanying her along the way.