Spring chickens!

We're the proud parents of eight chicks! They're three days old, and they're so cute.

We ordered six hens and one rooster from the hatchery, but they sent us a bonus rooster. Hatcheries often send extra chicks in case some die in transit (which wouldn't be surprising since they're piled into a cardboard box and mailed through the post office almost as soon as they hatch), but all ours arrived alive and apparently healthy.

The chicks are three different breeds, which we picked out because they're good foragers (will find and eat lots of bugs), good egg layers, and relatively friendly, as far as chickens go. One of the breeds also happens to be a good meat bird, but we have no intention of eating any of them. We just want their delicious fresh eggs, which they should start laying in September or October.

The four black chicks are Australorps, and two of them are the boys. Roosters aren't necessary if you just want to eat eggs and not hatch any, but they protect the hens by watching out for hawks and other mean critters, sounding the alarm so the hens run for cover, and fighting off predators if necessary. Since we have two, they'll fight each other when they're mature to decide who gets to be harem boss. The winner will be the papa of any eggs we decide to let hatch to increase the flock. The loser will live on the fringes of chicken society, which is a bit sad. Maybe we'll sell him.

I like the classic yellow chicks best, even if this one was trying her best to fly away from me already. Two of them are Buff Orpingtons, and the other two are Buff Minorcas. They're nearly indistinguishable now but will look different when full grown. (The red spots on some of their heads are just the temporary marks the hatchery put on them to help identify the breeds.)

The chicks don't need much attention for the first month or so. For now they live in the garage in this bin that's set up with food, water, and a heat lamp, and so far they seem very content to spend all their time pecking at their reflections in the plastic and sleeping in a pile. And peeping. The peeping is so adorable. Of all the projects we've gotten into so far, this one is definitely the most fun.

Nothing but the best for our birds

We have a chicken coop! Or most of one, anyway. We started work mid-morning Saturday when our construction crew arrived: Mike's parents (Jeff and Debbie) and twin brothers (Todd and Parker) and their friend (David). I still don't know how the twins suckered their friend into coming along to help, but he was a great sport and knew his way around a construction project, so he was welcome.

Here's Parker, David, and Jeff getting the frame in place. I would like to note that I'm not doing the work in any of these pictures because, having studied and edited the plans, I was job foreman and got to spend most of the day measuring and cutting wood and telling other people how to do the hard labor.

More supporting beams were run underneath, and then the plywood floor was meticulously measured and cut and laid into place. 

The coop is based on rough plans Mike found online, and it was at about this early point that the instructions kind of tapered out and got vague, so we pretty winged it from here on out. Figuring out the roof pitch and how to attach the rafters was a bit challenging, but with Jeff and Debbie's building wisdom it came together nicely. By this time it was also clear what a time saver a nail gun is. If Jeff hadn't brought two, this much alone probably would have taken all day.

As shown above, the coop is not a comfortable height for a person to walk around in. But since the nest boxes will be accessible from the outside, we won't need to spend much time inside there. And keeping the structure small will help the chickens stay warmer in winter.

Plywood boards topped the rafters, and then roofing felt and shingles came on. Although it might have been nice to have a hand in every task, I was thrilled not to have to handle shingles at any point during the day. Jeff and David spend 3 or 4 hours on the roof, Debbie and I improvised a door frame and wood paneling, and Mike somehow persuaded Todd and Parker to take a couple hours and go help him dig a raised bed in the garden. 

When Mike returned, he and Todd built an adorable front door for the coop, and we installed it and completed all the paneling on the front and back sides (including a little cutout in back for the chicken door). And at this point it was 9 pm and we hadn't had dinner, so we packed it up and went to Subway. And then I slept for 12 hours.

The open spaces on the sides will take me and Mike a fair amount of work to finish. The top opening on either side will be a very wide shutter that opens up (with screen underneath) for light and ventilation when the weather allows. The bottom opening will be filled with nest boxes on one side and with a storage area on the other side. We also need to build a series of bars for the birds to roost on at night, fill all the cracks between boards with insulation or sealer of some kind, and paint the exterior. We'd also like to cover the floor with cheap linoleum to help extend its life. As the checkout woman at Lowe's said when she rang up most of our materials Friday, these chickens had better lay a lot of eggs!

Planting seedlings and concrete

We've tried to make the most of the warmer, dry days since the snow melted. We finally transplanted our tiny onion seedlings into the garden (no pictures of them yet), which feels like some version of sending a kindergartner off to school on the bus for the first time. They're too small! The world is too unsafe! But they've been growing inside in dixie cups for two months, so I guess we've given them the best head start that we can. We'll transplant cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts soon, which will clear up room under the grow lights inside for seedy trays of peppers and other warm-season plants.

Our expected shipment of 100 strawberry plants finally got delivered this week. (We're giving 20 or 30 away, which still leaves us with a bounty.) They're not much to look at now. 

So far, we've got 27 of them planted. Apparently you aren't supposed to let them fruit the first year if you want a significantly better harvest in subsequent years, so they'll be all work and no fun this year. But I'm already dreaming of the fresh berries and jam and ice cream we'll be gorging on in 2014. If we ever get to the fruit before the birds and deer do, anyway.

Today I was especially appreciative of the freelance lifestyle. With Mike's family coming over tomorrow for a "coop raising," it was imperative that we get the concrete footers in place today for the chicken coop to stand on. So I worked for a few hours in the morning and then got to spend the majority of the most beautiful day of the year outside, measuring and digging holes for the concrete forms.

Here's the site, with the rough footprint of the coop marked in cement blocks and wood scraps. We're putting it near the old dog kennel so that eventually we can use the kennel as an adjoining, protected outside area for the chickens.

I've heard "measure twice, cut once" before, but today was a case of measuring easily 30 times and pouring cement once. To get the holes the right distance from each other, in a rectangle (as opposed to a parallelogram), level with each other, and level on their own was the kind of mental challenge that will keep me from getting Alzheimer's someday. But Mike and I finally got the 1-foot-tall cylindrical forms in place and poured in the quick-set concrete. By tomorrow they should be dry enough for construction of our 4x7-foot chicken coop to begin!

Those footers still don't look level. But I swear they are.