Q & A and a Chicken Update
I’ve been getting lots of emails from folks wanting to know how The Girls have been doing. I’m always afraid of posting too much about them that I end up not doing so for months. So yesterday we wrangled them up and took a few photos. Here’s Ruby (above) our sweetest girl who sometimes acts like she’s our dog. And even though she’s the runt she lays the biggest eggs. Don’t know how she does it! She’s also the most curious and I’ve even found her perched on the family room mantle. We get a lot of laughs with that hen!
The Twins, Marshmallow (left) and Souffle (right) have had quite the summer. Marshmallow is our broody bird, meaning she sits on the nest all day and will even settle on top of the other girls eggs. We’ve had to “quarantine” her in an outdoor airy pen for a day or two to stop the broodiness. It works like a charm and each time she goes back into the flock like nothing happened. Her twin Souffle is best friends with Lola (below right). They stick together all day and at night Lola will sleep on the perch with Souffle tucked underneath her wing. So cute!
Butter (left) is still our squawker. She sort of acts like a grumpy old lady with her quiet clucking murmurs when you approach her. Sometimes I wonder what the heck she’s saying in her native chicken speak. She’s also very greedy and fast with the treats. The others have to be very quick or else Butter will get the worm…or carrot or corn kernel. But she is very reliable laying petite pinkish brown eggs almost daily.
Which brings us now to our dear Lola. You might remember my shocking discovery a few months back, well Lola is still laying eggs without shells. We’ve tried giving her more oyster shell, more sunshine, calcium, etc. and none of it seems to work. The Man wants to barbeque her and taunts me saying she’d be very delicious because she’s so big and plump. Terrible!
The Girls and their home Chez Poulet also got a very nice little feature story in Country Living Magazine this summer! Looks like the chicken craze has really hit the nation. Go homesteading!
And lastly, we’ve decided to add a perimeter fence around the coop. To be honest, dealing with the droppings on my patio just wasn’t for me. We still need to level the dirt and add lots of plants for them to wander about. I’ll be sure to post photos when all the landscaping is complete!
And since I get so many chicken email inquiries…I thought it would be fun to take your questions! Do you have something you’ve wanted to ask me about the chickens, coop or our suburban farm life? Just ask away in the comment section and I’ll answer them there!
56 Responses to “Q & A and a Chicken Update”
They are just the sweetest things! I would LOVE to see pictures of their eggs, are they all the same colors or do the different hens all lay different colors?
My question for you is what plants can you put in the chicken coop area that they wont eat. I have eleven chickens and are moving them from one coop to a new one that my husband is building and would love to landscape a little, however in the old coop the chickens would eat anything near even the morning glory vine along side the coop.
Hi Marianna,
They all lay different color eggs. Here’s a post with a photo of them:
http://heatherbullard.typepad.com/heather_bullard_collectio/2011/02/on-being-neighborly.html
They lay green, blue, dark brown, light tan and a pinkish brown. I bought each breed just for their egg color and temperments!
Smiles! ~H
Hi Karen,
I’ve found that my chickens won’t eat my roses so I plant lots of icebergs. And they don’t eat any of my herbs (with the exception of parsley) so I plant lavender, rosemary, etc.
And they seem to stay away from boxwood, hydrangeas, geraniums and camelias so I use those in the garden as well.
But I’ve read that chickens have different “tastes” so experimenting has been the only way for me to find out.
Hope you find what works in your garden and for your hens. How nice they’re getting a new coop built by your hubby!
Smiles! ~H
The hens are beautiful and I clicked on the comment link to their eggs and they took my breath away!! I hope to buy local eggs like yours when I get settled in my new mountain town!!
Ruby reminds me of my Rusty and it is so true…Rusty was part of the dog family. He would hear the dogs bark and run down the hill and he would do the same, making a weird noise and going down the hill with them to greet people. He ate out of a dog dish too. Rusty had one eye and the other chickens did not accept him so he was my puppy. Unfortunately the Raccoon decided to take him one night I will never forget my Rusty. Love the chickens. Ciao Rita mammabellarte
I love these pictures, the first ones with the blue background of your shirt are really pretty.
HI Heather 🙂 i hear you’re looking for possible flea market decorators for your next magazine. go here to read all about me http://italianpeasant.blogspot.com/2011/02/from-afar.html
Heather,
Your girls are beautiful. Ruby is stunning. Thank you for sharing them with us! How high have you made your new fence surrounding the coop and how large of an area does it cover for your hens? You mentioned that Ruby was once perched on the family room mantle so I am wondering if your girls will fly over the fence? Thank you so much!
Thank you for taking our questions. I am hoping to get some chickens for our yard but was wondering if hawks are a problem? We live in the city but I notice hawks flying around on occasion. We have 2 Pomeranians and 2 Miniature Pinschers and it frightens me when I see the hawks. Would the chickens be considered prey? That would break my heart if something like that happened.
Your girls are beautiful! I am also considering maybe a couple of Silkies, too. Do you know anything about them?
Hi Elizabeth,
The perimeter fence is 5ft high. The area is fairly large, not sure of the exact dimensions. So far, they haven’t flown over it.
As for the mantle…I think she would jump onto a nearby sofa and then hop up from there. I should share my cell phone pic of her!
Best! ~H
Hi Mott,
Yes, we do have hawks in our area. Our home backs up to a canyon so there are lots of wild animals to consider. I don’t believe a hawk would try to pick up our hens now that they are grown. When they were very small chicks we kept them indoors to keep them safe.
But now, when a hawk does fly by they all hop into the bushes to hide! It’s like popcorn, they’re so quick!
I’ve seen photos of Silkies they are so adorable. I believe Brooke from Velvet & Linen blog has Silkies. You should check hers out!
Best! ~H
Your girls look happy and healthy….how could they not…look at the home and company they keep….sweet!
Have a wonderful day
YES HAWKS CAN GET CHICKENS .MY SON HEARD A NOISE IN THE CHICKEN HOUSE AND WENT TO LOOK AND A HAWK WAS IN THE COOP .GOT IN THRU THE LOW DOOR CHICKENS USE. HE KILLED THE HAWK AND SAVED THE CHICKEN
we have a squirrel that got in the coop , pried open a coffee can lid and was caught eating the feed that was stored in the can
ALWAYS enjoy the chicken updates! Your girls look just wonderful! Love the way you made that new enclosure for them. You have me thinking…
xo
Caroline
Hello Heather,
Your girls are so pretty. I have chick envy; I would love to have chicks and Chez Poulet coop.
Thanks for sharing.
Smiles, Paula
Yes, a hawk got my friends chickens and they were a good size.
Your coop is beautiful! I am unbelievably frustrated that I can’t build yours or one like Karen’s at http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com, not because I can’t build but because my stupid municipality doesn’t allow chickens! Any advice on changing that?
Poor Jen..that is such a bummer about your municipality! I would try and petition them to change it. There are so many towns that are embracing the urban lifestyle. I would say with a bit of research about the benefits, others towns allowing them, and the homesteading movement you might have a good argument.
Best of luck to you. In the meantime you can always support your local farmers and growers. Which I’m sure you probably already do! 🙂 ~Heather
I love your chickens! Thanks so much for sharing! We recently just got 7 chicks. They are 5 weeks old now and still living in our dining room awaiting their coop to be finished. Your beautiful coop has inspired us. I can’t wait for ours to be finished so the chicks can enjoy it. I can relate with your sweet Ruby on the mantle, our chickens love to fly onto the buffet and watch us. They are very curios creatures and we are so excited to share our small urban backyard with them. http://www.housingaforest.com/our-house-guests/
I love the article in the Country Living Magazine this summer about the chicken coop. It’s funny I marked the pages to show my husband what I wanted for my birthday. Your photographs are inspiring and can’t wait to see more about the chickens. They’re so cute!
Love, Jody
http://www.rootedinthyme.blogspot.com
http://www.thymeforhome.blogspot.com
Love the chicken stories! Now I have to ask the question that no one will ask. It’s about the smell! I’d love to raise chickens in my back yard but wonder about the odor their droppings will produce. Thanks for just answering and for the great chicken pictures!
Hi Heather,
I have 10 chickens now. 7 of them are only 4months old and not laying yet. I picked up 3 Easter Eggers and they are 1 year old. They’ve been with us for 2 weeks now but still they are not laying. My girlfriend picked up some Easter Eggers at the same time from the same place as I did and she’s already getting a blue egg a day. What gives?
They appear to all get along and mingle with each other so now I’m wondering if it’s something I’m feeding them or not feeding them…..We’re mixing the oyster shells with the chicken feed.
Thanks!
Any hints on how to keep flies away? I scoop out the chick poo each morning, but I still have lots of flies–any advice?
Your coup looks immaculately clean–how often do you clean it out?
p.s. Thanks for the advice on plants—I had a ton of beautiful foliage around the coup and in the fenced in area around the coup when the girls moved in—within days it was gone!
I’m so glad you offered this opportunity for questions! I’ve wondered if your hens destroy your flowerbeds like mine do. Mine scratch all the mulch out, thus I have been forced to keep them penned in the fenced area surrounding their house. Makes me sad, because they love exploring the yard….but not sad enough to allow them to empty my beds of mulch again!! lol
Hi Karen,
We keep our coop and surrounding area pretty clean so the odor isn’t much of a problem. Also, having the coop as far from the house as possible is a good solution for containing it.
Best! ~H
Hi Kaye,
I’ve heard that hens can stop laying if they’re stressed or if heat conditions are high. Perhaps they’re still getting used to their new surroundings. Sounds like you’re feeding them well!
I’d wait a bit before I get too concerned. Also, are you sure they are only 1 year old? Older hens stop laying.
Hope you get some beautiful colored eggs soon!
Best! ~H
Hi Kathy,
We don’t seem to have a fly problem maybe it’s the area you live in? I would try fly catchers because they would drive me crazy. We clean our coop every week. Having it painted completely inside & out makes washing it down very easy. Just a good spray with the hose!
I learned the hard way about the plants too. We quickly learn what they love and don’t love to eat!
Have fun with your hens…Best! ~H
Hi Peggy,
Yes, we’ve experienced the same thing with our hens. It’s their nature to scratch. We just sweep it up or rake it back in.
Also, since we’ve built the larger fenced in area, we let them out on occasion in the early evening into the real yard. That only gives them an hour or two before they march themselves back into their coop for the night. Seems like a good compromise.
Thanks for the question!
Best,
H
Do you feel a bit responsible for the movement to chick ownership? You should. I know your beautiful coop made me want to be a chick owner. AND YEP I AM… I however had a beautiful shed moved to my home and I bought a vintage nesting box. Our girls have been laying eggs for about two weeks.
????? We have 12 girls how many eggs should we be getting a day? Im thinking eggs are hidden in the yard but cant find them.
Julie
PS.. I love my girls and Im glad your beautiful coop gave me the push I needed to comit to it…
Hello !
I positively love when you blog about your feathery friends. Please post lots of pictures of them.
As for Lola…..was the Man joking or……..
Lots of compliments and many greetings from Switzerland
Maria
Heather, I have coveted your coop for quite some time but wonder about the poop, is it hard to clean up, do they go in the same area or all around and you step in it? How do you clean with the hose? I bet I sound silly but that is what is stopping me I guess form getting these little pretties
Hi Julie,
We have 5 hens and get about 3-5 eggs per day. The hens don’t lay every single day. With twelve you’ll be overflowing with eggs very soon! Your neighbors will love you!
Smiles! ~H
PS. If you find them laying them around the yard I would fill that area with scraps of wood or brick or something to keep them from nesting there. It’s not Easter Egg season! 😉
Hi Kathy,
Well..I’m not going to sugar coat this. They’re messy. They’re animals which means they don’t care when or where they do their duty. This is one reason we built a fenced in area around the coop.
As for cleaning our coop…I’m a neat freak. So we remove the indoor ladder and hose it off in the grass. We rake up the droppings out of the sand and refill with fresh sand if needed. Then we clean out all the wood shavings in the roosting house and hose that out too. Afterwards, fresh shavings go in as well as fresh hay in their nesting boxes. All this takes about 30 mins and happens on a weekly basis.
Hope this helps. It’s the same as with any pet. You have to clean up after them. But one great benefit of chickens is they give back. Not many pets do that!
Best! ~H
Heather,
I fell in love with your chicken coop and ordered the plans! I plan to build the coop for my hens but had a couple of questions before I start. How many hens would you recommend for that size coop? I currently have 17 hens but plan to sell some to my neighbors who are wnting some of their own. I wasnt sure how many to keep for myself.
Secondly, i had a question about the materials list from the coop plan. It lists one 2×4 treated. I know this must be a typo. Can you tell me how many I would actually need?
Thanks,
Amy
Hi Heather, We got 7 chicks in April and they have just started laying eggs…it’s been so exciting. The problem is, they lay them everywhere BUT their nesting box! They actually “pig pile” into the nesting boxes to sleep, even though they have 2 roosts! Is there any way we can get them to lay in their nesting box? My 5 year old suggested making a sign “Lay Eggs Here!” but I’m not sure how effective that would be!! Thanks! Elle
Hi Amy,
Thanks for ordering the plans! Hope you love the coop as much as we do.
All the answers to your questions can be found on our FAQ’s page here:
http://coopplans.bigcartel.com/faqs
Best! ~H
Hi Elle,
Have you tried putting in a dummy egg? A small wooden or ceramic fake egg so they see that’s where they go?
Also, I’d try locking them in their pen for a day or two so they are forced to start laying in the boxes.
Ours layed their eggs in the nesting boxes naturally on their own. Although our Ruby has been known to lay them another area once or twice. When we found where she was laying them we just boarded it up so she couldn’t get in anymore.
Hope this helps! ~H
hi there! love the chicken idea & your coop is beautiful- if only i can talk my hubby into building it i will be buying the plans. I was wondering about composting the manure- what is your technique? and do you use it as a top mulch or mix it into the beds? this is the biggest thing that would hold me back from raising some of these feathered friends. We just moved to the country and have 5 acres, so i think trying this out would be fun for the kiddos.
Also as far as predators, i hear we have coyotes in the area, would your design keep those out?
hey heather – i LOVE your blog. your coop is so schwank! i just got chickens in june. they are so great…and will start laying in about a month. do you refrigerate the eggs? i’ve heard different sides of that one. please do check out my blog if you have time. i started it last year and i write about the chickens some, along with all of my cooking stuff.
http://charmcitycook.blogspot.com/2011/07/chickens.html
amy langrehr
baltimore md
I’m glad to hear you say your girls are like pets. We had nine free-ranging chickens for several years. When we would leave our little farm and then return home, our girls would run to greet us and begin cackling excitedly. Their antics kept us in stitches!
By the way, my hubby taunted me quite a few times about tossing one of the girls in a pot atop the stove. Thank goodness, he never followed through. 😉
Liz @ the Brambleberry Cottage
http://thebrambleberrycottage.blogspot.com/
Hi Susanne,
We live in an area with a lot of coyotes as well. The coop is designed to keep predators out. It has 18″ footings and steel mesh throughout the bottom and locks on all the doors.
But you still have to be aware when your chickens are outside the pen roaming…there’s always a chance one of them will fall prey. Can’t stop mother nature…just keep them as safe as we can.
As far as the composting, The Man is in charge of all of that. Have no idea what he does with the poop! But I see him mixing it into a big pile and tending to it like it’s a garden. 😉
Smiles! ~H
Hi Amy,
How fun! You’ll love having hens. We have a little system with the eggs. Each day we keep the freshly laid eggs out on the counter so we can track who’s laying throughout the week. At the end of the night we put them in the fridge.
But I do know you can keep them on the counter for longer periods. I remember Martha sharing that on her show one time.
Best! ~H
PS..off to check out your blog!
thanks, heather. very nice that you actually reply. i am loving your blog and hope you like mine. i’m so inspired by creative, interesting people like you.
one more q: unless you ‘catch’ the girls laying, how do you know who’s laid an egg or, even better, about to? i understand they make a lot of noise while laying, i just wonder if they act differently than normal before or after. of my four chickens, i’ve got a rhode island red, a leghorn and two araucanas…so i will get three different colors. very, very excited. being an avid home cook, i can’t wait to have a cook-off: store bought vs farmers market vs my girls. will do a photo shoot or two, too, i’m sure.
thanks for inspiring me!
Your feathered ladies are GORGEOUS and I’m a tad jealous. I’d love to keep chickens, but I just don’t have the room.
I knew a gal whose grandparents kept chickens, the little cluckers had much more personality than I had ever expected.
thanks for taking the time to reply- working on a compost bin out of pallets
susanne
heather – are there any chicken keeping books you’d recommend? i’ve seen some online and in stores and wonder if you have any that have been particularly helpful.
thanks!
Could you please post some more pictures of your fence around your chicken coop? I’d love to see it. Thanks!
I was given 19 beautiful hens and rooster. Rhode Islands Reds and a Cross Breed. Their wings were clipped and they didn’t know how to get to the nesting boxes or that they should spend the night in the Hen House. Solution, thanks to my friend, Sean,he made walking planks that led up to the nesting boxes. Prior to this they were laying in the hay on the ground. they have now found their “wings” and are roosting in the house at night, after being coaxed with some Scratch Grain and locked in before dark for a few nights. We have an automatic door that closes with a timer.
We also removed several perching rails in the corners of the chicken yard. We used to let our chickens free range, but critters wiped out about 50 chickens last year. They were nesting at night on these rails. After a fatality of a critter grabbing a hen through the fence wire, we removed those roosts as well.
Thanks for the information about the poop. When I first say your clean chicken house, I chuckled, but after reading your rationale about how you clean, etc. it makes sense.
Thanks so much for your posts.
hey heather – my chickens are about 20 wks now…how will i know that they’re going to start laying eggs? i am so excited!!
we’ve had a little drama in our coop (roosters…) but the new girls are now okay in the coop with the established hens.
http://charmcitycook.blogspot.com/2011/10/drama-in-coop.html
thanks –
amy
charmcitycook
I love your coop! So much in fact that I had one similar on a smaller scale built. Now I see the plans are available. I am thinking about building another one just like it in full size however I am in an HOA and nothing can be seen from the street so I had to make mine 5 ft instead of 6. Glad to see updated picture’s of the girls. I was wondering about them a couple of months ago. Thanks for posting and thanks for sharing!
Beautifullll.
I was wondering how these gals handle cold weather, snow, freezing, etc.
Thank you!
Hi Karen, Love your coup and your chick pets 🙂 Do you have a problem with mice? That has kept me from moving forward on having chickens. Thanks for sharing!!
Hi Dee, We dont seem to have a problem with mice. But then, we also keep the coop very clean. Not sure if that helps?
Thanks, Heather
Hi! I am new to your blog and just adore your coop. My husband and I are preparing to begin raising chickens and I wondered if you could share more details on how the chicken coop sliding door and pulley works and was designed. We would like to install something similar as our run is not full height and will make operating from outside the coop far more convenient! Thanks in advance and for all the inspiration you and your girls of Chez Poulet have given us 🙂
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