Holland Lops

This past year has been crazy with all the chickens and yard work. We finally finished our shed and got the smaller coop built. I did not end up building the chicken yard, thank goodness because we are now raising and showing Holland Lops. (I biasedly have to say...the cutest rabbits on the planet!)


We are currently at 17 seniors/jrs with 13 kits in the nest boxes. I built a nice little 14 hole rabbit hutch on the side of the shed, but if you had to double check the math, yes, we are in need of more space! Some of my juniors are doubled up and that needs to come to end this next month, so its to the drawing board with a design that should hopefully add a 16 hole enclosure with a spot for my daughters Flemish Giant. (I don't understand why anyone would want a 25 lb rabbit, but she does.)


Here is the picture of what I built originally. It has 7 holes across a 12' space. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I learned a few things that I absolutely hate about it that I will fix with the next go round. This is a shot from the front (back end is butted up to the shed). I fully enclosed the area with hardware fence and doors with latches so I can lock them if needed and for predator protection. And yes, that is a silkie being curious in the bottom right of the picture.

Lessons Learned:


1. I built 18x30 cages.  Nothing like trying to grab a rabbit that doesn't want to come out and having to reach in across 30". Next set up will be 24x24.


2. I hung the cages on the top row and love it. The ones on the bottom sit on  2x4s and I know I will have to replace them down the line. (Yuck, rabbit pee and poo mess to replace sounds awesome!)


3. Build more deck/walk space...you need it.


4. I am going to install auto water system. This won't help in the winter, but will be nice in the summer.  Only concern I have with that is you loose the ability to monitor water intake which can indicate sickness, but I will touch on that with my attempt to rescue another breeders doe story later.


5. Need a space for feed storage. It sucks to have to get all the feed/hay and haul it over every morning/evening.


So in the mean time, this houses my buns. Eventually I think I will put most of the does in here and house the bucks/jrs out in the new facility when it is built. Twofold on this reasoning.
1. I used all the save a kit wire on these cages
2. Bucks are messy...so they can move elsewhere lol.


Here are some cute photos of my newest kits.

Shadows Kits

Peanuts Kits

Won a Chicken Coop!

I won a chicken coop this last week!  I know what everyone that knows me is thinking...why do you need another chicken coop?  I could list a million and one reasons to that question, but the simple and easiest answer is "I don't, but my chickens and children will love me for it."  I am ever grateful and thankful that the wonderful people at mypetchicken donated this amazing gift and I was fortunate enough to win this gift.  It made both mine and my oldest child's day.





Now, that being said, I have to address the downside of winning something.  The down side is not really a downside, but a "cost" per say of said win. Example: Win a car, pay insurance and taxes on said car.  Win a trip, pay for dog sitting, eating out, and misc items on said trip.  Moral is, winning is awesome, but not free :) So, in going with this philosophy, I now find myself re-evaluating the chicken area and the need for a run to the new coop.  I want an individual enclosed run fully protected, but I also want an open "free range" style run for some more active roaming. This has lead me to the following sketch concept. (Forgive my use of power point.)










The hardest part is wanting to leave an open concept while protecting them the best I can. I am considering some sort of angled out top to the fence, but being that I live in a subdivision (no HOA) I want to make sure it is aesthetically pleasing to anyone that can see it.  (Barb wire loops at the top or razor wire sounded like a win, but kinda gives off the Fort Knox or Walking Dead look.)


So it appears my chicken yard endeavor is far from over. This week is shed work and then we start the chicken upgrades.

The Most Expensive Egg

So about a year ago, my oldest convinced me that she had to have a chicken or two.  I'm not objectionable to animals per say, but we live in a subdivision (no HOA thank the Lord!) When we first moved in, our neighbor on the left had a lonely hen, but after a close call or two with our Shepherd (the hen was free range), the neighbor gave her away. Our other neighbors are friendly enough..you know the kind. The neighbors that only wave when you wave, that seem to quickly disappear into their home as fast as they can, the ones that never come to a party at your house or invite you to one at theirs.  Oh, and did I add, the neighbors I had to inform within a week of moving in that their shed was 8 feet on my property and their beautiful trash can apron off their driveway was also on my land?  Yeah, those neighbors.

So for a year and a half I managed to blame those neighbors for the reason we couldn't have chickens.  Plus I am sure the county really doesn't intend anyone in our area to have them based on zoning, but try to explain zoning to your kid. As luck would have it, one day she comes running in the house excited about how I have to walk back behind our house and see what a house a few places over from us has.  Low and behold, the home behind us and to the west had a whole flock of chickens roaming their yard. (We have a hill in the back so we can see in all of the yards behind ours).  When I say a whole flock, I am talking like 30 or more chickens!  At this point I could see I was fighting a loosing battle, so I caved.

I laid out the ground rules.

1. Kids take care of the chickens.  Feed/water/clean up.
2. We get breeds I want.  My daughter only wanted a silkie for show. What the heck is the point?  Their eggs are the size of a ping pong ball and they only lay infrequently. Now admittedly, she doesn't eat eggs so she didn't care.  I care.  If I have to house a darn chicken, I want eggs!
3. If the neighbors complain or the county complains, the chickens are gone.

4. When they stop laying, they go to a new home or the stew pot.

5. Repeat #1 over and over...these are not MY chickens.

So this spring after much research we decided to hatch our own so we can hand raise them. A $150 incubator later and $148 in eggs, we now have 42 chickens around 3 weeks old. Yes, 42.  Don't ask, just accept that chicken math is exactly as it sounds, nuts!  Spent $80 on special breed eggs for chickens that lay different color eggs, $18 on more olive egg laying chickens, and another $50 for show quality silkie eggs.  All together we had 72 eggs of which only 35 hatched. 

I know what your going to ask next, yes I said we have 42 chicks. Well of the 35 that hatched, 3 died within the first two weeks due to accidents/natural causes.  (Did you know chickens are worse than human babies...chicks can drown in less than a cm of water!)  So that got us down to 32.  The silkies we bought were only in white, and my kids wanted to show different color silkies.  Craigslist to the rescue.  $50 later, we now have 10 more silkie chicks in blue, black, partridge, and white (was supposed to be buff, but white it is). 

So here is the best part of this story, we still haven't even touched on the cost of materials to build a coop, brood the chicks, or if any of the 42 chickens are even females!!! By the time we are all said and done, I would say we are into this for over a $1000.  Did I mention that they don't start laying for another 3 months....but what the heck, who can place a price on cuteness?

Here are some of the silkies from the CL ad.  The ones that were yellow were supposed to be buff, but have sense turned white.


When you sit back and add all of that up, you realize there is no way you will ever see a return on investment if this is a home egg eating project only.  (Did I mention my lovely girl scout leader had to rub it in that Aldi had eggs on sale for $0.39 a dozen?)  I guess my roughly $5-10 a dozen eggs don't sound so appealing anymore.....especially since I won't get any for another 2 months...

Introduction

Buying a home is one of the American dreams. The place you can call yours, the place where your family will grow up, memories are made, and money is spent.  Wait...what?  I said it...money is spent.  Don't get me wrong. I love my home and am happy to call it mine (well, technically the banks, but lets be a little positive here.) The thing about owning a home is now you have the chance to make it yours, to customize it, to change anything you want.  And boy does that cost some serious dough.

Take for example my newest projects, a shed and a chicken coop.  The shed was a necessity fueled by the American need to cultivate a yard, grow a garden and own stuff...lots of stuff. My house is a nice size at 2200 SF of finished space, but lacks a garage or place to call home to all of the tools necessary for yard work and home renovation projects. Right now my lower level living space is my shed.  The tools are piled in the room and overflowing onto the couch down there. I think the tools can officially call the couch their domain. (Who buys their tools a couch?  Oh yeah...I do.)

Add to that my children and their endless need to own every creature created we are also housing chickens.  Yeah, those "oh, aren't they so cute and fluffy" miniature manure making stink bombs.  I swear I thought dogs and cats smelled, but until you house baby chicks in your home you haven't smelled anything!  So like the wonderful mother I am, I agreed to chicks, which means a coop, which means more money.  (Hey, money is paper, paper comes from trees, therefore by my kids argument, money grows on trees...I wish.)

So back to the reason I started this blog.  The following posts are some of the projects I am currently working on and as I go along I plan to post some older projects I also worked on. I wanted to start this as an almost scrapbook of how my house will change over the next few years.  Either I will look back at this with fond memories or I will cringe at the thousands spent.

Here is a picture of my house when I first bought it.