With the Berry Chicken Auction coming up next weekend, things are in a state of preparation in Snoskred Land. Painting is going on. It was such a gorgeous day on Sunday that the painting went on outside in the sun..
We are building a chicken tractor with coop for the new girls to hang out in – they will live in here for four to six weeks once they arrive. This is mostly for quarantine purposes because we love our current flock and want to protect them from anything the new girls might be carrying as a surprise, but the added bonus is, they will mow, aerate, and fertilise the lawns for us in allergy season when for us, lawn mowing is generally off the table for a bit..
If you want to know more about quarantine, here is a great post about it by The Chicken Chick. Quarantine of Backyard Chickens: When and How – and after that, we will have to introduce the girls carefully. You can read more about how to introduce new girls into a flock here. How do I introduce new chickens into my old flock?
During Quarantine they will be well protected with wire and a wooden coop section, complete with roost. We think the outdoor section touching the ground will be clear of wire at this stage, but we can always change our mind on that. We’re currently debating where the roost is and whether it might be too high with the doors closed, making it hard for the girls to get onto, so that might get moved downwards a little.
Each day, I’ll go out and sweep out the poop which will land on the floor under the roost, and pop in a large kitty litter tray of sand for them to dustbathe in. This tractor can be used long term, which is why I am painting it good. The coop and run have held up super well over the years with our undercoat and Taubmans Endure on top.
In other news, there is a lot of fruit being added to soda water here at the moment. I bought some special ice cube trays from Avon some years ago which take a slice of lime or lemon in the middle. I found them in our recent de-clutter so I gave lime slices a try and found them to be amazing.
The thing that is most amazing.. something happens with the water once you put it with the slice – every drop becomes lime flavoured. So the moment the ice cube starts to melt, you can taste the lime.
I also have been trying some frozen fruits. They work incredibly well – they serve two functions, to cool the drink, and to flavour the drink. Mango is my current favourite but I have also been using blueberries and mixed berries.
My final piece of news today involves a lunch out with girlfriends on Friday in which I heard the awesome news that Karma has come back as a surprise to some of the work people who were involved in making my workplace somewhere I no longer wanted to go. One of them has been seriously demoted and is no longer a manager.
The other one has been seriously demoted and is no longer a team leader. I count this as a WIN for humanity, but it does not inspire me to return, as other things have gone down the toilet extremely quickly for my poor ladies who still remain there. :(
On the way home, I thought I was going to run out of fuel – my Polo has a 45 litre tank, check out how much petrol it took when I got to the station! Two and a half months out of one tank of fuel was pretty awesome, the last time I filled up was at Costco back on 31 August.
Yay for new chickens! I hope they settle well and give plenty of eggs.
I put fruit juice in water too, mostly lemon, but this summer I’m going to try something different I read in one of my novels. Squeeze the juice into ice cube trays, add shavings of zest, then freeze. When frozen add to your water.
For soft drinks like lemonade, freeze some lemonade, then when the cubes melt the drink won’t get diluted.
I had a chicken run similar to this when I was a child. It was bigger as I had it as a permanent run for my 3 chooks but we never mowed the lawn.. Just moved the chicken coup. No floor was great for the hens add they got fresh grass every day with associated bugs etc. I love reading about your flock.. It’s been so long without chickens
We just did the first colour coat today.. I’m a little worried we might be cutting the timing a bit fine, but it has had 2 solid coats of undercoat and the paint we are using does not require undercoat, so fingers crossed we will be able to finish painting it by Saturday night. :)
I’m bit excited about the auction, it is a really fantastic day out in Berry which is such a gorgeous country town. Especially as I have been to two auctions before but the other half never has, so this is his first one. :)