Homeschool Helper » Backyard Animals

Our First Egg

amy — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:04:22 +0000

Our chickens laid their first egg Saturday. We were so excited!
It was pretty small, but we didn’t mind.
We all wanted to give it a try, so we scrambled it and cooked it up. Then we divided the very small egg into five bite size portions Honestly, it just tasted like an egg to me, but there is something satisfying about producing your own food in your backyard!

Our Chickens

amy — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:50:39 +0000

Our chickens have been growing and growing. They are so fun to watch. We let them free range all of the time that we are home (which is most of the time). We feed them kitchen scraps, so now they all run up to the backdoor anytime someone goes outside hoping we brought treats with us.

Homemade Chicken Waterer

amy — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:51:21 +0000

This is our homemade chicken waterer. As in the feeder, we used two buckets of different sizes. We cut off the bigger one to 2 1/2 ” tall and drilled 3 holes for wires to hang the waterer. In the smaller bucket, we drilled 4 holes around the top at the level we wanted the water to be inside the waterer. To use it, we just fill up the smaller bucket with water, put the bottom part on and flip it over. The suction holds it all in place.

Homemade Chicken Feeder

amy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:44:55 +0000

Here’s our homemade chicken feeder. We used two buckets of different sizes. The bigger one, we cut off all but the bottom couple of inches. In the smaller one, we cut half oval shaped holes for the feed to come out along the bottom. Then we screwed the smaller bucket inside of the bigger bucket. We added a cone made out of cardboard to the middle of the small bucket. This helps keep the feed going to the outside edges instead of settling into the middle. You could skip this part and just shake it occasionally to keep the food coming out.

Chicken Tractor

amy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:40:16 +0000

Here’s the chicken tractor my Dad built for our chickens. He used almost all recycled materials. He had to buy a couple of hinges and we had to buy the wire for around the bottom. It is 4′x10′ and about 6′ tall. We used regular chicken wire around the bottom because they will only be in that part during the day. We used hardware cloth for screens on the top part to keep them safer at night.

Notice the wheels on one side. My husband is able to move it around the yard by lifting the opposite end and pushing it around. The chickens love to eat the weeds in our yard and they seem to be leaving the grass alone. They are our organic weed and feed!

This is the ramp they use to go up and down. It is on a pulley system, so we can open it up every morning and close them up at night to keep them safe.

We have a separate door to access the nest boxes. Hopefully they will start laying eggs in October.

We have this door on the end for letting them outside to free range when they get bigger. It will also be used to clean out their litter. You can also see some of their roosts.

This is the main access door we use regularly to get to their food and water.

We got Chicks!

amy — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:13:47 +0000

We got baby chicks last week.

Ten of them. They really aren’t much trouble to take care of. They just need warmth, clean food and water.

I figure the kids are learning some science and also about responsibility.

And, with any luck, we’ll have fresh eggs in about 5 months!