The blog of Hope Grows

Check out HopeGrowsFarm.com to learn more about our farm.

Monday, February 2, 2009

First Post - Let's Jump Right In

I'll show you all the parts of the farm as I go along but I'll just jump right in for now on something I recently did.

Here is my "Mobile Hospital Coop Prototype Mark I"







To explain the purpose of this contraption. We have 650 hens in 7 coops. Within each coop there is a social hierarchy or "pecking order" and if you are on the bottom of it you are picked on by the other hens, like High School, so you wind up missing feathers and having exposed raw skin.

This smaller pen allows us to pull the hens that are being picked on and let them get a break. The hens also scratch up the ground and prepare it to be turned into gardens. This pen is actually in our backyard.

It is made of 3/4# PVC pipe and some wood scraps zip tied on for stability. On the sides and top are chicken netting which is plastic rather than metal and a tarp so they can get out of the rain, not pictured is a little roost for them to go up on at night.

They are very interesting to watch and sometimes I'll sit for hours just staring... staring... staring...

Elliott

5 comments:

  1. I like the use of cats to weigh down the tarp.

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  2. Why is their pen so small? Or is the chicken area itself small?

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  3. That's a fine MacGuyver'd up coop you have there, Elliot.

    Do you have a wolf/fox/coyote problem in your area?

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  4. Oooh, that would be exciting if there were some kind of wolf/fox/coyote hybrid there. A Woxote!

    5 days since your last post... Will this blog be dying like the others? Are you some kind of sick blog serial killer? You create blogs so that they can die? Do you get some kind of sick thrill?

    I don't think you need to have the word recognition thing on considering you have to be registered somewhere to post a comment.

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  5. The cats are helpful that way, they also serve as chicken food.

    There are hawks and coyotes, or has I like to call them, Cay-Yotes.

    Jason, its small because its only 10 birds, the ones that need to recuperate. The word verification is off now.

    Thanks for the comments! Go blogging!

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