On Saturday, Jared and Simone spent a lot of time really cleaning the chicken coops. They put the lights up so the chickens will start laying regularly again. They naturally stop producing eggs in the winter with the shorter days. So adding a light to the coop is a way to hack biology so we can still get eggs. It feels so good to get it all nice and clean and everything ready for winter.
I had a couple friends ask me about chickens recently. They asked me "how often do you have to clean the coop?"
Hmm.. I had to laugh and asked Jared how to respond to that. The truth is like once every 6 months. Lol. But that is kinda embarrassing to admit so I think I made something up about every other month, because that is probably what we should do. haha. I actually don't clean the coops. The chickens (and all the animals for that matter) are his thing. And we have a large run so they don't stay in their coop all day and that helps it stay clean since they just sleep in it.
Once Elise had to clean the coop. And these little red bugs started crawling all over her and traumatized her for life. There were thousands and they got in her clothes.
Also, I should mention that if you get goats or chickens, you will probably want some dogs and goats so the raccoons don't murder your chickens and leave the dead carcass in your neighbors yard.
And if you get goats, you will need a cat. Because the rodents really like the goat and chicken feed.
So basically don't get chickens unless you want goats (or a llama or alpaca would work too), Dogs, cat, etc.
Or you can just get an enclosed coop and not let the chickens out of it and in that case, you can prevent murderous animals from eating your chickens, don't need goats or dogs, and can prevent the rodents from accessing the feed.
Anyway, did I talk anyone into getting chickens? haha.
