Greetings from The Coop #8

As the weather turns to rain – basically the next 9 months here in the Pacific Northwest – we start the monthly Hay Day routine. There are few different reasons that we do this. The most obvious one being – THE MUD! With all the rain the coop becomes a real mud pit. Which can actually be a safety hazard for us and the chickens – not to mention just gross. While we all have muck boots for just this reason – it can still get to be too much. And slipping inside the coop is just not something we want to risk even a little bit! The chickens can also get stuck in the muck, and end up hurting themselves trying to free themselves as they can become frantic. And if they get mud on their wings or backs, it can create a whole bunch of other issues.

While I keep saying “mud” the real real of it is that it is not just dirt – but also chicken waste. Which makes the prospect of falling into it even more EWWW. But it’s also not great to have it building up and coating the chickens feet as they climb into their nesting boxes and lay the eggs. The poop is great for the soil and compositing and it attracts bugs and worms for the chicken to munch on, so we do not ever want to remove it entirely (only from the nesting boxes). The hay works to provide a layer a protection for everyone. We have to add an additional layer every 4 weeks or so – depending on the amount of rain we amass.

Another great reason to add the straw is it is a great engaging activity to keep the chickens active. Brain games are super important for chickens to keep them occupied and happy. And like I always say Happy Chickens make Tasty Eggs! The hay bales give them something to dig and peck around in. They can scratch it around and even play in it. It also gives them the opportunity to build up little nests for warmth to take little naps without having go into the nesting boxes. The type of hay we get also is full of grass seeds – which they absolutely love to forage for. Depending on how bad the mud is, we do not always spread all the hay around but leave a part of the bale so that they can climb around on it. They usually have it spread out with a day or two.

There are some homesteaders and farmers that are against using hay as in chicken coops in the winter months. There are two things that they seem to believe will happen – mold and mites. I’ve never understood the mold claim as mold needs to be left alone to grown and the chickens are always moving things around. And in the almost seven years we have been raising chickens and using this “deep litter” method, I have never once seen a mite or evidence of mites on any of our birds. I think some of it has to do with where you are in the world. As different regions have different problems. Another situation that can cause issues like mold with hay or straw is if you have a small run and/or too many chickens for you run. The general rule of thumb is 3-5 square feet per chicken to be considered “free range”. We have about triple this space.

Which ever train of thought you are on, what it really comes down to is that our chickens are happy and healthy. They are great egg and meat producers. When you get right down to it Hay Day is almost always the Chicken’s HeyDey!

Meet the Girls:

Almost all of them have names (and they all start with ‘S’, which is a silly story), with the exception of the barred rocks and the speckled sussex. This is because we have 2 sets of 2 barred rocks (one we call the old twins and one we call the young twins) and a set of 2 speckled sussex that we just call both speckled, because honestly you cannot tell them apart. The rest are in groups. We have the ‘Singers’ – Shania, Shakira and Sally. We have the Firestarters (again a story for another day) – Smokey, Sparky and Sizzle. We then have Savvy – which we saved from a round of meat chickens, when we realized that she might not have been meant to be a meat chicken. And at the moment only one of our ducks is named – Sandy. The 3 ducklings we have are not yet old enough to know for sure if they are girls (egg layers) or boys (meat producers), so we won’t name them till we know for sure. But at the moment the names on the table are Spaghetti, Strawberry, Sage, Sasha and Sammy.

Do you or have your raised your own chickens? Do you have any questions you want answers or topics you would like to see me cover in this series?

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