Pictures and Video Blog

Our Chicken Adventures and Videos! Scroll down to take a tour of the Daisy and our Backyard Chickens!

We finally got our hen house completed enough so the girls can move in! My husband would build a little each night after he got home from work and on Saturdays. It would have been great to have specific chicken coop plans when we started (which is why we came up with our own plans so you don’t have to!)…There was some trial and error when building our first chicken coop, but my husband being the brilliant man he is, figured it out! Good job sweetie! I love my coop! Scroll down to see our backyard chickens in action and take a tour of the Daisy! Don’t forget to view our testimonial page for more ideas!

As I have cared for chickens, I have learned there are a lot of similarities between myself and my hens. I know it sounds funny to compare myself with a chicken…but the same things that stress them out, also stress me out. I like a home that is clean and has enough usable space, I don’t like being chased by dogs and I love keeping my little chicks (my children) under my wing! I cheer my friends on when they have a baby and I love being outside in the garden. Ha Ha!

Video Tour of the Daisy

Hooray! Doors open all the way for easy cleaning! I love this feature! The roosting boxes keep coop cleaner, they catch the manure as the hens sit on the roosting bars.

The Daisy with a “door within the back door.” This is a great idea if you want the option of letting the hens out front or back. The Chicken Run will also fit on the front or back of the coop!

Here is a custom Daisy coop we built for a local customer. They chose to have it look exactly like ours.

Shadow and Butterball going into the hen house to lay their egg! These are some of our Black and Golden Sex-Link hens. They are great little layers!

Penny, our little Rhode Island Red, in the nest box.

We put a golf ball in the nest to inspire the girls to lay here. This is one of the six nests. The girls just started laying in this photo so eggs will continue to get bigger.

The eggs for the day…yum! We got 12 out of 12 this time and one double yolk-er! Notice how clean they are, these are freshly gathered right from the coop! The floor stays clean because of our roosting boxes so hens cannot track manure into the nests.

The egg on the right is a double yolk-er! We get one from three different hens
about every other day.

We had a hawk in our yard this day!
The hens all “clucked” a warning to each other and hid in the lilac trees!

Scratching for bugs

Hens love to take a dust bath, it helps keep the lice and mites off of them.
First they scratch the ground until it is nice and fluffy, then flip the dirt under their wings.

Speckles eating the grass…the hens LOVE it!

Our hen, Sugar, went broody. We put some fertile eggs under her and look!
The nest is dark…perfect for hatching chicks!

Little paths in the snow

Favorite foods
Also, visit our chicken care page to read about chicken treats!

Presentation is everyting isn’t it? I thought this was so funny,
my daughter made a chicken treat that looked like a little mouse!

Eating Cottage Cheese!

Our chickens love fresh produce in the winter!
Every now and then, we give them some fresh greens, veggies and fruit.

Eating oatmeal

Chicken Scratch can be mixtures of cracked corn wheat and seeds. It’s great to sprinkle around and give the hens exercise, especially in colder weather. Use chicken scratch only as a treat, not as thier main feed. To learn more about chickens diet, you can read the Feeding Schedule.

Hens eating chicken scratch, yum!

Here We Go!

Hi Sweetie…we got chicks today!

We went to the country store to buy 4 chicks…we came home with 10! (Never take children with you to purchase chicks! You will end up with a lot more! I already think chicks are cute, so it is hard to say no when each child wants 2 or 3! Yes, I am weak!) My husband came home from work and I said, “Hi sweetie…we got chicks today!” I was a little nervous for his reaction (I gave him no warning I was buying them that day!) but he knew I had been planning and wanting them for several years and he was very good about it. We now have 13 hens and have loved it!

It was a little too cold out in the garage because we got our chicks in early March, so we kept the chicks in a brooder box in the kitchen. I hung our heat lamp from an inside plant hook in the corner and then attached it to a string on the edge of the box to keep the lamp away from the wall. My daughters motherly instinct kicked right in, they were very gentle…I had to tell them to stop kissing the chicks!

Our sweet Rhode Island Red, Honey.

Our little Brown Leghorn, Chocolate.

Our cute little White Leghorn.

I love watching our little chicks scratch the ground, it is so cute!
I find it amazing they know what to do even though they are only a few days old!

A few weeks went by and the chicks were growing very fast! It did not take them long to start jumping out of the box . We got a 3′ X 5′ brooder pen to keep the girls in the garage for a little while. They seemed to like it very much and had tons of room to run around.

As the hens got older, it warmed up enough for them to be outside. We let them run around the yard in the day and put them back in their pen in the garage at night until the coop was done.

One of my daughter made her little chick, Honey, a necklace. I thought it was so cute! This is when the hens are between 6-8 weeks old. They look a little scruffy when their big girl feathers start coming in but we still love them! It did not take long for the chicks to fully feather out.

Framing the Coop

Even the construction of the first couple walls got me totally excited!

I cut out the front of these storage bins and used them for the nest boxes. It works great for the hens and gives them a clean, private place to lay their eggs. If for any reason the nests get dirty, it is very easy to take the bins out and replace the shavings.

It is all coming together! We are very excited to get the coop done and could visualize what it will look like at this stage in the framing. My husband is doing a fabulous job! We started the framing in the garage, later we moved it outside to finish the walls and roof. We had to put 2×4’s underneath the frame on each side and have 4 men help us move it to it’s outside location. It is heavier than you think! We then set the legs on cement blocks to keep it from sinking in the ground over time.

We love the hens!

Every time we go outside, our hens follow us everywhere. They are always looking for a treat! Our family has enjoyed playing with them in the yard and taking care of them.