Chicken clucks and bawks are our new soundtrack on the farm. Each morning as the sun comes up, the sounds coming from the coop make it very clear that the hens are ready to start their day. Once they’re outside, there’s a constant low chatter, with a squawky outburst now and then. It’s quite entertaining.
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| Buff Orpington storybook hens |
We’re not the only ones taking note. Foxes and hawks have already been scoping them out. But so far so good. The chickens seem to be enjoying their new home – out on pasture during
the day and tucked into their coop at night. The coop is outfitted with roosts and cozy nesting boxes, and the whole thing is on wheels so we can move it around the pasture (with a moveable electric fence), giving them access to a fresh patch of grass every few days where they can scratch and forage. As the coop makes its way around the fields, the chickens will add fertility to the soil and help rehabilitate the pasture.
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| Jeff and the new coop |
Of course the other major benefit of having chickens is that they’ll provide us with lots of eggs! We’ll soon be offering eggs for sale here at the farm. Check back here for more info soon.
As we were getting ready for the chickens to arrive, we had a lot of help from our friends. Many thanks to our architect/farmer friend Jeff who designed and
built
the coop, our friend George who found us the perfect wheels, and Annalisa and Joel of Wild Miller Gardens who raised these beautiful
healthy birds.