New chicks on the Homestead!

Today on Homestead Homebodies we'd like to introduce you to our new chicks! Our previous flock of 32 birds had dwindled down to just eighteen. Most died of old age and the remainder were not laying many eggs.

Our new flock will be just 13 birds. This means we get to reduce their run and expand our gardens! So this week we took down the old fence, tilled a big section of the old chicken run and planted a bunch of perennials. We also planted this area with an abundance of wildflower seed. Now, we'll water and wait.

In the meantime we also built a new run for the chicks. It is quite a bit smaller but will be much more manageable. In the past we had always put our support posts through the chicken wire. This created a lot of problems when we needed to make repairs. This time, rather than put the rebar through the fencing we just attached it with tie wraps. We also fold our fencing at the bottom and secure it with rocks all around to prevent ground predators from getting in.

It was a busy week for us. After all the planting, and building a new chicken run it was time to white wash the entire barn. First we moved all the supplies from the lobby of the coop into the barn area. Next we mixed our white wash in a big pail. The mixture we used was: 1 gallon of hot water, 2 cups of salt, 12 cups of builders lime. Once the texture was like pancake batter we began painting....turning the coop from this to this, and the lobby from this, to this. We then move all of our supplies back into the lobby and began painting the barn.

One of the main reasons for using white wash is that it acts as an antibacterial on vertical surfaces helping to prevent mites and other parasites that may affect your flock. We don't use it on horizontal surfaces as it may irritate their feet.

Now that the barn is done, all that's left is to bring the girls up from the basement to their new home. We'll wait until they're just a little bigger and the nights are just a little warmer.