Chicken Run

The Chicken run is on its way! Using reconstituted lumber, and old chicken wire, we have begun to build their home. I hope the chickens like it. They are growing fast! If we don't hurry, they'll outgrow their current home. I think we might have a rooster on our hands as well, which, in the city is not good.

Chicken feeder

So I used the bottoms of plastic juice containers to feed my chicks. Everytime I would check on them they seem to have pooped in their food containers and seem to have scratched their food out of their plates. After WAY too much wasted food, I though of this:

I cut the bottoms of two milk jugs and taped them together. Then I cut holes that would compliment the shapes of the chicks heads. And POOF! Feeders that help keep poop out, and food in. Next is a "do it yourself" water feeder.

Here is my family

My wife and I:

My youngest two:

My Daughter:
And last but not least, my oldest two boys in a choke hold:

New seeds have been sown

Today I laid down squash, pumpkin, and cucumber seeds. Wish me luck!
As soon as we can get soil for our planters in the main garden area, i'm going to plant carrots, peas, and whatever else my wife and kids would like.
Here are our jalapeños and tomatoes up close.

Chickens you say?

So I read an interesting article online about keeping chickens in an urban environment. Unfortunately the website escapes me right now but Google will prove an easy search is available for the subject matter. So i watched a handful of videos online and learned that they are remarkably easy animals to both care for and receive EGGS from!!! Not to mention great pets. So, I read further, did a few searches on craigslist and the next thing you know I brought these little buggers home!

Unfortunately for them they are confined to one of my many rubberized plastic storage containers while they grow. I need to get to work on their chicken coop and run because they have grown A LOT in the past three days.

These little guys cost less that $3 a piece. The feed and water containers are cut from the plastic bottles our juice comes in, dug out of our very own recycling bin. The feed is this:

It cost around $12 and should last at least a month with less than six chicks. I am still suprised at how inexpensive they are to raise and maintain.

I plan on fencing this area in with chicken wire to provide them with a chicken run, free from predatory danger.

Here is a really bad idea of what it will look like in Microsoft Paint. I used this to explain to my 7 year old about the chickens future home design. No insults intended. :)

Another idea I had was to skip the Coop part that you can see above that is in red and instead, cut a small door in the back of the shed that is already there and put their coops in here:

This would be cleaned of course and the shelving would be walled off with chicken wire and easy access doors to collect eggs. The shelves themselves would have ramps leading up to them, dividers to accommodate the 5 hens, and hay for comfort, warmth, and egg laying.

More to come as things unravel...

Here is my backyard

Here is my backyard as it sits right now. This first picture is looking at the back of my tool shed. If you look at the ground you can see an outline of wood that is defining my soon to be chicken run.

Next is the first of my garden boxes. Soil is a must right now because I'm loosing more and more of the growing season with each passing day.

The last two are of the main area in my backyard. If you look next to the shed in the background, you can see the opening to the are where the first two photos were shot. Along that fence i planted (but haven't sprouted yet) squash, pumpkin, and cucumber.

In the clay pot is a patio tomato plant and in the black planter is a jalapeño plant. You have to start somewhere right? :)

In the beginning....

So this is where it started. I decided to embark on this experiment to see if my family and I could have a more sustainable life within our small corner plot in the middle of the city while being less wasteful and more mindful of our planet. However, this wasn't our goal originally...we didn't even have a goal.

I'll try and give you a picture of our family's position before this all started. We are not "green" (yet). We were the "average" family unfortunately when it came to being environmentally conscious and self sufficient. We had the desire, but we wouldn't take action. My wife is a little resistant to things that i bring into this family due to my "obsessive" history of behavior. This ranges from astrophotography to Rubik's cube. However, I feel that this is an obsessive behavior we should all let consume us a great deal more.

We began our journey unknowingly and decided to begin recycling more. Our kids learned a lot at there school on Earth Day, so we decided to perpetuate the day's intent beyond that one day. Unfortunately we do not have a curb side pickup for recycled goods so my kids and I took a large rubberized storage container and sprayed orange paint to stencil RECYCLING on the side of it. It really shocked us to see how much we threw away before we began recycling it. We went from one bin, to three. Separating out the paper and cardboard, plastics, and glass and metal. We started using reusable bags at the grocery store and using paper instead of plastic when we forgot our own. I decided that I wanted to bike more. Cut down on fuel use, and be more physically active. It's only 7.4 miles to work one way. Very do-able, just not very common. Also, my children really enjoy riding together through our neighborhood. So we all have bikes now. I ride where ever I can instead of driving.

It doesn't seem like we were doing much, and many people do a great deal more. But, like I said...this was just the beginning.