We’re off to Camp!!

Freezer camp, but camp nonetheless. A busy seven weeks are drawing to a close. Over a week of the melodious chirping of Cornish cross chicks invading the den, convincing the toddler she shouldn’t pick them up on her own, and the daily fresh shavings. Followed by 6 weeks of multiple trips to the coop per day to check (me), feed (me), water (me), and pet (not me) the chick chicks. Credit where it’s due, the little one is all about ‘helping.’ It should be fun when she learns to count.

This year, we decided on two new strategies:

1. Go big or go home. We purchased 50 birds this year and the most we’ve ever done that I recall is 30 😱 Freezer Camp bus leaves in the morning and final count is 46.

2. Two separate coops for the layers and the meat birds. The layers were always picking on the babies no matter how they were outnumbered and then the layers have to put up with how messy and voracious the meat birds are in their older weeks.

The coop has worked absolutely beautifully and was relatively easy to set up.

We started with the same brand of 9×19 metal coop as the layers have but went with an A-frame style this time (link). Bonus, we had just enough chain link from a dog run that needed to come down and it was the final motivator to remove it!! (The dog run came with the house, Toby would faint straight away if you suggested he sleep outside.

The chainlink acts as a skirt around the metal coop frame and gets tied to the bottom bars with rebar ties. So far, so good!

We use gravel to level and build even more of a protective layer from diggers, then mulch over top inside and out to make it all pretty. Just…. No one tell the minks and raccoons they could probably pull the chicken wire apart if they wanted to.

For shelter, we added a heavy duty tarp over 2/3 of the run with bungee straps. And I must say the bungee straps seem to be effective, the tarp is in perfect condition.

I was initially worried it would be too cold and about snakes once they were too big for the house but not big enough to be outside. So in my brilliance, I acquired an old tent and set it up inside the run. The run to protect from big critters and the tent to protect from slithery ones. It worked great, for a couple days. But it was HOT in there. Even under the tarp in respectable shade canopy, it got hot. So scrapped that plan (but I insist it would work!) and set them free inside the new run. They lived!!

Stay tuned tomorrow for weigh ins. They are monsters!!