The chickens are about four weeks old now, except for the big girl who is five. Boy do they grow fast!
The chicks are about three weeks old now. I’ve had them for 2 1/2, so they are probably about three weeks out of the shell. The big girl is more like 4 weeks.
They have been growing like crazy! Here’s what they look like today, except for the Maran which I didn’t get a picture of.
They are getting into the phase where they are definitely not little balls of fluff anymore but neither are they fully feathered. It will be about four more weeks until they really look like chickens and not chicks.
It’s getting difficult to photograph them; they won’t sit still for even a second. Once I get any one of them out of the brooder they start looking around like mad. Three out of four of them are now perfectly comfortable on the perch I put in the brooder, and the big girl immediately hops up onto the rim whenever I take the lid off.
Despite my glacial progress, the condo is shaping up nicely.
I cleaned up a bunch of paint stuff today which I am done using, put up window treatments and a vertical blind, installed a new thermostat, and put most of the electrical cover plates back where the go. It’s looking fairly decent.
I built a day/night controller so that the baby chickens can have something resembling a diurnal cycle. This wasn’t strictly necessary, people have raised chickens with nothing more than a light bulb on a cord for decades and they turn out fine. I can’t resist an opportunity to build a nifty gizmo however, so I put together the Chicken Controller.
It has a double-throw time switch, which basically means that it can switch automatically between the red heat lamp and the white heat lamp to simulate night and day in the chicks’ little Rubbermaid universe. So far it seems to be working out pretty well.
So as thought I didn’t already have more projects than I can handle, I’ve added another one to my list: Backyard chickens!
I picked up four little chicks last weekend when I was passing through Auburn, and I set up a nice warm brooder for them with fresh water and Purina baby poultry feed.
Breeds from left to right: Rhode Island Red, Cuckoo Maran, Sicilian Buttercup, Ameraucana
The buttercup in particular is very friendly, when I reach into the brooder she’ll climb right up onto my hand. The other three are a bit more skittish but they seem to be getting along.
I’ve got about 5 weeks to build a chicken coop, otherwise it will be so crowded in the brooder that I’ll have to move them into my bathtub or something.
I haven’t had much to say recently, I’ve been really busy at work and the extracurricular projects have been on hold. They’re still there though, waiting for me to find a bit of free time.
Since I got the waterproofing on the barn I haven’t been back up there to do any work on it. It’s hanging in there just fine, although I discovered a wasp nest on my pickup truck which made for a bit of excitement. I knocked it off and drive down to the local coin wash to clean the beast, and it came out looking nice and shiny.
No photos of the truck, but here’s the barn with some Spring tree leaves.
I’ve also found a bit of time to start working on the condo again, which has been empty for about 6 months now. Once I finally finish up and get that place generating some revenue it’s going to feel like Christmas! I’m going to put a second coat of paint on the cabinet doors and frames this evening and they should look okay.
I started a garden last weekend at my new place. It’s not much to look at yet because the seeds I put in haven’t germinated, but I’m hoping they’ll do okay. The soil seems to be of excellent quality.
I added a couple of paths so that I will be able to walk, but they weren’t in when I took this picture.
The corner doesn’t look like much, but it’s one of two spots where the weeds seemed to be really thriving so I’ll take that as a good sign. I don’t get full sun on account of the big tree, but I should be able to grow most vegetables okay with maybe two-thirds of a full day. Melons and pumpkins might not do well, but I’m going to try tomatoes and corn to see whether I can get a worthwhile yield out of them. Beans, peas, and leafy greens should all do just fine.
It being a little early in the season still, I planted some quick-maturing lettuce, radishes, chard, beets and spinach to give me something to do until prime corn-and-tomato planting season gets here. I took out a weedy little volunteer tree and add added some soil amendments, which was a chore. I also dug quite a few broken bricks out of the dirt. I think they must be left over from when the house was originally built, the seem like a good match for the bricks that my chimney is made out of.
My new house came with some rose bushes, which I have embarrassingly ignored for 5 months since I bought the place. Before that they were ignored for at least another 5 months. Despite the neglect, this one is certainly making the most of the recent rains and warm weather.
I had been considering replacing the roses with something else, but the lonesome blossom has kind of endeared this one to me. Maybe I’ll take care of them after all.
The yellow flowers are some variety of sourgrass. They’re generally regarded as a weed but in a big swathe like this I think they’re pretty in a wildflower sort of way.
I finished the house wrap this weekend. With that on the walls and the Grace Ice & Water Shield on the roof, the barn is pretty well equipped to keep out the rain. I can comfortably work on San Jose projects for a while now without feeling as though I need to hurry it up trying to get the barn closed in.
You might have noticed that I always take sort of gloomy-looking pictures of the barn, either on the shady side or just after sundown. It’s not that I live north of the arctic circle or something, it’s just that the details are more easily visible. I do have plenty of dappled sunshine available which is very pretty in person even if it doesn’t photograph so clearly. Also I’ve usually accomplished more by the end of the day than I have at the beginning.
I started getting house wrap installed on the barn today. It’s “all dressed up”, as my friend ‘Rin said.
Even though it’s not finished yet, the lower band will help keep the plywood dry if it ever rains again in California. There is a lot of splash-back when the rain drips off of the eaves and splashes on the ground.
It really feels as though the project is making progress, seeing the plywood getting covered up. I’m excited! 🙂
