Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[scarlettohara]

http://club.omlet.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=63146&start=420

 

Split from the Welcomes thread - Egluntyne

 

Hello from Frankfurt, Germany. We live in a suburban setting with agricultural land over the back fence that's been used for horses and sheep for decades, and we have been doing the same for about eight years.

 

A few weks ago our daughter expressed interest in raising a few chickens, and she arranged to not only obtain five fertilized eggs from the local farmer where we purchase our hay, but also to borrow her school's egg incubator. 21 days later, like clockwork, all five hatched in rapid succession, and we kept them in an aquarium under a poultry heat lamp in the dining room (since moved to the greenhouse).

 

My daughter named them Trudi, Brownie, , and Mambo (actually, I named the last one since little chicks walk as if dancing to mambo music). Since I can never remember two of the names, I called them The Jackson Five (which everyone always seems to remember as Michael, Jermaine, , and Tito). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackson_5 . I'll get the names straight eventually.

 

The original plan was for them to live up the hill at a neighbor's horse operation which already has chickens, but it's a bit of a hike and I was soon lobbied into planning a chicken house down by my vegetable garden in our lower meadow right over the rear garden fence. After a bit of research we decided that the Eglu Cube with a run extension was right for us, as 1) it can be moved around, 2) the easy clean-up and protection against mites and foxes held a lot of appeal and 3) just in case the hobby every loses its appeal over time, the aftermarket on Ebay appears quite robust or we can donate it to a local school. It arrived on Monday from Oxfordshire and it took us exactly 2.5 hours as advertised. I was very impressed with the engineering.

 

For the past two days, my daughter has waited until things warm up in the early afternoon and then has taken them down in a big plastic tub for a few minutes of acclimitization in the run. It's been a lot of fun to watch them develop; the only thig we can't tell is if any are roosters ... our land out back is zoned agricultural, but we're awfully close to neighbors for a daily sunrise wake-up call, so any males would likely have to go live up the hill. I think they'll need a few more weeks under the lamp in the greenhouse, plus it has to warm up a bit more as it's been a cool spring so far.

 

We're looking forward to learning as we go; this forum appears to be an excellent place to start.

 

Hello and welcome Can I come and live with you ? Your home and set up sounds great and I love your sense of humour especially the Jackson 5 comparison

[Haehnchen]

Hello and welcome Can I come and live with you ? Your home and set up sounds great and I love your sense of humour especially the Jackson 5 comparison

Thanks for the kind thoughts. Things are still going well here at Chicken Central. We've had a bit of a cold snap, so the Jackson Five are still overnighting in the greenhouse, albeit now in the largest plastic tub Ikea sells with a slotted bread delivery crate on top to allow for respiration and the heat lamp to work. They love their daily daylight excursions to the Eglu; any of the online comments I've read about difficulties using the OEM Eglu ladder appear to be bunk ... they're effortlessly up and down all day long. That said, the "glug" and "grub' watering/feeding elements are completely unusable at this developmental stage, so we spashed out EUR 20 for a standard-farm-issue three-litre waterer and a feed trough topped by a little wire cage from the local supply store which have worked a charm. We're still using a pre-laying feed that includes some de-worming drugs in there somewhere, which they scarf up with great pleasure. It's Trudi, Brownie, Hoot, Luna and Mambo. We're starting to suspect that Mambo's a rooster, which is fine by me because our sleepy neighborhood needs a bit more excitement!

[Henslaved]

We're starting to suspect that Mambo's a rooster, which is fine by me because our sleepy neighborhood needs a bit more excitement!

Good for you!

[Lewis]

We're starting to suspect that Mambo's a rooster, which is fine by me because our sleepy neighborhood needs a bit more excitement!

 

Interesting that your Growers pellets have a wormer in with them!

[Haehnchen]

It's not pellets, it's a finely-ground meal. The guy at the local farm supply store suggested we keep them on that for 10 weeks and then up the granularity in anticipation of shell formation. He asked if we'd had the chickens vaccinated and we said no so he said the supplemented feed would work fine. That first egg might as well be made of gold on a fully-costed basis!

[Haehnchen]

The Jackson Five

 

P.S. To the Omlet Webmaster; posting photos is a pretty onerous process.

[Haehnchen]

Hard to believe that a bit over a month ago they came out of these

Edited May 8, 2011 by Guest

[Chicken Shirl]

They are very advanced for a bit over a month old. Or did I miss read that.

[gongladosh]

They're cute - how old are they?

 

(and hello!)

[Haehnchen]

They hatched 3-4 April 2011, so they are, in fact, just about five weeks old. We do things big animal-wise over here in Germany ... big hedgehogs, big wild boar, big horses and big chickens!

 

Seriously, I think it's the combination of the feed we're using (where we're not scrimping on portions since we have a farm supply store-reccomended 25kg bag of "Deuka all-mash A mit Cocc. (Coccidiostatikum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccidia )" to go through in 10 weeks http://www.koenig-agrar.de/deuka-allmash-mit-cocc-p-48.html ) and the daily excursions to the Eglu Cube where they get lots of worms, bugs fresh air and sunshine. Lots of water is also very important ... when they overnight in the greenhouse one of us has to wake up very early to ensure that their water is topped up, after which they immediately drink like fish.

 

They're already part of the family. I'd be interested if anyone has any theories on their breeds from the photos, because we're completely flummoxed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chicken_breeds .

[Haehnchen]

I just filled up their water down at the Eglu, and noticed another thing that may or may not be contributing to their verdant growth, general good health and happiness: My wife's mother suggested that we place a "sand pan" in the wire run, which we did using sand from our riding ring. They seem to spend an inordinate amount of time hopping into it to scratch around, take "sand baths" and/or simply peck in the sand, which we assume helps their gizzards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gizzard . I haven't seen anyting on this in the chicken-rearing literature we've read to date, but if this is helping their digestion, then it might partially explain why they're growing like weeds.

 

Also, we really couldn't be happier with our Eglu Cube. It was clearly expensive relative to building some sort of "rustic ark", but everyone marvels at the "cabriolet" functionality of the roof, back panel, side panel and that Star Trek-style sliding door! It is perilously close to entering the pantheon of good extruded plastic investments already inhabited by our Polyjumps, yet another fine piece of British engineering! http://www.polyjumps.com/ Eglu should ring them up and see if there are any synergies, especially as they're only circa 40 miles apart from each other http://maps.google.de/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Unit+9,+Menmarsh+Rd,+Wornal+Park,+Worminghall,+Aylesbury,+Buckinghamshire+HP18+9PH,+Vereinigtes+K%C3%B6nigreich&daddr=Omlet+Ltd,+Tuthill+Park,+Wardington,+Oxfordshire,+OX17+1RR&geocode=FeQaFgMdWn_v_ynfsSm6a-l2SDEpXZ9AKeQsyg%3BFWk5GwMdH1zs_yGQGPGvkeaIlw&hl=de&mra=pd&sll=51.947651,-1.183777&sspn=0.64416,1.229095&ie=UTF8&ll=51.928178,-1.19339&spn=0.64444,1.229095&t=h&z=10

[Haehnchen]

As my vegetable garden, in close proximity to the Eglu cube, is starting to burst into life, another mother-in-law suggestion was to periodically prune off the bottom lettuce and spinach leaves and drop them into the run. The chickens were at first puzzled and bemused, but now appear to slowly peck them apart and munch them up as well. My daughter suggests letting them free-range a bit and snap up slugs, etc., and I'm thinking she may have a decent suggestion since the entire paddock is fenced anyway (except for the neighbor's turtles who keep escaping and crawling under the wire!).

[Sam]

They will eat the slugs around your veggies, but they will also eat all of the vegetables! One of mine escaped over their netting and decided to chew bits of everything in the vegetable patch, they really do eat anything.

[Haehnchen]

Thanks for the tip.

[Haehnchen]

The Jackson Five just had their first successful overnight in the Eglu Cube. We'll keep the heat lamp and big Ikea plastic storage box rigged up in the greenhouse just in case we have a cold/rainy snap, but it's truly amazing to see how they cozy up in the Eglu and we just have to close the Star Trek sliding door. Cleanup couldn't be easier, especially as the Eglu is right next to my vegetable garden, which is rigged with a hose which allows easy watering and allows me to simply run the chicken manure onto my garden and slide the drawers right back in. Sometimes my daughter lets them range out into the meadow a bit, but they always come right back to the Eglu. Any criticisms of Omlet's ladder placement appear to be completely misguided ... they use it like complete professionals.

 

They're still drinking out of the auxiliary "dome" waterer, but I filled up the "Glug" today as well just to see whether they drink out of it or not. I do notice that it's already starting to get a bit dirty with pollen and feather bits because it's open at the top versus the "dome". They're still eating out of the auxiliary feeder (the "Grub" unit appears unusable for a while longer) ... and they certainly like to eat! It's hard to believe that they're only a shade under seven weeks old. Even at this stage of the chickens' development, the Omlet OEM units appear to be ideal as back-ups for multi-day absences.

 

I feel kind of bad for not doing more research on the "sand bath" before I posted a while back ... there is plenty of information on this on the site, and I initially assumed that it was an old German wives' tale, but I suppose we've all had an "RTFM" moment. The pan of sand from our riding ring appears to be perfect for them as it's low-dust; they really love it.

 

Latest update photo: We still don't have a clue as to their genders.

 

I'll say it again: We couldn't be happier with the Eglu Cube; visitors are completely blown away by the technology and "cabriolet" design ... and everyone knows that Germans are tough customers on that front!

[Haehnchen]

Photo of our vegetable garden with Eglu Cube fully visible.

 

N.b. the "6" sticker on the back of the Eglu it isn't an homage to Pete Townshend's guitar numbering system http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/lpdeluxe.html , but is rather an inside joke referring to the German penchant for putting maximum speed limit stickers on the back of all non-auto wheeled vehicles: 100 km for braked trailers, 20 km for agricultural and construction equipment , and 6 (why on earth isn't it 5 or 10?) for stuff such as street sweepers and other slow-moving things.

 

The other bumper sticker refers to our local nature protection effort http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.platzenberg.de&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8 .

[Haehnchen]

Developmental update: The Jackson Five are starting to knock over their feeder and the "dome" waterer is starting to get (no pun intended) fou(w?)led up, so we're moving over to the "Glug" and tomorrow we're going to take the the "Grub" feeder out for a test run.

[Duncan08]

Love the pictures, your girls do look the picture of health and your veggies do too!

 

I planted my garlic and onions the day before the chickens came, they are all looking very neglected now

I completely forgot about watering them.

The onions are doing OK but the garlic is looking a bit wilted.

And I havent even planted any of the lettuce, radish, kale and whatever else I spent a fortune on!

 

Very distracting these chickens!

[Haehnchen]

Status update: They're now fully on the "Glug" and "Grub" units, the engineering of which continues to impress: 1) The '"Glug" stands mightily against the ground but still firmly secured to the wire cage with an open top that allows for easy watering can filling from outside and (if we ever get rained upon again) the opportunity for ambient top-up; the "dome" waterer started getting pooped up and algaed. 2) The "Grub" unit is finally age-appropriate; as I stated in a previous post, they'd started inadvertantly kicking over the wire-cage-topped chick feeder unit. I hadn't noticed that the top(s) of the "Grub" had a reasonably rain-proof overhang, so, like the "Glug" it can be kept reasonably near the cage door and filled up in a fashion by which one doesn't have to bear the shame of chicken manure knees upon return to the house. Today was just like the day when the kids didn't need car seats anymore! Everything's now in barn eave storage for the next round of chicks.

 

I have to say that the only surprising element is how many feathers they lose, but I'm chalking that up to a bit of juvenile molting. They're starting to produce some (ahem) proper manure, but those Eglu Cube pans are the cat's pajamas ... right onto the garden with the hose with which I would have been watering anyway.

 

They also like their brief, supervised garden/meadow excursions a great deal. My wife has a method to chase them all back into the run; if she starts doing so whilst wearing an apron we'll clearly be in a complete household time warp!

[Haehnchen]

Love the pictures, your girls do look the picture of health and your veggies do too!

 

I planted my garlic and onions the day before the chickens came, they are all looking very neglected now

I completely forgot about watering them.

The onions are doing OK but the garlic is looking a bit wilted.

And I havent even planted any of the lettuce, radish, kale and whatever else I spent a fortune on!

 

Very distracting these chickens!

German recycled plastic construction buckets into which I drilled some drainage holes, lined the bottom with brook stones and then filled them up with potting soil from our 40-year-old horse manure pile appears to do the trick. The radishes, beans, beets, carrots, spinach and arugula are all from seeds, and the lettuce varieties are from sets (we expanded to an eighth construction bucket because we're eating salads from the garden most every evening) . The ground bed is now potatoes in one row and is fully-prepared for sunflowers and miscellaneous plantings for the rest of the season. Prior experience has taught us that planting pumpkins, squash and sweet corn is folly seeing as they're so much more water-intensive and commercially available.

Edited May 25, 2011 by Guest

[Haehnchen]

This evening at c. 9:00 my wife and I went out to feed the horses and I asked her "how do you get the chickens into the house so that you can close the Star Trek door?". The sun had gone in already, and she smirked at me as we walked down to the Eglu Cube to find that all of the Jackson Five were huddled on the rooster bars. Door slid silently closed. Amazing. Gehen mit den Hühnern schlafen, indeed.

[Haehnchen]

They will eat the slugs around your veggies, but they will also eat all of the vegetables! One of mine escaped over their netting and decided to chew bits of everything in the vegetable patch, they really do eat anything.

@Sam , you were correct! My daughter and her friend let them out for a bit and they went a bit nuts in my garden, homing in on my spinach like heat (iron?)-seeking missiles! http://www.flickr.com/photos/34001875@N07/ We put them right back in the Eglu Cube, and all future supervised trips to the exercise yard will clearly be confined to the bottom horse meadow.

 

No harm done, but with this German E. Coli scare we clearly need all the home-grown leafy greens we have for human consumption!

[Haehnchen]

They're off the starter feed and now on something more granular, on their way to laying feed.

 

Oh, and by the sounds of some recent morning kikeriki http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110413004326AAdrvoI at least one of them is a rooster ... we just don't know which one!

[WitchHazel]

Hi, are you able to post new pics of your chicks? We might be able to help with the sexing.

[Haehnchen]

@WitchHazel Thanks for the reply and the ofer to give us a hand.

 

We suspect that "Trudi" is actually "Truman" ... he's the most aggressive (seems to attempt to "defend the flock") , has the bushiest tail, and some seriously beefy feet, comb, points and waddle.

 

(and page "newer' for the others ... I just took these today).

 

I'm a fly fisherman who ties his own flies, and I've already used a few of the cast-offs from the grizzly hen to tie some partridge flies!