The idea and fantasy of growing/raising your own food is very romantic, but like many romance there is a lengthy process to establish a healthy relationship and much work in maintain it. The most challenging and lease glamorous bit is in the clean up.
Our chicken fairy tale began in Vancouver where we had 4 backyard chickens. Our first flock of 4 was a real treat for Ama, 2 years old at the time. She would hug and cuddle the birds from their young age and gentled them. It was a real pleasure to see her connect with the birds and experience where eggs come from. Unfortunately, that first flock did not fair well. 6 months into their care, we went on vacation and had a relative house sit for us and to care for the birds. His dog made a mess of the yard with his toileting and the chickens paid the price. We quickly realize having a farm and responsibilities for animals meant restricted travel. We had a Silkie, Australorp, Rhode Island Red and a Leghorn. Princess (Leghorn), was the only one that survived and we had to re-home her.
A year later we tried again with a new flock of 4: Cookie (Rhode Island Red) Roxy (Plymoth Rock) , Carmen (Silver Laced Wyandott) and Goldy (Orphington). Almost 10 years old now, these ladies are still going strong but questionable in regards to their production. Our current flock is at 18. Keeping them alive continues to involve a lot of responsibility as it is with the care of any animal.
Domesticated animals require regular feeding and watering. In captivity they are not able to source their own food and water. The biggest part of care is in keeping their living quarters clean. During our recent 4 weeks of deep freeze, cleaning had been a challenge as everything froze together. I suppose one may say we needed a thicker saw dust bedding and more frequent cleaning. But daily excrement gel together quickly and the chores require 2-3 times the effort. The thought was that the cold prevented anything bad from growing too quickly so I wait until there is some thaw.
With warmer temperatures, I used a 3 inch scrapper blade to remove all bird droppings from the nesting boxes. There was a lot of droppings and a solution is needed to keep the birds from messing up the boxes. The 2 inch of ground cover came off easily. Then it was a new bed of saw dust.
4 weeks of deep freeze leads to 6 sled full of woodchip manure. The plants will reveal in a feast in the spring.
Rough Canyon Ranch 