Chicken Improvements
For most of the blog posts, I will be writing about what the kids do at Blackberry Blossom on a daily basis. However, maintaining our mini-homestead and developing the preschool as an ever-changing entity is also part of the process. So I will also be simply writing about those important components.
We got chickens about three years ago and it has been such an enjoyable experience in our lives. I love every part - observing the chickens, admiring their colorful eggs before I make breakfast, and my favorite, improving their living conditions and creating efficient systems for us in order to care for them. Today, I finished installing a predator apron. This is a digging deterrent for predators which surrounds the run. When we first got chickens, I took livestock fencing, cut it in half, and laid it flat along the outside of the run in manageable pieces.
However, I have been slowly digging the old apron up, adding a 90 degree angle to the fencing near the top, and attaching the wire to the bottom of the run with a staple gun in order to make it stronger and stationary. Then I am adding dirt back on top to make a bed. Eventually the plan is to add plants the chickens love to eat and ornamental flowers as well. I have re-laid about ⅔ of the apron and hope to finish the rest in the next few weeks. This is Copper, our Black Copper Maran, who lays the most beautiful chocolate brown eggs. As I was digging, I came across probably a hundred worms. The boys quickly came back to dig them up, observe them, and teach me a thing or ten about them. We fed most of the treats to our grateful chickens. Not only are they curious and love to inspect my work, they adore getting treats!
A second improvement we created was purchasing a small deck shed for storage. We bought the shed at Menards and my three trusty sidekicks helped me assemble it. After only one hiccup, which gave me the opportunity to model perseverance in the face of frustration, we got the shed put together. The boys had a playhouse for the afternoon, and our mini-homestead gained a clean, organized, and conveniently located shed to store feed, treats, boots, pine shavings, pet carriers, medicine, and more. It has been a game changer for dropping off heavy bags of feed directly from the van; staying organized and on top of inventory; and getting the kids more involved in chores on a daily basis.
