Least favourite job of all

Cleaning out the chicken coop and getting rid of the bird mite (red mite or Dermanyssus gallinae). The chickens have been spending as much time as possible out of their coop … the weather has been getting warmer and warmer … all of this means mites!

When fishing the eggs out of the coop, occasionally, some of these little blighters are crawling over the shell.

Honestly, I hate them. I have to get into the coop and shovel all of the straw and nesting material out, then give it a thorough brushing over. Then it’s spray over with malathon (an insecticide that kills the mites). When the malathon has dried, I put in new straw and nesting material and then powder the lot with a lice and mite powder.

I also cleaned out the chicks run and gave them a new load of straw and some nesting material. The chicks aren’t nesting yet, but they are pretty close to it, so they might as well have some clean nesting material.

After the clean out … it was into the shower for a thorough cleaning … twice! Also, off with the cleaning clothes and into a tub of hot water for them!

New High Pressure Water Cleaner has arrived …

I bought a high pressure water cleaner off e-bay. It’s a Memphis Aqua 3500PSI cleaner with a bunch of attachments. I need to clean out my chicken coop on a regular basis as my white leghorn chickens are suspected to have Marek’s disease (Turkey Herpes HTV). When the white leghorns die off, I will bring the Isa Browns into the coop. Before I do that, I have to eradicate the Marek’s disease pathogens from the coop.

I’ve read a few articles on the interweb about how to disinfect the coop for Marek’s and it appears that the process is going to involve some pretty nasty disinfectants. The Department of Primary Industry, Parks, Water and the Environment (DPIPWE) have the following article on disinfecting the chickens living area – Marek’s Disease, although they don’t mention a type of disinfectant to use. I have emailed the distributor of the HWPC to find out what chemicals I can use in the device … so I’ll see what I can do.

I’ve spoken with our vet (Montrose Veterinary Surgery) about disinfectants that are effective against the Marek’s disease pathogen, and her advice is to use Hospital grade bleach. My lovely wife and I decided that we’d like to find out, once and for all, if our chickens do indeed have Marek’s or if we have misdiagnosed the problem (I’m not a vet, so that is certainly possible). So we will need to take some of our chickens to the surgery for blood tests. I’m not keen on a post-mortem analysis, as that would be throwing the baby out with the bath-water.

If it is indeed Marek’s, then I will do a dry clean of the coop. That is, removing all of the chickens bedding manually, with pitchfork, spade and broom. Then I will use the HWPC with detergent to clean the coop out as thoroughly as possible, and then spray hospital grade bleach over the entire coop to kill the pathogens. All of this will be while the chickens are out free-ranging for the day. When the coop is clean and the bleach has dried, I will lay down new straw and wood shavings in the roost.

I will also need to have my other flock tested for Marek’s. If they both have it, then I’ll move all of the chickens in together, if not, I will keep them separated and repeat the disinfection clean-up on a regular basis (probably monthly).

Egg Thief

Something is still taking our eggs. Today, there were only two eggs in the coop and one of them was broken open. Yesterday, the same.

I think I need to rethink the design of the nesting box. At the moment, I have the nesting box attached to the side of the coop with the chickens laying into a tray filled with wood shavings. My aunty and uncle had a chicken coop, when I was young, that allowed the eggs to roll out into a catcher. If I can get the eggs rolling out into a catcher, I can probably eliminate some of the threat to the eggs. If it is the chickens that are eating the eggs, then this should stop them from doing that.

What I will need to do is to take the nesting box off the coop, redesign and rebuild it. I need to make the nesting box so that the floor of the nesting box is slightly sloped so that the eggs roll down into a catcher when they are laid. The nesting box redesign needs to provide a more commodious space for the chickens too. I think that the reason that the chickens lay on the floor of the coop is that the nesting box isn’t spacious enough for them.

I can reuse some of the material from the existing box, so I won’t need to buy much for the rebuild.

Vermin in the Chicken Coop

We have an unwelcome visitor in our chicken coop that is eating most of our eggs. For the last year or so, we have seen a large native Tasmanian rat (Rattus lutreolus) hanging around the chicken coop. We’ve never been terribly upset by the native rat’s presence because they don’t carry disease (unlike introduced rats: R. Rattus or R. Norvegicus) and they clean up what the chooks leave behind.

However … the visitor is now stealing eggs from the coop, that’s not cool, we are losing eggs from the chickens. Some of the eggs are just being broken in the coop and the albumen is being left behind.

My lovely wife went to the rural store today and bought a small live animal trap and I set the trap up under the coop today so that we can catch the little devil.

We hope to catch the critter and then relocate the rat into the bush far from our property … more news as it breaks.

Mushrooms in the Chicken Coop

We’ve had lots of rain lately, and a huge crop of these little mushrooms have come up in the chicken run.

They seem to have come up around the logs in the chicken run where there is straw. At first I thought that they may be a kind of straw mushroom, but they are the wrong shape.

I think that the fungus may be growing from the decay of the logs, rather than the straw, so … who knows? Some of the caps are bright green, some are black and others … in between. The stalks are long and thin. The heads of the mushrooms are about the size of grapes.

So, the gills are a kind of chocolate brown and there seems to be a reddish sap. The small mushroom next to the older mushroom is of a much lighter colour. The stalk appears to be hollow.

The length of the stalk on the larger mushroom is about 2 inches.

New Roosts in the Coop

Well, the coop was getting a bit smelly so it was time for my regular clean-up of the chicken run (I tend to do this about every month in the colder months).
My hens are starting to moult and there really isn’t enough roosting space in their coop despite the fact that the coop is big enough for at least twice as many chickens. So I pulled out the old branches and made some roosting bars from some broomsticks that I bought for that purpose ages ago.

The roost went into the coop yesterday and it appears to be a hit with the chooks.
Now the chickens are back to using the nesting boxes rather than just laying on the floor of the coop (because of the difficulty getting to the nesting boxes.
Of course, the chickens always like getting into the coop after a clean-up so that they can scatter the hay from one end of the chicken run to the other.
A while back, I cut a sally-port into the side of the chicken run so that the chickens can free-range during the day (after they have laid their eggs), and since then, the eggs have improved quite a lot. Here in Tasmania, we don’t have to worry about foxes … just birds of prey, so the chickens can free-range well into the late afternoon. They are getting much better free range food (bugs and plants) and they appear to be much happier.

This is a picture of the old coop. It was fairly small and the run was lined with crushed limestone.

Their current chicken run is an old swimming pool enclosure, giving them roughly eight times more space. The chicken run is more open as well, with only two high walls and two walls that come up to 3’, the rest of the two open walls are made up of chicken wire and nylon netting. The chicken run is completely enclosed with nylon netting making a roof to keep the birds of prey out. We have Wedge-tailed eagles, Peregrine Falcons and Brown Hawks. So far, we have not lost any chickens to predation.

All in all, the chickens like their new life in a bigger chicken run.

Chicken Run is Complete

Last month I told you about the completion of the Chicken Run and Chicken Coop. Well, I didn’t include any pictures of these, so here are some images of the coop and run for your enjoyment.

As you can see, the run now has bird netting over the top and is completely enclosed. This keeps those nasty hawks and eagles away!

The Chicken Coop was finished last month as well … but due to the timing, I also didn’t get photos of that for the newsletter. Here are some photos of the finished product.

The chicks from our previous hatching are enjoying the coop and scratching around in the bottom for food.

The nesting box comes out from the main coop so that there is lots of space inside the coop for the chickens to do their chicken things.

The roof is simply some roofing iron that has been screwed down to the roof trusses. I have left a gap of 10cm between the top of the panelling of the coop and the roof to provide plenty of ventilation.

My lovely wife provided roosting perches from some pieces of old cherry tree that we cut up.

Completion of the New Chicken Run and Chicken Coop

Well, the chicken run and coop have been a bit of a labour of Heracles. I completed the bottom part of the run early in the month (welded square tubing between the uprights, painted it to make it a bit more rust resistant and finally attached the steel panelling).

Next, the chicken wire went around the run. This was a pretty easy job. I simply drilled through the upright posts and ran 5mm white wire cross supports around the run. The chicken wire was then hung from the cross supporting white wire and then fixed in place between the steel panelling and the steel tube to make it strong and secure.

My lovely wife bought a 20 x 5 m nylon bird net and set about making it into a 10 x 10 m net (lots of hand stitching and then by running a nylon cord to bind the two halves together). The bird net will be secured over the top of the chicken run and will be supported clipping it to more 5mm white wire supporting lines. We get lots of hawks and eagles in our little valley and I’m not terribly interested in feeding them my flock!

The coop has been constructed from recycled hardwood framing timber and 12mm exterior plywood. This has been a bit of a slog too as I’ve been suffering from injuries and various agues lately. Building and manhandling the panels have proven to be a bit of an overextension. I’d recommend getting at least one other friend to help you.

The panels for the coop were made outside of the chicken run and then carried inside. This is because there is much more room outside the chicken run to be operating the power tools and because the doorway into the chicken run is too narrow to carry the completed coop in (I’m glad I thought of that beforehand!).

Anyway, the upshot is that, the chicken run and coop should be ready for the foul inmates by the weekend of the 21^st of November. This (happily) coincides with the current clutch of chicks moving out of the brooder in time for the next (and final clutch for this season) of chicks to move in.