Finding Inspiration Around Me

Inspiration for this blog stems from the pets that I have raised and come to love more than ever imagined: chickens. I tend to be a mega-researcher, and have learned so much in the last year about these little birds, by reading books, reading websites, meeting people who have owned chickens before, and using social media. Little did I know, when I picked up day-old chicks from the feed store, that there was an enormous community of people just like me, learning the best ways to care for their birds. In all of my learning, however, the major factor that seemed to be missing from what I was reading about was the element of keeping chickens in the city. Most things I read about were talking about keeping a large number of birds, or a large amount of land, large amount of room in your home to keep chicks or sick birds, or a large amount of storage, none of which was something we had. I have had to figure out ways to adapt what I learned to my own situation, as someone living in a condo with a medium sized backyard. I have to give my wonderful husband all of the credit, and thank-yous, in the world, for building our first coop from my drawings. This is one place that, if you are just starting out, you certainly don't need to start out with something like this. But a nice coop with at least 3 sq. feet per bird (the minimum recommended space per bird) is a great place to start. I read numerous posts about people's frustrations with their handed down coops purchased off of Craigslist, and felt that I should take advantage of being married to a double major in civil engineering/construction management.

The most important thing that I cannot stress enough is to use hardware cloth and not chicken wire. This keeps your birds much safer from predators at night. We also built the whole structure on buried cinder blocks to further deter predators. Inside the hen house we have been using pine shavings as litter, with straw in the nest boxes, and dirt on the coop floor. But recently I read a very convincing and informative article written by The Chicken Chick about the benefits of using sand as floor substrate instead, and we will be switching everything out when the weather cooperates. Be sure to check out the article here.