Category Archives: Backyard Chickens

Winter in Greeley – Already!

Well it’s officially the first snow and it’s only October! Cassie and I moved the chicken coop -with the chickens inside of it- into the greenhouse last night. The wind had picked up and the temperature was dropping. Good thing we did because this morning it would have been much harder to move the coop in the snow.

greenhouse snow

It was funny because the chickens were all asleep, but when they woke up they had been magically transported.
Chickens and snow

As long as you keep chickens dry and out of the wind they can withstand some really cold temperatures (last year -20 and things were ok). So moving them into the greenhouse affords them quite a bit of protection.  When it is sunny, the greenhouse can be 20-30 degrees warmer even in the middle of winter. Tomorrow its supposed to be back up in the 50’s and most of this snow will melt away and the chickens will be extra toasty.

Chicken coop in Greenhouse with Kitty
With Kitty on top of the chicken coop inside the greenhouse

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Case of the Missing Eggs -Solved!

One morning, about a week ago, Britton woke me, “Surprise! We have 2 eggs from our girls!” However, the eggs were soft shelled he said, so we should wait and I could get them at lunch (and hopefully they would harden). Well, I went home at lunch and there was nothing there but a white egg with what looked like a little bit of yolk on it. Hmm…mystery. So I never did see the new brown eggs he spoke of.

Well, although I never did see any other eggs,  I just chocked it up inexperience on their part and figured they would lay again soon. (Possible explanations: Maybe they ate their own eggs or a squirrel got them?) In the mean time, our white chicken and white egg-layer, Omelette AKA Salt continued to lay in the nesting box we created for that purpose in their fancy chicken coop.

That is…until a few days ago. I kept asking Britton if he had seen any eggs from Omelette lately, but he said no. Well, she is very regular. So, tonight I said we needed to go on an egg hunt to see if there were any eggs hidden somewhere. I thought they might be behind the greenhouse. We had no luck until….Britton found this clutch of eggs under an unruly rose bush by our house.

Egg Clutch and chicken
If you enlarge the picture you MIGHT see the clutch

Close up of clutch
Close up

They were not as easy to get out of there as you think. Britton had to jump down into the window-well to reach them. While he was down there he found another egg as well!

Eggs and Tomatoes

Neatly arranged and with garden fresh tomatoes!

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Benefits of Backyard Hens

Here are some of the benefits of backyard hens in a photo essay:

BUG ABATEMENT:

Bug Abatement chicken
Chicken with a HUGE caterpillar in her mouth

EATS YOUR LEFTOVERS:

Watermelon rind and chickens
Watermelon Rind Finished off by the girls

FRIENDLY PETS:

Chickens play well with others
Kitty, the Hens and Schnoodle (background) playing well together

And, MORNING FRESHLY LAYED EGGS:

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A Hen Resolution?

Good news! Britton and I went to a Greeley Town Hall meeting last night and talked about our backyard hens situation. We seemed to have quite a favorable response and were told by the planning department that they would like to form a citizens’ committee to change the code and would like us to be on it. They did not seem to respond to our concerns about the fact that we still think we are being cited under the wrong code (development instead of animal), but anyhow, they also said we could keep our girls in the meantime.   Cartoon Chicken

So, I think this is a win-win situation (a win-win hen resolution, if you will) for everyone. We get to keep Henrietta, Omelette (Salt’s new name), Greenfoot and Football and we get to help others who may want to keep a few hens in their backyards as well. We also passed out our fact sheets  and our value statement (they are also listed under pages on this site) to help educate about backyard hens.

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