27 Dec
Here’s the nearly finished rooster box. The walls are stuffed with fibreglass, which isn’t the best sound insulator but hopefully will do. Removing the tin cladding to replace with the real stuff won’t be hard if it doesn’t work. The to do list is doors, divider (2 roosters will sleep in here), roost and the base, which will be a security screen offcut. Also still to do is the sealing: soundproofing requires no air leaks (ventilation may be a challenge!). Stay tuned.
27 Dec
Our first attempt at soundproofing was almost completely ineffective. It was polystyrene sheeting like the stuff used in cold rooms or refrigerated trucks. However the panels were so unwieldy and (surprisingly) heavy that the tidy and precise assembly required for soundproofing eluded us.
Mk 2 is proper timber framed and will be lined with as thick a particle board as I can find. Then a layer of leftover fibreglass batts, then an exterior layer of corrugated iron.
The only materials so far that aren’t scavenged are ther screws. As usual, they comprise the largest part of our budget. (The big chicken run has hundreds of dollars of fasteners in it!) We already have leftover board from wardrobes, cupboard doors and various furniture. The tin comes from a friend’s disassembled carport. The timber is from a cubby house that another friend was binning. This reuse is important for us because in addition to making it all cheaper, it diverts waste from landfill and turns it into something useful.
Pics show progress so far.
23 Dec
In our aim to celebrate the seasons as they come, here is an oak wreath I made from a nearby tree as decoration for the summer solstice.
Even though the solstice was yesterday, we will be celebrating the longest day tonight with a special meal with friends.
Hope you all had a lovely summery day!
20 Dec
Here’s the day’s harvest: carrots, beetroot and an accidental parsnip. Yum!
18 Dec
Here are the ladies of our grower pen: rhode island red, rir x light sussex or wyandotte and araucana (the pictured araucana may be a boy but we definitely have a couple of girls). We will sell some and keep some for the breeding program.
We also have 10 gents. They are rir crosses and araucanas too. We tend to get 3 meals out of a bird so that should last us a while! The aspiration is to eat 2 per week.
17 Dec
We went in with the poultry club incubator group buy recently and got our incubator on thursday. It holds 48 eggs and turns them automatically. Egg turning is a real pain when you’re doing a reasonable sized hatch so this is a real bonus. We have put a whole bunch in and it seems good so far. We candle in 5 days; preliminary results to follow. The eggs are pure and crossbreed araucana and rhode island red.
17 Dec
Flowering at the moment: sunflower, rose, tomato, strawberry, marigold, sage, corn, hydrangea, dill, corn, chilli. Never really liked the hydrangeas till last week.
14 Dec
One of our few rhode island reds got a funky face lump yesterday and since we’ve had some bad luck with chicken hospital recently I put it down. However the garden look great-tomatoes, lawn potatoes and corn are growing nicely.
11 Dec
Our shade beans are coming along nicely. We’ve got the structure sorted so they have something to climb; it’s just a matter of waiting now. And yes, we love eating beans too!
