November 2008 update

some of my ladies checking things out

my ladies wanting to know what is going on

should I go up or stay down on the floor

VIEW OF BOTTOM OF ROOST CLEANED

SECOND VIEW OF ROOST FLOOR

VIEW OF OTHER SIDE OF ROOST CLEANED

VIEW OF FLOOR OF ROOST CLEANED

HALF CLEANED

OTHER SIDE DIRTY

ONE SIDE CLEANED OTHER SIDE DIRTY

DIRTY SIDE

SECOND SiDE DIRTY

well hello everyone sorry that I have not blogged for all of Nov. no excuses. my ladies have been busy out of the 31 days in this month my hens have laid eggs as follows 12 eggs twice, 14 eggs eighteen times and 13 eggs eleven times that equals 419 eggs for the month. that's approx. 35 dozen, my customers buy them up faster than they can lay them some have even paid ahead of time. The cold weather has not slowed them down, even though my neighbors chickens have quit laying. If the conditions are right I will be surprised if mine stop. year to date totals 1,801. eggs, and 151 doz. all from just 14 chickens. I will be adding some pictures of my cleaning of the coop roosting area. so far the coop has not been cold even if temperatures have reached 32 and below with snow on the ground. the other day I was speaking to this nice lady at the store and I stated to her that I gave my chickens raisins some times in their mash and she was amazed she did not think that they could eat them. As we spoke on the subject of how to get rid of mites and bugs, she swear that the best thing that she was doing was putting diesel oil on the chickens roost. I for the life of me was surprised to hear that she thought that raisins were bad. All that I could think about is diesel oil? fires , chemicals Yikes! she was surprised that there were other natural things that she could use. I have read of these fixes before and they were in old books. Not for me. now don't get me wrong it's well known that there is more than one way to raise chickens. I have put my winter plan into effect and I am just keeping things dry,clean and keeping lots of food and water available at all times. these pictures show how the coop area looks when it is dirty and when it is cleaned. The chicken stuff has been removed and it cleans after one year like it is brand new. I do this approx. every week.