I’ve been fussing for days over this post.  Every time I start, the words don’t flow freely and I sound like a PBS lecture on animal husbandry.  Not to slam those, but this is me….this is a blog…if you wanted to watch a PBS special you would.

So, I’m just going to write as though you’re here at Casa HenSongs with me…sitting in the garden by the lilac and rosemary shrubs while I explain how we got to where we are.  You have questions…I have answers.

Why Do Henny, Blanca, and Buffy Live in a Gated Community?

Hens poop all the time.  They even poop when they sleep.  After several months of trying the “my backyard is your toilet” idea, we couldn’t stand it anymore.  The dear Peeps follow us around wherever we go….leaving a trail of poop.  When we sit down under the trees in our patio chairs, they join us on an empty chair….and poop.  They also enjoy the Sitting Rocks we’ve place around for humans and Robbie to perch on….but the hens poop on them.  Before we clipped their flight feathers, they could easily fly up on the patio table….where we eat dinner.  The list goes on and nothing was poop-free.

The snail and bug abatement program they initiated included ridding the yard of the host plant (my vegetable and flower beds were a hen buffet of Las Vegas proportions) and all of the eating led to more….pooping.

Those of you who are long time readers will fondly remember the great irrigation system pecking event.  You guessed it…there was also pooping involved.

Since we walk back and forth between the yard and house all day, the idea of tracking this poop into the house and car became horrifying.  The few times one of the hens followed me in to my studio caused a panic of “get that thing outa here before she poops!!!”.

Why Don’t You Grow Food Plants In Your Front Yard?

Answer:  Dogs and cats pee and poop.

I know, I know, replacing your front yard with a vegetable Victory Garden is the “in thing” right now.  When I open a magazine or blog or Facebook page and see a picture of a lovely set of vegetable beds growing a bumper crop of fresh food, the first thing I think of is all of the neighborhood dogs lifting their legs on the pole beans and squatting in thyme ground cover that replaces the lawn.  The free-range cats see those raised beds as the best litter box EVER!  Come on…admit it…you think about that, too, but are just too afraid to say so.

When I was a kid, our neighborhood gang (the good kind….like Leave It To Beaver days) used to walk around with stems of Sour Grass (Oxalis or Wood Sorrel)  hanging out of our mouths all summer.  My Mom was horrified and would yell “Don’t you kids think about how many dogs and cats peed on what you just put in your mouth?”  I guess this made an impression on me.

To Sum Up the Potty Talk

We are very happy to declare our front yard the Wildlife Habitat and Passive Water Cache System, leaving the vegetables and fruit trees behind the first set of gates to the backyard where Robbie, the resident Sheltie, keeps a cat-free zone.

Henny and the Peeps have  their beautifully designed piece of land that houses their coop and nesting boxes as well as one vine that they have not stripped free of all leaves – Casa HenSongs is the perfect gated community; keeping them safe from visiting dogs and the few hawks that fly overhead.  It also keeps them safe from whatever we humans track into the yard on our own feet.

Stay tuned for more of these chats about the upcoming Bay Friendly Garden Tour.  It’s been nice to have you drop by and sit in the yard with me.

Egg production has been on hiatus for the Winter – that’s just what chickens do. It makes me more grateful for the first signs of Spring when I see the first eggs. Henny is back at work, laying her extra large brown eggs (overachiever!) and the Peeps (Buffy and Blanca) are coming into their own in the egg department.

The first egg from a hen feels like a baby’s first steps and their hen songs like their first words.

I was able to carefully peek into the nest today and snap a picture of Buffy with her second egg.  If you look really closely you, too, can see Buffy and her egg.

Henny hovers around the hen house door waiting her turn.  Blanca has taken the lead solo in the egg-laying opera, singing out a gentle song as Henny and Buffy are in the nest.  She launches into a full Alleluia chorus as Buffy exits the nest and walks down the ramp.

I wonder if Buffy with sing her a song as Blanca begins laying. All in all, it makes my heart swell with pride for these girls.

Greetings readers.

We have a guest blogger today.  I first met Levi when I read his blog post about hypnotizing a chicken.  Henny and Penny thought he was a pretty great kid when they won the Stinky Link contest on his mom’s blog because he thought the picture of Penny’s butt bath deserved the prize.  It made perfect sense to ask Levi to write a guest blog about the best chicken coop a chicken could have.

So, with no further adieu…in memory of Penny the Hen….I give you Levi and his magnificent idea for the best coop ever!

Hi I am Levi. My mom is Janel who has the blog NellieBellie.

This is my 3rd post now. I was asked to guest post and I came up with some ideas for a crazy chicken coop.

I am doing the guest post because Penny the chicken died and if she was still alive she should have a cool chicken coop and these are some of the pictures that I found for ideas.

Coops of the World

From Homestead Revival and The Art of Doing Stuff.

Fore!!!!

This one looks like something from a mini golf course. If I were a chicken I would play mini golf all day!

From Decorology

Bacon &…..

This one has a crazy name. I don’t really understand why they called it Omlet.

Oh wait…I understand. Because of the chickens. Eggs turn into omelets.

huh.

Note from Linda…This is Penny’s Eglu coop from Omlet!

Chicken Fingers!

I think this one looks like a flattened hollow piano.

Maybe some chickens have fingers and can become a pianist.

Pianist is a really, really weird word.

From Dezeen

Boing…Boing

I have no idea what the people who made this were thinking. But, this looks really fun to be a chicken.

From Homestead Survival

Saving the Best for Last

Those are some of the crazy chicken coops I found. And Penny deserves to have one of these crazy chicken coops. Or..MINE! She should have MY chicken coop because it will be funny and a good chicken coop.

Let me tell you why…

First of all, obviously, it’s going to need some hay on the floor and for the nests.

Second – shelves for the nests to rest on.

Third – it will need nests. Made out of silk, of course.

Fourth – a roof. With solar panels for the t.v. That will always be on the animal channel.

Fifth – chickens. Of course, for Penny is a chicken.

Sixth – sound proof walls. So the chickens don’t go crazy and the people outside don’t have to hear the t.v. which will be on animal planet.

Seventh – stilts for the coop to rest on . They will be holding up boxing gloves so the chickens can punch on the stilts and become boxing champions. Why the stilts? So it can hold it up from floods. Because they have a pool. And it rains into the pool and floods it.

Eighth – a floor. Covered in bubble wrap. So, the chickens will go crazy stepping on it. Bubble wrap can get rid of stress because you can step on it rather then stepping on people’s heads. It’s good for chickens to get rid of stress because they have to poop eggs and that is probably painful.

Ninth – a window. So they can see the outside world. And it gives them light.

Tenth – something to soothe the chickens. Like an automatic massager, or a hot tub.

Eleventh – whoopee cushions for every nest. So when the chicken lays on it you hear a flbfbfblflblfblflblflblflb.

Twelfth – a bounce house. For the chickens to bounce to their nests.

Thirteenth – a slide. So all the chickens can go down from the shelves.

Fourteenth – a beak cleaner. So after they eat their food they can brush their beaks.

Fifteenth – an automatic disco ball. And robots shoot out of the disco ball and do the chicken dance. Happy chickens lay happier eggs.

Sixteenth, and most important. An automatic poop cleaner. When the whoopee cushions go off they create a chemical that traces the scent of poop and dissolves it. Instant poop cleaner! It actually only works when they are sleeping, or laying eggs.

Credits

The Coops you’ve seen, in order of their appearance:

• Homestead Revival
• The Art of Doing Stuff
• Decorology
• Omlet
• Dezeen
• Homestead Survival

Not the happiest day at Casa HenSongs.  After such a fun post yesterday telling the tale of the lucky egg, we woke up to a very sick hen this morning.  No question at all…Penny was in distress so off to the vet we went.  I’ve gotta give the biggest shout out to the love of a man who has been doctor to these hens since they arrived a year and a half ago.  But he had to report back that Penny had a growth that was not going to go away and was making her very ill.

This part of chicken keeping just sucks….there’s no other way to say it.

Penny, you will be missed and we will take good care of Henny while we look for a couple of new girls for her to boss around.

Henny and Penny had gotten pretty darn grungy in the “caboose” area.  From what I read, it’s just the way it goes with fluffy butt hens.  We could either give them a feather trim or bathe them. Seriously???  Bathe a chicken?!

Believe it or not, I even found You Tube videos about bathing chickens!  Most are recorded by 4H kids preparing their hens for show at the Fair so it’s not as weird as it first sounds.  One can’t take a poopy hen to the Fair!

Preparing the Bath

After reading up and figuring that, if nothing else, we’d give friends and family something really good to write about in their holiday letters (under the My Weird Relatives paragraph)…Mr. Hensongs and I decided that yesterday was bath day.

So we gathered together the supplies.

1. A wash tub with lukewarm water
2. Mild soap (I used our favorite Peppermint and Tea Tree Oil EO Soap; my go-to soap when I want something clean and fresh)
3. A rinse tub filled with lukewarm water
4. Towels
5. Hair Dryer

Prepared for the worst, I put on a massive apron and gloves (figured the protective glasses and rubber boots would be overkill, even for me)

Method

Mr. Hensongs grabbed a hen and eased her into the sudsy water – butt first.  We waited for the frantic screeching and flapping of wings.  Nothing…not even a peep….she just stood there in the warm water.

I went about the job of gently rubbing the offensive feather area and washing between her toes.

Out of the wash and into the rinse…same reaction…..gently pumped her up and down to rinse out any soap

Out of the water to drip off as much as possible, then covered with a towel to soak up additional moisture.  One happy hen just sitting there in our arms.

Off she went onto the lawn and the procedure was repeated with hen number 2.

We tried the hair dryer set on cool to get some of the water out, but since it was warm out it didn’t seem necessary.

One thing we will do next time is to get a kiddie gate to corral of the lawn for the drying time. That way Henny and Penny will stay out of the dirt while they’re wet – it’s so much better than yelling “N0!  Get outa there!”

The Results

I really meant to take pictures, perhaps even do a video blog, but it was such a non-event.

Here are the happy, clean hens

I had the joy of reconnecting with a high school friend and finding out how much our lives have had in common over the last I-Won’t-Tell-You-How-Many years.  Let’s just leave it as we’re very very wise women!  You can imagine how much fun it was to find that we both share a passion for chickens.  Yesterday we got together for a visit and I’m thrilled to begin sharing advice about caring for a little bigger flock. I learned new information about cleaning and storing eggs.  That will be another post.

Chez Poulet

Henny and Penny are excited about introducing their country friends.  Well, not really country but, for our city chickens, anything bigger than their urban Casa Hen Songs with extra dirt to dust in and bugs to find is country!

Meet The Girls

These hens have a wonderful enclosed run area.  Their home is next to open areas and a great state park – Mount Diablo – and they need to be kept safe from coyotes, fox, and other critters.

A Tour of the Coop

What Henny and Penny wouldn’t give for a big area like this to roam.  They haven’t read the memo on predators who consider them to be a tasty snack.

Pepper the Golden Retriever is happy to pose with the girls – isn’t he a beauty?

Access to the nest for egg gathering couldn’t be simpler.

I love the inside of the hen house.  It is designed for easy access, cleaning, and air circulation.  This part of our corner of the San Francisco Bay Area gets about 10 degrees colder and 10 degrees warmed that Casa HenSongs so it’s important to pay attention to the comfort of the hens during the hotter summers and colder winters.

Let us know what you think?  I’m hoping the girls of Chez Poulet will be sharing more about their lives and times as almost city chickens.

Wow, this has been the summer of learning at Casa HenSongs! Remember that fantastic idea to hang a fly trap in the chicken run? I believe I said it would be the answer to keeping flies down to a minimum and make us good backyard chicken neighbors?

Today I went into the yard to settle down with a glass of tea (the unsweetened kind….we’re on the West Coast) and my computer to do some work for my Day Job.  There was a smell…..a decidedly non-chicken smell…but it was coming from Casa HenSongs.

I sat at the table as long as I could before I found that it wasn’t possible to hold my breath and work.

Visions of a time long ago and our first chickens (Sweetie, Speck, and Rhoda) floated to the front of my mind.  I had tried this before!  It didn’t end well!

The smell….the horrible horrible smell…..is the FLY TRAP.  Flies like nasty things and the bate in the fly trap is nasty.  Dead flies are also nasty.

The fly trap has been removed and the smell along with it.  The lesson learned is that nothing beats good old cleaning of the coop and run.  Also, hens smell a heck of a lot better than fly traps and dead flies!

Tomorrow we’re experimenting with fly paper.  I think it just might look like a festive garland along the fence.  I’ll let you know how it works out.

It’s been a while since Henny and Penny have made an appearance here on Fingers in the Dirt.  This week Mr. HenSongs and I also realized it’s been a while since we’ve done a serious cleanup of Casa HenSongs.  The weather has warmed up and it was too much to hope that the aromatic smell coming from the backyard was due to our neighbors recently fertilizing their lawn.

An important attribute for urban backyard chicken ranchers is a serious obsessive-compulsive attention to coop and run cleanliness.  As we put it in our family – it’s good to have a Virgo in the house.

Our backyard is not big and Henny and Penny reside close to neighbor’s homes and open windows.  We do our very best to keep odors and flies to a minimum. It’s not that hard if you have the right hen house and cleaning system.

The To-Do List

This is where our Omlet Eglu comes in so VERY handy (shout out to the Omlet folks).  A coop that hoses off in a jiffy and doesn’t retain odors is priceless in a backyard.  We also have a run that is at least twice as large as it needs to be for two hens.  More room = less concentration of poop and less smell.

• Ground cover of redwood bark and nesting material of shavings are very helpful for odor control.
• We also clean up poop.  Heck, we’re already scooping dog poop on a daily basis, so Mr. Hensongs (it was a royal “we”) swings through the run and scoops up hen poop at the same time.  All poop is disposed of in the manner acceptable to our garbage company.  We don’t have a place for a compost bin so we leave the composting to the waste management folks.
• Fruit and vegetable scraps are cleaned up after the hens finish pecking at them.  All it took was finding one R….A….T under the coop with a used cantaloupe rind to make us start this habit.
• Diatamaceous earth (food quality) is scattered around the coop and run.  It kills little critters on both the ground and the hens and keeps things fresh.
• A fly trap is a must.  We hide ours in the vine that grows in Casa Hensong.

Every 4 months or so, the bark is changed out.  We only had to experience “ripe” ground cover once to know that this task was not optional.  There’s nothing like planning a backyard BBQ only to discover your yard smells like a farm and not in a good way.