New Chicken Coop - Installed!

Hello!  It was a busy weekend for this farm family.  Dayle and Travis managed to pull out the old chicken house using the tractor and get the ground ready for the new one.  They used the tractor to do some leveling and then Travis used a rake to further flatten it.  Then they took the truck and got 1 1/4 tons of gravel to put on the site.  

We had an unplanned dog emergency, so Travis and Kristi had to go take one of their dogs to the vet.  Travis returned and raked it flat.  

Meanwhile Dayle and our grandsons, 8 & 9 years old, shoveled the gravel out of the truck onto the ground.  This photo shows Hayden and grandpa working - there is a big dirty spot on the garage from where the old coop butted up against it, we have to scrub that clean now.  Hopefully we'll have the house and outbuildings painted "barn red" this summer.

Here is Caleb helping with the project.  I am so happy they get to grow up on the farm with us and learn how to work and take care of things.

To further make the base stable the guys laid down two rows of concrete pavers as a foundation.  Dayle had bought a bag of chopped straw to lay inside the coop and to fill the nest boxes.  I fluffed the nests around and laid two "fake" eggs inside so the chickens would know where to lay their eggs.  Dayle bought the two eggs at the farm store and they are really NICE.. they are ceramic and actually look and feel exactly like a real egg.  I put and X in black on the bottom so whoever picks up the eggs will know to leave these in there.  :-)

Here are the 5 nest boxes all set up.  

I pulled up a camp chair and watched the chickens as they tried to figure out how to get into the new coop.  The old door was at ground level, this one is up a ramp.  They kept trying to find their old door and were rather confused.  

The grey one is named "Gracie", she's an Ameraucana that lays aqua eggs.  They other is Shelby who lays a brown egg.  Gracie was the smartest and bravest and finally went up the ramp into the coop.  Shelby nervously strutted around wondering where she'd gone.  Gracie came out and visited with her and then went back in.. after 3 times seeing her do that, Shelby finally went up the ramp!  Success!  This was Saturday evening, and the automatic door worked and shut at dark.  Yesterday on Easter Sunday - Caleb checked the nests and both chickens laid their eggs in a nest, neither one in a nest with a fake egg.  LOL!  I was so happy they used the nest boxes and the eggs were completely clean as opposed to how the ended up when they were laying under the roost in the old coop.  Success!

The Easter Bunny hid some eggs and here are the boys with theirs.  :-)

The DIL bunny even left some gold eggs hidden for grandma! :-)

I'd ordered these on Amazon when I was sending a big Dove chocolate bunny and a cute stuffed rabbit to my granddaughters that live way way far away in Ohio.  I've been sharing these with the family.. they are yummy!

We had a different Easter dinner - instead of a ham we had baked pork chops.  While it was very good, I hope we go back to a ham next year.  But we had such a nice dinner all together.  We toasted each other with sparking cider.

Dayle prepared the feast of baked pork chops, fried Yukon gold potatoes and onions and boiled corn on cob.  Num!

My daughter shared a photo with me of Paige and Jenna with their gifts from us.  The Gund stuffed bunnies look so real, I almost got one for myself!  LOL!  I sure do miss being able to see these precious girls more often.  

It was a bittersweet weekend as the kids found that their dog Bubba was terminally ill with cancer and so they had to make the hard decision of putting him out of his misery.  It's been very hard on Kristi.  

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week ahead.  We are preparing to head to the coast this week!  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)