Chickens for bug control and food recycling.

That is so true!

@Beekissed your kittens are so cute!!! Boy do they look young.

They are...still on milk and struggling with kitty kibble, it has to be soaked still. They are finally evacuating on their own but still can't clean themselves well.

adorable kitties there we raised three feral in a Shasta trailer I lived
in for year we are getting brave enough to cut a whole under the closet
to let them out and back in as they want now they are mostly grown
These are three that are real cudly with us but no one else

PennyJo said:

adorable kitties there we raised three feral in a Shasta trailer I lived
in for year we are getting brave enough to cut a whole under the closet
to let them out and back in as they want now they are mostly grown
These are three that are real cudly with us but no one else

Click to expand...

Those are beautiful cats, Penny Jo! I also hear you have a birthday, so I want to wish you a very happy day out there!

Time to start coop tweaking for the year as I currently have more chickens than I have roosts, just until butchering time. Right now I have 40 birds, big, medium and still smallish, but will likely be down to 12-15 for winter as per usual.

I've spent the morning of the really hot day tearing things up and will spend the afternoon trying to put them back together again in a different way.

Had to take a break when the drill battery died on me and I had neglected to charge the backup. I thank God for power tools!

So far I've torn off a rotten tarp, removed a pile of boards, removed all the current roosts, removed some windows, and tore out some bracing for the roof, only to replace it with better and different types of bracing.

This all sounds like a lot but it's small scale...this coop is like a Hobbit house, so everything is pretty small, wherein lies the problem. With the low ceiling and curved sides, there's very little clearance for tools and for placing roosts where one can access them when needed. All roosts are currently removable and these will be also just so I can take them down in a jiffy when I need to work in there for some reason.

Letting the battery recharge while I get in front of a fan and recharge too.

so thank you the trio has had outside access a few months growing up fast..
I am now contemplating a new chicken run only today we have to go grocery shopping
first dry day

I let my hens out and they run to the house to get under the porch. They even beat me to the house. No bug chasing for them, it's too hot! They lay up under the porch. I can't wait until fall!

Me too!!! Fall is my favorite season and I wish it lasted much longer...makes me want to sing and shout and work all day out on the land.

That coop was immediately cooler since the changes made and on one of the hottest days so far this summer, egg count went up by 3 eggs..coincidence? I think not.

Just wait until tomorrow when I remove some boards from the nest boxes and mount a fan to blow a cross breeze there. Could be just what the hens are waiting on.

I have a fan on my rabbit, it is on a timer I had for xmas lights. Turns on about 11 am runs to about 5pm gets him though the hottest part of the day.

We used to do that for our rabbits too. If I had to do it all over again, I think I would create some sort of underground den for rabbits for their living quarters...nice and cool in a natural den and also warm in the winter.

I wonder if anyone is doing that out there?