My Chirpy Chicken Coop

Choosing Chicken Breeds August 29, 2021 (A pic of our breeds of chickens!) Choosing chickens breeds for your flock can be pretty tough, seeing as how there are more than 100 breeds out there! We have two Buff Orpingtons, a Rhode Island Red, and a French Copper Maran! Do you want chickens based on your weather climate? Do you want good layers? Friendly hens? Or different colored eggs? Luckily, I can help guide you through the best breeds. Let's get started! While there is no “right” or “wrong” breed, and all the breeds generally will get along with each other, one of the more important considerations is the climate where you reside. Although most chickens are generally okay in cold climates, there are many breeds that struggle in hot climates. So if you live in an area where it's mostly hot during the year, then choosing heat-tolerant breeds will be important. The Mediterranean/British breeds are good choices if you need heat-tolerant chickens. Breeds such as Leghorns, Penedesen...

   So Just How Loud Is A Rooster's Crow? August 22, 2021 (A shot of Lafayette letting loose a crow in the morning!) More and more suburban and urban areas are starting to allow a small flock of backyard chickens, but many are still banning roosters- claiming around-the-clock crowing as an annoyance to neighbors. So I decided to do a bit of research to find out just how loud a rooster's crow actually is. First of all, you need to understand how sound is measured. All sounds are measured in decibels.  So what is a decibel? A decibel is a unit used to measure the intensity of a sound by comparing it with a given level on a logarithmic scale- a unit of measurement that indicates how loud a sound is. The human ear can hear sounds within the 0-140 decibel range. Less than zero, the sound still exists, but we can't hear it. Above 140 decibels can cause immediate pain and permanent damage to the ears, while exposure to a noise above 180 decibels will kill hearing tissue. Prolonge...

Buff Orpington Portrait August 15, 2021 (My Buff Orpington portrait of Eliza! I bet she thinks I can never catch all of her beauty in a painting. :) This summer, I took an acrylic painting intensive for 5 weeks. For the first 4 weeks, the teacher would do already-chosen paintings with me. On the last day, I could choose what I wanted to paint, and so I chose to paint a Buff Orpington portrait! I had so much fun with this cool painting, and so I decided I would share this how-to with y'all: Get your supplies together! You'll need- A canvas, pencil, container of water, paper towel, various sizes of paintbrushes, various yellow acrylic paints, red acrylic paint, & black acrylic paint. Do a sketch transfer of your chosen Buff Orpington. (For those who don't know what that is, then here is a quick tutorial- Simply print out a photo of a Buff Orpington, then turn over the paper and use a pencil to smudge the back in graphite. Next, place the paper face up on your canvas, and ...

Come One, Come All! 2 Chicken Feeders For Sale!!! August 8, 2021 (Our two "like new" PVC bucket feeders for sale!) For all y'all who need a chicken feeder or two- Come and get it! What- 2 chicken feeders, PVC bucket type, complete with 3 openings, lids, and swinging handles. Perfect for a flock of 2-6 and will last a month if filled completely. Where- I'm located in Southern California in the San Bernardino area. I am not shipping these. Please come pick them up. Price- $15 per feeder, so $30 for both. Note- Our chickens had some difficulty eating from these feeders (as mentioned in my last post) so I just wanted to throw that out there. If you would like to view this at the Backyard Chickens forum, here is the link:  https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/come-one-come-all-2-chicken-feeders-for-sale.1484097/#post-24737302 Please contact me if you would like any information or would like to purchase these!  Thanks!

Changes August 1, 2021   (One of our latest changes: Home sweet home!) As you can probably tell by the name of the post, the chickens have been undergoing some...changes.  Firstly, ever since dear Washington passed, they chickens have been losing feathers. We had many suspicions as to what it could be- depression (due to Washington's death), bullying, mating, mites, free ranging, etc. Finally, we figured out the problem: The PVC bucket feeder we got for the chickens just after Washington's death (their small dispenser feeder was needed for the incoming chicks) were a bit restraining to their appetite. Basically, the chickens weren't so used to eating out of PVC pipes connected to a bucket. So they limited their food intake, which caused them to lose their feathers. We fixed this problem by getting rid of the old feeders (more on this coming soon!) and getting a bigger dispenser feeder. And so, their feathers have been growing back in!  Secondly, our old coop completely br...