My Chirpy Chicken Coop

Top 20 Heat-Hardy Chicken Breeds September 26, 2021 (The flock free ranging in the heat of the day!) Chickens are more likely to suffer heat exhaustion in the summer than freezing in the cold, so if you live in a warm climate, choosing breeds of chickens that are heat-hardy is a good idea. If you live in a place that experiences both extremes - cold winters as well as humid summers - you should still consider the heat-hardy breeds, since nearly all chickens are cold-hardy to an extent. Certain breeds, such as those with smaller body masses and larger combs (the comb on a chicken acts as as "air conditioning" and helps to eliminate heat from the body) fare better in the heat than those breeds with larger body masses and smaller combs. Fun fact: Interestingly, most of the white egg-laying chickens are heat-hardy breeds! My top 20 heat-hardy breeds include: Appenzeller Spitzhauben Barred Rock Bantam Black Faced White Spanish Black Sumatra Blue Andalusian Blue Hamburg Buff Orping...

  Top 5 Kid-Friendly Chicken Breeds September 19, 2021 (A pic of my sister hanging out with our Buff Orpington, Eliza!) Raising backyard chickens is a fun family affair that everyone can play a part in. Small kids love to collect eggs, refill feeders, and help to keep the chickens out of flower beds. Plus, they can treat the flock to their favorite delights ! They can have fun sprinkling herbs in the nesting boxes, and picking weeds and edible flowers for the chickens to nibble on. On the other hand, older kids can help haul water buckets and bales of straw or bags of shavings, be assigned to coop cleaning duties, and be given the responsibility of letting the chickens out each morning. And everyone loves to watch the chickens run around in the yard! Over the past year or so, I have grown super close to my flock, and now, they are comfortable with me picking them up, and feeding them treats!  If you're considering starting a flock of backyard chickens, then choosing some of th...

  A Year In Review September 12, 2021 (A year's worth of memories!!!) Woah. One year???  Already?!?!?! YES! It's been a year!!! One WHOLE year of this blog's existence!!! The flock and I have had our epic moments and our happy moments. We've also had our sad moments. But it's been quite the journey since that first box of peeping pullets arrived.  So, in honor of this special anniversary, I've put together the top 10 blog posts most read this past year. Check them out!- 10. Eliza ~ Our Golden Goose Kicking off the list this year in the #10 spot is my profile post about my Buff Orpington, Eliza. She's my lovable yet crazy hen! We call her our golden goose since she is golden-feathered and honks like a goose!!! Read Now! 9. All About Fertilized Eggs Have you ever wondered about the mating process? Or how to know whether an egg is fertilized? Check out this post at #9! Read Now! 8. What Can Chickens Eat? Ever wondered about the diet of a chicken? This post come...

  A Rainbow Of Colors September 5, 2021 (A rainbow of eggs from my flock!) Wait WHAT?!?!?! Chickens can lay BLUE EGGS???  It's true.  Common chicken eggs come in all shades of blue, green, pink, brown, cream and chocolate brown. Although all eggs start out with white shells, the dye applied to the shells of some breeds results in eggs that come in almost all the hues of the rainbow. And even brown eggs come in a wide variety of shades when they come from different breeds of chickens! Brown Egg Layers Barred Rock Brahma Buckeye Chantecler Cochin Delaware Dominique Java Jersey Giant Golden Comet/Production Red/Red Star New Hampshire Red Plymouth Rock Rhode Island Red Tan Egg Layers Buff Orpington Lavender Orpington Red Laced/Silver Laced Wyandotte Speckled Sussex White Egg Layers Andalusian Belgian D'Uccle Campine Catalana Hamburg Lakenvelder Leghorn Minorca Polish Russian Orloff Sabelpoot Sebright Sicilian Buttercup Silkie White Faced Black Spanish Cream Egg Layers Do...

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...

       Chickens In The Suburban Backyard June 25, 2021 (A shot of Eliza sneaking through the patio!) Backyard chickens have sort of become a "thing" inside the last decade or so in lots of backyards across the country. They have always been a thing on farms, of course, and now are even invading many suburban and urban communities. But simply how realistic is it to raise chickens within the suburban backyard? Well, as it turns out, it's very sensible. In light of new events, being as self-enough as viable is even more essential than ever. And having the ability to acquire fresh eggs from your flock of backyard chickens is about as self-enough as it gets! Eggs are a complete protein, and are versatile enough that they can be made into so many extraordinary meals. They pair well with all styles of meats, cheeses, veggies and herbs. They store nicely, and can be pickled, frozen or salt cured to last even longer. however a fresh egg, left unwashed, will last for several w...