It is official, I should not have any more chickens die an untimely death.  I installed the chicken butler today and it is a wondrous device.  I had to build a frame for it to fit.  I didn’t realize how much room my chickens really had to sneak outside.  I had made a 12 inch by 12 inch hole for them.  So I had to shrink it to 8 inches wide and add something to screw the butler into other than some flimsy paneling.  It really only took me about an hour to make the modifications and attach the chicken butler.  It goes up and down very slowly and works like a charm.  We installed the light sensor and it was amazing, all the chickens were in the coop and the door shut all by itself.  It was still light enough to move around outside but dark enough that the chickens had all gone inside already.  No more night time predators sneaking in to kill my chickens (especially because I forgot to shut the door).

Chicken Butler installed.  You can see the two new boards I added to the inside of the coop to make the opening narrower.  If you follow the door frame straight up four full boards above the top of the door there is a tiny light sensor hanging outside of the wall just to the right of the nail line.

Inside the coop I had to install a new low perch support.  It used to rest on top of the chicken door opening but is not possible with the butler installed.  So I fixed that at the same time.  We used some wire ties to bundle all the loose wires up and secure them from flapping chickens.  On a side note, I would recommend doing this around noon.  I had some early sleepers hanging out in the coop and two of them shat on my coat!  Luckily, I was wearing a hat.  My new support for the lower perch is nice and sturdy.  I figure even my new nine pound chickens will still be able to get out using an 8×12 inch opening.

I also managed to finish the outhouse/garbage can holder.  I had to install a foot locking mechanism to hold the door open and I had to chisel out the lock hole.  The tolerance was too close and all the rain caused the wood to swell and the locking mechanism would not work.  I found the door flopping in the wind after the garbage guys got done with it.  So I buried a post in the ground just below the bottom of the door and drilled a hole in the top of the post.  The door is opened, directed above the post and a locking mechanism is engaged by stepping on it, therefore locking the door open.  It works pretty slick.  The moon and star add the last little bit to the building.  It ended up turning out pretty good.  Kinda fancy for a trash can holder but it goes well with the surroundings.

Completed trash can (outhouse) holder.

Third week April, look over the barn on the right hand side of the picture and you can see the snow in the mountains.  This is very late for us to have snow.  I wouldn’t mind it but for all the rain we keep getting.  The pasture likes all the rain!

The weather is totally hosing me.  I know I could not be a full time farmer.  I am already bald, I think the stress of the weather alone would do me in.  I have not really been able to do any real farm work.  It has either been raining, freezing or the wind is blowing 30-50 mph.  Wind is the issue today.  Actually, I am hoping the wind blows for the next four days and dries some of the ground out.  I could dig post holes this weekend if the wind will die down, no rain comes and I can rent a tractor for this Saturday.  That is a lot of ifs.  I am not holding my breath.  This is killing me and really pushing my schedule back.  I wanted to be done with the fencing by the end of June.  At this rate I won’t even get started until the middle of May.  Mother nature is being naughty.

We decided to lock the sheep back into their Winter pasture area.  They were going all over the place which was not so bad, but they started to get out into the CRP (means I need to go tighten that gate and drive in a couple of metal posts) but the biggest problem was discovered on Friday morning by me.  I was opening the passenger door of my new car (to empty out the trash so the wife could ride with me) when I noticed these crescent shaped superficial marks on the side of my car.  The light had to hit the marks just right but there were lots of marks and they all followed the same path and were in a six inch swath.  It took me about five minutes to realize that the marks were rub marks.  Our young ram, Lucky, had been rubbing his new horns on my car to get the velvet off of them!!!  His horns are only about three inches long now.  The moron, doesn’t he know that is unacceptable.  Use the fence like everyone else or the underside of the bridge.

On Monday we had a quail crisis.  My daughter called me on the cell phone to say the quail had something funny on one of its legs and wasn’t walking.  I told her to clean it off so she could see what was wrong.  She was worried about causing the quail to die, I informed her that you cannot fix something if you don’t know what is wrong, so she went out and did the inspection.  The quail had broken her leg.  After thinking for a while we think it was the cats.  The cats wander in and out of the coop all day.  They kill wild quail and this cage had a wire bottom so we think one of the cats jumped up and tried to get at the quail, it panicked and broke its leg.  So I had to put it out of its misery.  So now no more quail.  That just did not work out well.  So we are not going to do quail again.  I told Sarah she could have a rabbit (a single rabbit!) if she got her grades up and cleaned out the cage.  So we will see.

My chicken butler arrived and I am stoked.  I figure it will only take me a couple of hours to install it.  I am just going to add some spacers to move it away from the wall and in line with the door opening. I am going to do that this weekend.  The chicken butler is going to have priority.  If there is no wind I will cut the last two holes in the garbage can holder/outhouse.  There is so much dust with the wind blowing it is hard to see where you are cutting.  On a major positive note the garbage men just opened the door, emptied our can and put it back in the enclosure and shut the door!!  We have the best garbage men.

The baby chicks are starting to get big.  I even opened up the door so they could go into their own outside pen, but none of them seem interested in going outside yet.  Need a no wind warm day to entice them.   I planted grass in their yard this fall and it is already eight inches tall.  I figure that replanting the grass in there will end up being a yearly occurrence.  Our trees don’t even want to leaf out yet it is so cold.  The only real color we have is the Winter pears are in bloom.  I am not sure who is going to pollinate them but they are really blooming.

Winter pears in bloom

Well I finally did it, I ordered the Chicken Butler for my coop.  It is an automatic door with a light sensor so it opens in the morning and closes at night.  No more dead chickens from predators.  I should have it by next week.  The video showed a very simple install so about two hours (using Annmarie time).  I have to modify my opening I believe.  I may be able to just put up a 2×4 frame.  Won’t know until I get the Butler.  Then I just need a hole in the side of the coop for the light sensor.  This is way cool.  I figure I lost over $500 last year from predator kill.  So this will stop the predators cold.  I don’t have daylight predator problems just nighttime issues.  I think I will still fire up the live trap.  I may even just put it at the door opening into the chicken yard so it only catches things trying to get into my coop yard.  Stay away and you will be safe.  The Butler was kinda spendy but it will pay for itself this year.
I have decided that I need a jigsaw before I can finish the outhouse project.  I want the moon and star to be very pretty and a Rotozip is not the proper tool.  I needed to stop at Home Depot anyway to get some wet/dry vacuum bags (work better when sucking up sawdust) on the way back from work.

Well it did not rain today!  It was windy and cold but no rain.  I went out and worked on the outhouse/garbage can holder.  I finished the trim and cut out both crosses for ventilation.  This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be as I do not own a jigsaw, instead I used a Rotozip.  Rotozips are not known for their precision.  It was quite the adventure to attempt to get straight lines.  I broke my hole drill so the hardware store was kind enough to supply me with a spade bit the appropriate size.  Unfortunately, I was drilling through half boards and had to switch back to the broken hole drill after starting it with the spade bit.  It worked and I got it done, but it took considerably longer.  I had estimated three hours to completion the other day.  I spent four more hours on it today and I still need to cut out the moon and one star in the front door.  So according to Annmarie (2-3 times my estimate= 6-9 hours) I am right on schedule for completion.

Front side all trimmed out, just need the moon and a star.

I must have done something right as both crosses managed to line up! The wind does move through quite readily with just these on the sides, adding the moon and star on front should give us great ventilation. NO trash smell in the Summer.

Annmarie and I spent all day Saturday at an auction.  It had been a decade at least since we had been to one.  We forgot that it is an all day event.  We did manage to get a few great snags.  We got two old cast iron irons (yes the kind you use to iron clothes) and a handle!  Picked up a couple of beautiful cobalt blue Salt and Pepper shakers.  I picked up four old leg traps for $9.  These got me to thinking what to do with them (after Annmarie asked me what I was going to do with them).  I am going to put nails on the outside of one side of the chicken coop and hang all the traps from them as decoration/warning to all the predators to stay away from my chickens.  I bought 50 1943 steel pennies.  Yep, totally unnecessary but I couldn’t pass them up.  I got three shovels for $5 each.  Annmarie bought a cabbage slicing board (I don’t know why, she doesn’t like coleslaw or sauerkraut).  She bought a manual crank old fashioned ice cream maker, but it had been added to a lot of four other boxes but the price was right at $2.  We ended up getting some classic books in hardback and Sarah is going to read them.  We got  a cool rooster salt and pepper shaker, but the salt shaker was missing.  I liked it anyway and am going to keep it.  We ended up getting three more boxes of vases for $2 while I was paying our tab.  I had to go back and give them more money.  Good thing we were running out of room in the car!

Some of our auction finds

It rained again yesterday.  That should be no surprise as it has rained every day here, cold and rain.  No new change.   I had to precut the door frame inside the house.  My saw is installed on the breeze porch (wife doesn’t like this, but it sure is handy) so I cut the pieces in relative comfort.  I had to open the breeze porch windows because I kept setting off the smoke detector in the hallway “FIRE, FIRE!” it screams when it goes off.  Sarah was not impressed as it kept interrupting her TV show.  Those knots heat up when you cut through them.   So I put on my oil skin hat with the ear flaps and went outside and worked on the building.  After dragging the frame out to the front porch I assembled it.  Of course I cut the angles on the two short pieces wrong.  After cutting two more pieces I had a frame.  I slapped in the extra pieces in two corners of the frame.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.  After moving the frame to the road next to the building I realized that I needed to trim out the front of the building before I could install the door.  So I did that in the rain.  I cut the boards for the door frame and mounted them.  Now I wanted to install a wooden latch.  I used a piece of 3/4 inch dowel that I mortised in on itself to form a handle and slide.  I needed it to rest on the horizontal support and needed to cut a notch in the front, drill a hole in the door and then drill another hole in the building.  So after much finagling I managed to the latch installed.  I installed some temporary stops in the doorway and positioned the door into the frame.  Used scrap wood on the ground to lift the door to the desired height and installed the hinges.  Now comes the tricky part, I needed to close the door to work on the latch.  I had to go inside the enclosure and shut the door, I drilled the hole and it worked!  The latch closes and holds the door shut.  To keep the latch mechanism in place I  cut out some supports and a stop so the handle didn’t take all the wear and tear.  Again I shut myself inside the enclosure, locked it and installed the supports.  I couldn’t get out.  I had locked myself in.  I had to remove the temporary door stops and this gave me some wiggle room on the door and I managed to move the latch enough to let myself out.  Annmarie told me this is why I should carry a cell phone so I can call for help when I need it.  My reply was I managed to get out so it wasn’t that bad.

Inside of outhouse door

Here is the mostly completed door. I still need to install the seam strips between the boards and do my cutouts.

Here is the latching mechanism and stop

If you look at the outside pictures of the building you will be able to see the bird perches I installed below the bird entrance holes.  I am going to cut out a moon and stars in the front door and some crosses in each side.  This will let the air move through the building so the smell doesn’t get trapped inside.  So I figure another three hours to totally finish this project.  I usually peter out on a project at this stage, 90% completed.  But I am sticking it out and getting it done!!

This is the unfinished side.  It still needs the seam slats installed.  The bird holes and perches are visible.