FarmCity Food Garden Construction

Coyotes and Chickens: Oh No!

We here at FarmCity are firm believers in the full diversity of wildlife that lives in Vancouver - including coyotes (smart, adaptable, amazing animals).  However, they've apparently been raiding people's chicken houses of late, particularly in Kitsilano: a neighbour reported seeing one sitting on the front lawn, chowing down on someone's chicken!  Poor chicken.

This coyote was seen at Jericho Beach, just east of Spanish Banks, in Vancouver, by Biology_2380.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our own beloved chickens came out for a snack and a stroll in the asparagus bed the other day - while we worked nearby, believe me!

As far as keeping the coyotes away from the chickens, the trick is tight, latched doors on the chicken coop, and sturdy latches and wire mesh on the chicken run.  We have usually built chicken runs with the mesh burried below ground to a depth of a good foot - which has worked fine for us.  But we've also designed a chicken coop where the mesh continues unbroken right across the floor of the run (buried a half foot below ground, so the chickens still get soil underfoot for scratching and dust-baths).

Even so, we have found spots at our own chicken coop where racoons or coyotes have tried to dig under the fence, but our strategy has been to fill each hole and put big rocks along the fence as an added defense.  We want our chickens to sleep well at night!

Below is a rabbit hutch we built - but we've recently been adapting them for chickens, by making the whole construction twice as high, and the house bigger to accomodate a roost and a nesting box.  You can see how easy it is to attach a wire mesh floor, which is then buried below ground.

 

One of the aracaunas, safely inside the coop!

Chickens and Urban Farming - Part II

Last post, we talked a bit about our chickens and showed a photo of some of their eggs.  But beyond the simple pleasures of keeping chickens, and the joy of fresh eggs, they also benefit us in another way.  Not to be too delicate about it - we love their poop!  

This is Olive, our Polish Buff Lace, in the chicken house - with the straw.  She's definitely the prima donna of the flock!  

But about the poop: once a week we clean the straw, with the chicken droppings, from their house, and compost it, turning it once a month or so.  The droppings are so "hot" (nitrogen-filled), they help the straw compost within a couple months.  It comes out as beautiful, clean-smelling humus.  Below, the well composted straw is in the back, the new straw in front.  Here, the "open-air" approach to composting - covered in rodent-proof screen (foreground), but otherwise open to the elements - also aids the composting process.   

To ensure that the chicken manure is fully composted - if manure is too hot, it burns the small roots of the plants - and that the benefit of the droppings go further, we then layer the composted straw into our kitchen waste composters.  The effect is to heat up the kitchen compost, too - and where it often would just lie there stinking for months, now it is really composting!  In the end, we get a beautiful, crumbly, dirt-smelling humus, ready for the garden.

Finally, we also keep the floor of the chicken run covered with the leaves we raked in the fall, and stored for this purpose.  The chickens just love scratching in the leaves, and in the process (and by virtue of their precious poop, too), they are composting the leaves for us.  By the spring, we'll have gone through 25 or 30 bags of leaves - now nicely composted for mulching the gardens.

All of this is meant to help keep as many of our organic resources here on our property as we can - rather than shipping the nutrients off the land.  Our trees are great storehouses of nutrients and minerals, and we want to make sure these resources return to the soil they grew from! 

Chickens and Urban Farming - Part I

We've had our chickens for about eight months, now - and they have become something of a neighbourhood sensation.  People go out of their way to check in on the chooks - joggers, dog walkers, people with little kids all stop by the coop to have a look.   Great fun for us - and the eggs are good, too.

This is Cleo, one of our Rhode Island Reds, trying to eat my camera:

I should add, the chickens aren't smelly, or noisy - the noise comes from the roosters, which are forbidden by local by-laws.  Instead, our girls just cluck quite endearingly.   The pen is built to be rodent-proof, as well as racoon, skunk, coyote and raptor-proof.

Our chickens are definitely spoiled Kitisilano mavens, with a fancy house and a big, secure run.  I'm surprised we haven't been serving them cappucinos on the roost before breakfast!  Their house is an ample 5x8 feet, with two nesting boxes and the roost, as well as space for food, water and both their grit (to aid their digestion) and oyster shells (to help them make strong egg shells).  We scatter a thick layer of straw and sawdust on the floor, which they love scratching in.  (More on the benefits of the straw in our next post).  

 

In the outdoor run, they have another set of food and water containers, and lots of space to scratch and roll in the dust.  The cost for food and supplies is about $12/month - and in return the chickens each lay an egg a day, most days.  Below, the brown eggs are from the Rhode Island Reds, and the blue ones are from the Araucanas (a South American breed).  No, the chickens didn't lay the potatoes, too! 

But beyond the eggs, the bigger benefit is the way the chickens fit into the broader ecology of our mini-farm.  Our next post will tell you all about it!

Chickens in Vancouver!

 My neighbour literally crowed like a rooster at the news: we can now keep backyard hens in Vancouver!  We are allowed up to 4 hens per house - to be kept in a well-built chicken house and yard (for a full description of the requirements, check out the City Guidelines).

Here at FarmCity, we've been preparing for months - studying chicken house plans, visiting friends with chickens, and thinking through the City guidelines.   The main considerations are keeping the chickens healthy and safe, and keeping their yard free of rodents and other pests.  We've come up with plans for some really secure structures: feel free to contact us for ideas!

In the meantime, we're imagining the freshest organic eggs in our frying pans every morning! 

Photos are courtesy of Jill Robinson.