Dealing With Broody Chickens and More Woodchips to the Raspberry Plants

Sunday July 14, 2019 Guerneville CA.

Managing the broody hens

I think I have about enough chicks for awhile but I still have hens that want to nest and are taking up the egg laying boxes and not laying any eggs or not many anyway.

Hinged perches

When I built the perches for the egg laying nesting boxes I put them on hinges like this. But they need to be extended to close off the boxes to keep the hens out of them at night to hopefully get them back to normal.

I rounded up some boards and cut them to size and screwed them to the perch boards like this.

Closed up

Now I can close them up just before the chickens go to roost so the  broody hens will have to find someplace else to spend the night hopefully on the roost.

I had almost enough green paint to finish the job but not quite. Good enough though.

Mulching the raspberry plants

I waited until evening for the sun to get low in the sky before working on spreading more woodchips around the raspberry plants. I often garden in the evening as it’s a nice time to be in the yard.

I moved the pile of woodchips that was here and spread them around the raspberry plants.

Raspberry patch

Here’s some of my work. I’ll need a bunch more woodchips but at least it’s a good start.

Shutting up the boxes

Just before dark I went into the chicken pen and closed up the egg laying boxes kicking three chickens out that weren’t too happy.

Eventually all the hens made it to this roost and joined the rooster for the night.

I will open up the egg laying boxes when I close up the pen just after dark so they will be available for egg laying in the morning.

So far it looks like this might work but we’ll see by watching the chickens and how they react for a few days.

Stinky deer

That was my day for another nice one except for the stinky dead deer that got hit by a car out on the road yesterday smelling up the yard. Hopefully the turkey vultures will take care of that by tomorrow.