Today’s Boston Globe has an article about the project that I’ve been involved with at the nursing home. You can read it here. Nancy West, the reporter, did a lovely job explaining what we’re trying to accomplish, and the photographer took some evocative photographs. Don’t miss the one of Beulah, the pullet, meeting a 101 year old woman.
Please share the article. Nursing homes are businesses, and change will come when they see that these projects have tangible benefits.
Protecting chickens from predators is an on-going concern. Hungry animals come across the lawn, they dig under fences, and they fly into pens. I know of no fenced run that is predator proof; a weasel can squeeze through a two-inch gap between the fence and a door. A fisher cat can rip off hawk netting. The danger is worse at night and I believe that you should close up your hens as soon as they’ve gone in to roost. Pop doors need to be secured from the inside because a raccoon is capable of prying open a latch.
The danger of a predator attack begins at sundown, but as much as I want to shut up the barns right at sundown, I’m not always home, and I’m not willing to have my schedule be totally dictated by the animals in my backyard. LIke many things in life, I balance my needs against the risks. An automatic door closer can help. These electronic doors open and close at sunrise and sunset, and are either on timers or are light sensitive. I know of plenty of people who rely on them.
However, in all my years of keeping chickens, I’ve never used an automatic coop door closer. For the first 8 years I didn’t have electricity in the henhouse. Now that I do, I also have goats and a rabbit and dogs, all of which all need attention and require my presence. I’m always home within a few hours of sundown, if not, I have someone stop in to check on the animals. Also, Candy, having a wicked sense of bunny humor, used to sit on the pop door ledge and block the hens from going in at night. I worried that if I did use an automatic door, that the girls would have been stuck outside. Also, a rabbit needs to be secured safely in her own hutch – not something an automatic pop door can do!
Despite not having automatic doors here, when I thought through how to protect the hens at the nursing home, I knew that an automatic door was a necessity for that flock. Although the coop run has hardware cloth all around, there are gaps near the door into the run that wouldn’t provide nighttime protection.
Also, staffing changes daily, as does the time that the coop needs to be secured at night, and opened in the morning. An automatic door solved that scheduling issue.The coop was purchased prewired for electricity, and an automatic chicken door was installed.
Chickendoors.com is the manufacturer of this automatic chicken door.
It has several nice features. If the power goes out, it will run on reserve battery power. It’s made in the USA by some really fine people. You can chose to have either a timer or a light-sensitve opener.
You can select a right or left opening door. I ordered the wrong one, which will be replaced, so that the view of the chicken ramp isn’t blocked.
There are plenty of other options out there. Some doors slide up. There are YouTube videos about how to build your own. Let me know if you have experience with an automatic pop door. Now if only I could figure out how to close the rabbit up at night… and the goats…
We are heading into the sweltering days of summer and I cannot over-emphasize how essential it is to keep a close eye on your hens. Heat can be deadly to your flock. Chickens die from heatstroke and they die from dehydration. Even if the heat isn’t lethal, you might notice them eating less and laying fewer eggs.
I’ve written about how to help your chickens cope with heat here. Today I literally pulled another bag out of my collection of tricks. Green beans are one of the few veggies that everyone in my family eats and so every year I plant a large row of green beans in the garden. But, every year I harvest far more than we can consume fresh. I freeze the excess into bags. When I can’t keep up with the abundance, and the beans get big and tough, I share them with the goats (watch them scarf them down and burp on this video.)
I confess to not really liking beans that have been frozen, even when vacuum-packed. Still, every summer I freeze them in hopes that this will be the year that I find the perfect use for them over the winter. I never do, and I always have a few bags left over from the previous year’s harvest, but they don’t go to waste. On scorching hot days I offer these frozen blocks to the hens.
The pullets have never seen such a thing before, but they investigate and start pecking. (Note that I have put an extra waterer in the shade, which is the best thing that you can do for your chickens when it gets hot.)
The Gems know all about these frozen treats and attack the block with enthusiasm. Despite the lethargy that comes on during a heat wave, these green beans will get them to cool off a bit from the frozen bits they’re swallowing, and provide more water and greens to their diet.
Better yet, the green beans, which I put effort and energy into processing and freezing, won’t go to waste. Win-win all around.
The pullets are too young to lay, and yet there is an egg in the nesting box. Could it be that I have an Easter Bunny in training?
No, there’s magic of another sort in the Little Barn. Twinkydink is laying eggs!
She’s eight years old, and has let everyone know that is is quite an effort to make eggs at her age. After she lays, she eats, and woe to any pullet who comes into the coop for a snack, as she will be roundly run off.
But not the bunny. Phoebe is allowed to stay in the coop. She and Twinkydink have come to an agreement. I’ve watched the negotiations from afar, but haven’t been privy to the conversation. Diplomacy is best done in private.
The five pullets have settled right into their coop at the nursing home. They seem to be getting good care. I’ve stopped by a few times, and they’ve always had food and water, and their bedding is clean. It can be a tad boring in their run, so I brought them a present of a treat holder. I’ve left instructions for the staff to give them something fresh each day.
I’m still working on protocols for chicken care at a facility, and tweaking the housing so that the chickens will get consistent attention, and so that the residents can best interact with the birds. Fortuitously, a young man named Richard, who has just graduated from college and is applying to medical school, lives nearby and is home for the summer. He has volunteered to work with a few of the clients, bringing them outside to engage with the pullets. He has a scientific mind and will be attempting to quantify how having these animals affects the lives of the residents.
I taught him how to pick up a chicken, and how to teach them to come. When he’s there, the birds will be able to get out into a grassy, fenced area.
Notice the woman looking out of the window. She’s in the common room for the memory loss residents. Already the Director is noticing that they are looking outside more; the chickens give them something to think about and focus on.
Because of patient confidentiality, I can’t show photos of the residents. But, I’ll be posting more about this project, and the coop, in the weeks to come.
I am available to consult with other institutions to help them bring chickens onto their properties in order to enrich the lives of their residents. I also have an entertaining hour program about chickens geared for nursing homes. I bring a chicken! Please email me if interested.
