Winter preparation

When my husband wakes up this morning, I have a long honey-do list for him to help me with today.  He retires in two months.  When his friends ask him what he will do when he retires, he tells them his wife will keep him busier than the job did.  That is probably pretty accurate except I do allow for afternoon naps.  I only nap on weekends when my husband is home but I do love a good nap.  Especially when it is so hot and you have been outside for a few hours trying to get stuff accomplished before the heat of the day.

Well, the heat is practically over here in Florida and it is time to start planning for protection for the cold for my chickens.  I am still in the process of selling some chickens and I am down to 97 from 122.  I keep thinking I want to keep them all but I know it is too many chickens to ask anyone to help take care of while my husband and I are off traveling and visiting our relatives.

I really do enjoy planning out what to do with my chicken yards.  I know I mentioned I am constantly moving or adding chicken fencing.  I want to separate the different color of Silkies to produce solid white, black, dark blue, buff and splash chicks.  I have had a number of people mention they would like some Splash chicks.   But all this involves building more 4×4 chicken houses, putting up separate fences, and netting over the top of the yard.  I have to use netting so the chicken hawks don’t get the small breed chickens.

The main thing we will be doing today is moving chickens around so no one house is too crowded and closing-in a couple of the houses so I can lock the chickens up if there is a need.  Just hope it doesn’t rain all day like it did yesterday.

I am going to sit down and make a list of supplies we need to pick up for our chicken projects today.  Since most of the houses we have built recently are open in the front, we will need to enclose this area to keep the cold winds out.  But, you also have to keep a good ventilation system for the houses, too.  And make it easy to clean the bottom of the coop.  I am thinking hinges to pull the bottom of the board up so I can rake and collect eggs.  I don’t like the idea of dark coops and reaching in to collect eggs and perhaps running into another snake.

I will let you know how the day goes…so many projects and only so many hours in the day.  Let’s see what we can get done today.  Good thing it is a three day weekend for my husband.