MORE birds? Geez

So lately I've been noticing all kinds of sticks and crap in my driveway. I've also noticed that lately a couple of pigeons seem to be hanging out on my house and the neighbor's house. Hmmmm...


I look up into my eaves and what do you know? Pigeons! It looks like when they redid the roof they built right over the cedar roof, and left a deadspace just above the kitchen. You can't tell in the pics, but it goes up to a wedge where nothing can get up to. However, it's not stopping this young couple from trying to raise a family upstairs from me. I don't recall them ever asking me, or even offering to pay rent, but such is the times we live in.

Just LOOK at the freakin squatters! Moving in like they own the place, without a care to the world!


I was going to board up the hole, but I took pity on them (since they're pleasant to have around, and they haven't crapped on my car or anything) and I made them a ledge to put their faggots in. I cut a piece of OBF to 20"x4" and hammered it up into the space. Doing this 18 feet off the ground can be a tad harrowing.

Here's one of the nervous parents now, sitting on the telephone pole wondering WTF ARE YOU DOING TO OUR NEST??? I'm fixing it, you retarded birds!


This is all the leftover sticks after I was done jamming them up into the hole. It looks like they have enough for three nests! I even saw one pick up a twig and try to make it stick up in there this afternoon, watching it fall down to the ground. You could almost hear the sadness as they thought 'awww, not again! maybe the next stick will be different!' I just had to do something for em.



Here's a closer view. For all my troubles they'd damn well better use the freakin nest or I'm pelletizing them. OK I won't really. That would be mean.



What IS it with me and birds lately?

All cooped up with nowhere to go

Hey how about an update? I finally got around to building the chicken coop. It's still not done, but it's at least livable by the chickens. We bought 4 sheets of OBF plywood at $5.67 each. Turns out I only needed three, but I use enough wood I think I'll figure a use for it, eh?


The base is 4' square, and has two pressure treated 2x4s for a foundation. The angled sides are one sheet of plywood, with one end being 3.5 feet, the other end being 4.5 feet. I figured that's a good angle to let the rain off the coop. I had to move the operation inside the garage because it started raining/hailing/sunshining too much for comfort.



The nest box is 36" long, 12" deep and 16" high where it touches the wall of the coop. I built it so it'd have a 4" lip to keep the nesting material and eggs in.


The roof cut measured 5' long, and left just over 4" hanging off each side. Perfect for the cedar shingles I want to use for roofing on the coop.


Here it is with the roof still off, and the vent open in the back. I will eventually put chicken wire up in there.


The chickens still aren't big enough to get onto the roosting beams, so I have a ramp for them for now until they decide they can fly up there. Spoiled little things, I know.

How about some more baby pictures?? Here's the little darlings in the creche we built for them. They stayed at Tamara's place until the coop was built.


And here's one of them figuring out she can flap her way on top to stare out the window. We suspect this is a rooster. You can also see why using a styrofoam creche is a bad idea. They pecked the hell out of it! There's some places they were digging their way out to freedom and we had to seal it up with tape and cardboard.


And here they are in their new digs before I seal up the roof.



It looks plenty big for them now, but they'll get about twice as big as they are now when they're adults.


The two standard New Hampshire reds will get even bigger. Well, that's all for now! I still have to shingle it and possibly paint it, and I'm in the process of building their run so they can hang out outside.