Does a Bear Crap in the Woods?

Not always!

While I was feeding the horses in the morning, I noticed a bunch of crows (the collective noun for crows is a "murder". A murder of crows.) in our east pasture. They were fighting over something on the ground. 

I walked over to see what it was. It was this:

What's left of the leg of a deer. 

Then I saw this:

That's bear scat.

It's possible the two things are unrelated. Or maybe the bear found a road kill deer or one that died of natural causes. 

No matter how it happened, this is very close to my barn and corral. I took this picture below while standing at the corner of my barn. The red arrow points to where the bones and bear scat are located. 

You can't get a real sense of scale from the photo, but I'd say it was less than 50 yards from where I was standing to where the bones are. 

Makes me nervous for my horses, who live by the barn and spend a lot of time in that pasture! Where is this bear getting through my pasture fence, anyway? Or is it going over? Does electric fence deter bear? If it does, I should run some hot rope around my pastures...  

Digging Up Bones

Life is full of surprises. Life at Crossed Sabers Ranch is full to overflowing with surprises. I love it!

We sat on this bit of information for a while until we knew what we might have on our hands. What we have are some old bones.

Last month, while renovating the chicken coop, I was inside of it using a shovel to clean up the floor. Suddenly, the shovel hit something solid. Wood. Interesting. Did the coop have a wooden floor? Was it just a hunk of old plank? This was back when Richard was here helping us with the coop. I called him in, since G.W. was away on a supply run. 

After a bit of scraping, a curved edge appeared. A circle!

What on earth? A well or cistern cover? It's right in the middle of the chicken coop. 

I've got to tell you, I read far too much. And I read Stephen King and Dean Koontz so you know where my mind was going with this wooden circle. I was already imagining psychotic clowns coming out of the hole that this was covering up. Or giant alien insects who will invade our minds and gradually turn our physical bodies into them! Or this is an old graveyard and the zombies are coming, or the ghost of an Indian Medicine Man....Ahhhhhh!!!!! I'll never sleep again!

Some more scraping revealed a hole in the middle of this wooden what-ever-the-heck-it-is.

Richard popped the thing up. It's just a big, heavy wooden circle thing. I suddenly realized what it was. The end of a spool from wire or cable. Nothing odd or scary at all. Just something ordinary. Disappointing! 

What was under it? Dirt. Dirt that was different from the dirt around it because it was damp.  Oh jeepers creepers! I just know there's a clown under that dirt! 

Richard used the hori hori to dig around a little and a bone popped free. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. You wanna talk about being creeped out!  It wasn't the clown! It was the victim of the clown! Any second now and a bony hand will shoot up from the earth, grab me by the throat and drag me to my underground doom!

He dug a little more and another bone came up. Then another. We decided to stop digging at that point because we really didn't know what we had.

They were large and looked like vertebrae. The size led us to believe they were not human bones, but we didn't rule it completely out.

That's why we stopped digging. In the unlikely event they were human remains, we didn't want to dig anymore. It could be Jimmy Hoffa!  

Seriously though, in case they were human we didn't want to disturb the area. In my mind, instead of the freaky clown, I now was picturing CSI Colorado crawling all over the ranch. I imagined the big white tent with a crew sifting through the dirt from the chicken coop looking for more bones. Where would the chickens live while they were doing all of this?  Who would pay for alternate chicken housing? How would my horses react to news helicopters hovering low over the field? My mind works in very odd ways!

Through Richard, we sent the bones to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. The initial exam showed them to be the bones of a large hoofed animal, possibly even a bison. The animal was definitely butchered. No word yet on how old they are, but they might be fairly old.  An expert associated with the museum is going to have a look and let us know what exactly we've got. 

But we know it's not human. And not an evil clown, or an alien insect. 

For now, we wait to hear back from the museum. It's probably some steer that was butchered 75 years ago. What ever it is, the rest of it is probably under my chicken coop. Weird.

The Egg & I

My chickens needed a bit of convincing (or is it 'inspiration'?) with respects to egg-laying and the nest boxes. 

A few days ago, I installed these two nest boxes for them.

The next day, I found an egg on the floor of the coop. It's where I'd found the initial few eggs before the nests were up.

It was a tiny, little egg, too. 

The girls can't just leave eggs any ol' place. They need to use the nest boxes. I gave them a stern lecture that seemed to fall on deaf ears.  "What kind of mothers are you that you just drop your eggs any where it's convenient?" 

The old timers had wooden or ceramic eggs they'd put in the nest boxes to convince hens to go broody. Maybe it also works for teaching them to use nest boxes? 

Lacking fake eggs, I improvised and borrowed a couple of golf balls from G.W. (Don't worry, I took the ones that were all scuffed up anyway.)                                                         

The next morning, voila! Two eggs in the box right beside the golf balls.

I guess the chickens see those golf balls and think, "Oh, yeah. That's what those yellow boxes are for." Or is it "Fore!"? 

Gravity-fed Poultry Watering System

Check out my amazing gravity-fed poultry watering system. 

I have two of these set up inside the chicken coop for my flock of 24 birds. 

Our friend Richard put them together using the components I purchased from an Amazon.com merchant by the name of the Coop Queen , in addition to some supplies from Lowe's. (Not that the bucket doesn't make it apparent!)

The system is based on these. 

They are poultry drinking nipples. They work just like a water bottle for a hamster. The chicken pecks at the nipple and drops of water come out.

I chose the saddle-style nipples rather than the kind that are threaded and screw in because the saddle-style ones are easier to work with. They can be removed, replaced and reused. The screw-in kind can be replaced, but not reused.

I also ordered the bulkhead fitting assembly from the Coop Queen. The shutoff valve on the assembly will make cleaning the system a lot easier.

In this photo, you can see both the bulkhead fitting and the shelf used to hold the 5-gallon bucket on the wall. Richard cut the shelf a little narrower than the diameter of the bottom of the bucket to allow the bulkhead to hang freely.

Simply drill a 1 1/2" hole in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket and screw in the bulkhead. 

I used a leader hose for a hose reel to connect the bulkhead to the PVC pipe.

The PVC is 3/4" and is capped on the end opposite the hose connection. 

Richard drilled 5/16" holes along the PVC then wrapped the pipe with teflon tape before snapping on the drinking nipples. According to the directions, the teflon tape isn't necessary, but we decided to take the extra step to help prevent leaking. 

It's important to line up the 5/16" holes along the PVC so the nipples are vertical. In the photo, the nipples are pointing up. During use, they will be straight down. 

Richard used a section of 2x4 to mount the PVC pipe on the wall of the coop. 

Once the bulkhead tap is opened, water flows through the black hose and into the PVC pipe. When a chicken pecks at one of the drinking nipples, water drips out. 

The buckets are topped with Gamma Seals. Those are screw-on lids. These lids keep dirt out of the buckets. Just don't screw them on tightly so that air can get in and allow water to flow out. These lids also make it a cinch to fill the buckets.

I have two of these watering systems in the coop.

Once they were installed, it was a breeze to show the chickens how they worked. Chickens are naturally curious,  so all I had to do was tap the drinking nipples to allow some water to drip out. A couple of the chickens noticed immediately and began pecking at them. Once some of them knew what to do, the others followed suit. In less than 24 hours, all were drinking from the systems. 

The ten gallons total in the two systems lasts my flock of 24 birds one week. Twice a day, I check the water level in the buckets as well as the functionality of the drinking nipples. Then once a week I fill up both buckets. It doesn't get any easier than this. The flock always has fresh, clean water available. No more cleaning poopy water containers!

I've already been playing around with some design improvements. If I replace the end cap on the PVC with some type of connection for garden hose, I can clean out the entire system by flushing it with water while it's still in place inside the coop. I can just connect a garden hose to the end of the PVC, run the hose out the coop door and then flush the system. I could even run a weak bleach solution for disinfection through and rinse it well afterwards.  Since the water buckets are closed, they don't get dirty, but it's still necessary to clean them out periodically.

As a post script to this, I wanted to tell you about the excellent customer service the Coop Queen provides. After we had the watering systems installed, one of the drinking nipples leaked. It dripped water constantly. I sent an email to the Coop Queen and within a couple of days, I had a pack of five replacement nipples at my door. They really stand behind their product! Can't ask for better service!

I popped the leaker off and put a new one on and all is well!

Between these watering systems and my feeders, my daily chicken-related chores are down to just a few minutes. Weekly refills of buckets and general maintenance of the coop itself are really the only chores that take time.

As a disclaimer, having feed and water systems like this does not mean you never have to go into the coop. Don't put these in your coop and think you can ignore the birds for a week or two. OK? That's not how this works.  I still am down there several times a day to check on the levels of food and water, check for eggs, make sure the chickens are healthy, that nothing has tried to get into the coop...all the usual maintenance items. The systems reduce work by keeping things clean. Nothing more, nothing less.

Do you have any labor saving ideas that you use with your flock? If so, please share them! I'd love to see what you are doing.

Gravity Fed Poultry Feeder

One of my favorite quotes is by Thomas Edison. "There is always a way to do something better. Find it."  I also like to work smarter, not harder and look at everything I do with an eye for efficiency. I took that approach to feeding and watering my flock of chickens.

Chickens are dirty birds. Seriously dirty birds. They poop everywhere, including in their water. It's a lot of work to keep their water clean on a daily basis. And it's yucky to clean out a poop-filled waterer. They also waste feed, since their natural tendency is to scratch around. The food, even when it's in special chicken feeders, gets scattered all over the place and wasted.

With some internet research and a little ingenuity of my own, I now have wonderfully low maintenance systems for both feed and water. 

First the feeders.  Here is the finished product. It's a couple lengths of 4" plastic drain pipe, a PVC elbow joint, some drain/end caps I found in the irrigation supply section of Lowe's, a bit of duct tape and some pipe strapping.

This design is a modification of one I found online at Our Little Coop. Here is a photo from their website of the feeder they designed.

It's a lovely, simple design and was one I was going to build for my own flock. Until I got to Lowe's and priced out the components, that is. The tray that the feed goes into is a cap for PVC fence. They were $15 each. I need four feeders, so right away I was up to $60 in materials. Add in the cost of the 4" Schedule 35 pipe and the various other fittings and my four feeders would have cost in excess of $150. 

With some help from an amazing employee at Lowe's, I found alternatives to all of the components for a total cost of just under $60 for four feeders.  WooHoo!!

The white pipe is some kind of 4" drain pipe that's out with all of the landscaping drainage materials at Lowe's. It's a lightweight material and each 10-foot length was only $7. 

Naturally, I was so busy doing that I forgot to take photos.

I'll do my best to describe my process. I used a hacksaw to cut each ten foot piece into two 4-foot and two 1-foot lengths. One of each of these lengths makes up the feeder. 

I used a hole saw bit to cut three holes in each short piece. The chickens will get to the feed through these holes.

The short piece is connected to the long piece with a PVC elbow. The short end is capped with a green plastic drain piece. That piece had drain holes in it which were easily covered over with duct tape.

The top of the long tube is covered with a plastic end cap that was also out there with all of the landscape drainage material. 

Two of these feeders were installed back in July when Richard was here helping with the coop renovation. Here he is attaching one of the feeders to the wall. That's copper pipe strapping holding them to the wall.

This reminds me, if you are going to build something like this yourself, make sure all of the components fit together BEFORE you buy them and leave the store!  We live 15 miles from the nearest hardware store, so we make our list before we go and check it three times before we leave the store for home!

I put up the two outside feeders myself. Because of the way the run is constructed, I mounted the feeders on boards that were then screwed into the supports of the run.

I had a lot of help from the chickens while I was trying to get the feeders up. They're pecking at the drill, at the screws, at the feeder, my belt and even my earrings while I'm trying to work! Sheesh!

Ta Da! My $15 a piece super-duper chicken feeders!

Wanna know the best part? Each one holds around 15 pounds of chicken feed. Once filled, it takes my flock nearly two weeks to empty them. And the food in the pipes is clean and dry all the time. All I do on a daily basis is check the feed level. I only fill them when they're nearly empty, then I'm good for another two weeks or so. Sweet, huh?

Tomorrow I'll post the details of my gravity-fed watering system. If you thought the feeders were ingenious, wait until you see the waterers!

Hay! It's Egg-strordinary! We've gone to the dogs!

I don't even know where to begin! In the last two weeks the kittens have doubled in size! They all have homes to go to when they are old enough. We got some of our hay delivered, the chickens started laying eggs and we got a dog. Whew!

The kittens are next to impossible to photograph with my point and shoot camera because they are NEVER still! They're maniacs I tell ya!  At seven weeks old, they run, jump and climb with no fear. They'll climb to the top of the draperies, then cry pitifully for help because they can't get down on their own. 

Fuzzy picture of kittens swinging from the curtains.

There are four girl kittens and one boy. 

The boy is going to be a house cat. His new people have named him Buckaroo. We used a white thread as a sort of collar to identify him.

We are keeping two of the girls for our barn and the other two girls are going to live in my farrier's barn. All of the kittens go to the barn with me every day. They play in the stalls while I work.

When I'm out working on projects around the place, I pack the kittens up and take them out with me. It's a lot like taking a human baby someplace. The carrier with the baby, the bag of supplies for the baby, the playpen for the baby....

Here's my cart loaded with tools, materials, kittens in their carrier and all of the kitten supplies. We're going to work in the chicken coop.

I set up their playpen beside the coop. My project was installing a couple of nest boxes.

Three days ago, I discovered two eggs on the floor of the chicken coop! Surprise! I didn't think the girls would be old enough to lay until September! I didn't have the nest boxes up yet.

I'm trying a couple of types of nest boxes. The two I quickly installed are repurposed cat litter containers. 

The shelf-type nest boxes are what was already in the coop. I'm using them as the base for the nest boxes I want to use.

 Here are the two kitty litter containers. I used one screw through the back of them to secure them to the wall.

 To keep the chickens from sitting on top of the nest boxes and pooping all over them, I've leaned some scraps of plywood on them. The slope is too steep to allow them up there. 

 I'm using pine shavings in the boxes. 

I'm going to use a couple of plastic milk crates for nest boxes and also maybe some 5-gal buckets or storage totes, too. It's kind of an experiment to see what the girls prefer. I'll see which box type has the eggs in it most often. Then I can convert and use that type for all of the nests.

Then we got three tons of hay delivered. Our supplier is Hay Now Colorado. Kirk and Karina are also our farriers. We love them!  They have a skidsteer which makes unloading a breeze!

This is the first of several hay deliveries for us. We ordered twelve tons which will be enough for the next year or so. 

But the really big, exciting, wonderful news is that we got a dog! 

I'd like to introduce you to Makarov

Mak is a Great Pyrenees/St. Bernard mix. At 94 pounds, he's not quite big enough to saddle and ride, but I'll bet he could pull a cart.  He comes up to my hip!  He's a Livestock Guardian Dog and believe me, he knows his business!  He's not aggressive, but he is territorial. I've seen him in action when he spotted two red tail fox heading toward the chicken coop. All it took for Mak to deter the fox was a deep, rumbling growl. Those fox beat feet in a big, big hurry. Yay, Mak!

Some friends of ours gave Mak to us. We are so happy to have him! I'd been praying for a good guardian dog to protect my chickens.

On Sunday, we are having a contractor install underground, radio fence around seven of our acres for Mak. He'll have the freedom to run around both pastures, the barns, plus the house and yard.  

Every day seems to bring a new adventure for us!  No such thing as a boring day at Crossed Sabers Ranch!