Technical Difficulties

There's going to be a delay in posting about both the darling kittens and the chickens. I'm having nothing but trouble in getting photos and video off my camera.

To give you a quick update though, the kittens are all doing well. The day after I brought four orphan kittens home, I went back to the barn where my neighbor and I found them to retrieve one more kitten. 

The fifth little guy struggled a bit for the first twelve hours or so. It didn't have much interest in eating. But he revived and is OK.

All five kittens are happy, healthy and are bouncing around playing with toys and wrestling with each other. 

The chickens are also doing fine. They are still two distinct flocks, but there doesn't seem to be any strife beyond what you'd expect from a normal pecking order. 

As soon as I can figure out what is going on with my camera, I'll post the photos and some "real" updates on all of the critters here at Crossed Sabers Ranch.

Kittens!

I think that one corner of our garage is destined to have a box with baby animals. No sooner did I get the brooder box out of there when I had to set up the storage tub that used to be the Little Deuce Coop to house four orphan kittens.

Yup....cutest little things you'll ever see!

Four days ago, G.W. and I, on different occasions, found one or more of these very small babies out alone, wandering around a neighbor's house and barn. They were crying loudly, which is what alerted us to them. No mama cat in sight. They're too little to be out unsupervised and were so vulnerable to a fox or crow. 

Three days ago, when I heard them crying again, I called a different neighbor (Maria) about them. She told us that a feral/barn cat had had a litter in the first neighbor's barn. She hadn't seen the mama cat in several days and was worried something had killed it.

Yesterday afternoon, when the tiny kittens were still alone, still crying frantically, and now in dire danger of either starvation or being killed by a predator, Maria and I took action. 

We spent hours crawling around some guy's junk-filled barn trying to round up the kittens. I don't want to think about what I must have been laying in while trying to reach into small spaces to get the babies. They were afraid of us and would dart around and hide in every inaccessible spot. 

We moved slowly when we could and with as much patience as we could muster considering the hot, dirty, icky conditions. 

They look to be maybe four weeks old. They're so thin you can feel all of their little bones. 

Last year, Maria had taken in seven kittens from a different feral cat. She said her husband would kill her if she brought in more, so I brought these little guys home. I knew G.W. would be OK with this, since he was as worried about the little ones as I was!

Over a period of a few hours, I gave them small servings of milk replacer. They were so hungry they practically attacked the bottle, but since they may have gone without food for three or four days, I kept each meal very small. They're so little they fit in the palm of my hand!

It didn't take them long to catch on to drinking their milk from a teaspoon, and then from a saucer. 

I used the brooder lamp from the chicks to help keep these darlings warm. They don't have much weight to them and I didn't want them to get chilled. They've been through so much already.

Yesterday evening, G.W. and I went to the Pike's Peak or Bust rodeo. I left early to feed the babies again. When I got home and looked into the tub, there was only one kitten in there! Crap! Who'd have thought they could jump that high! 

An hour later and after tearing apart the garage, I found the three missing babies. You can't imagine the places they found to hide in! Everybody was fine, thankfully!

This morning, they are doing well. They're eating canned kitten food from a saucer in addition to their milk replacer.

 All four are active although one is much more shy than the others. 

This is not the shy one!

I may have found a home for one, possibly two of these adorable little faces!  

For now, the babies will stay in the garage. Our house cat Piper wanted nothing to do with them. Our barn cat Elizabeth hissed and spit at them, too. 

They're going to outgrow their storage tub home very quickly. Does anyone near Denver or Colorado Springs have a really big box, like from a washer or dryer that I could have? They'll climb out of one of those doggie play pens, so what ever they're in needs to have high, smooth sides and/or a secure cover. 

I know I promised a post to introduce you to my flock of chickens. I haven't forgotten! I'll do my best to get that posted by Sunday. And I'll post lots more adorable kitten photos, too! 

Bye for now!

Part Two - The Old Homestead Coop (or G.W.'s Fear of Change Orders)

When we last left you, I'd expanded the scope of the coop renovation from replacing one wall to replacing three. There was at least some measure of logic behind my request. Since we were already doing the work, why not fix up the other sides now instead of just patching them? Then we won't have to come back in a few years to completely redo those walls. Makes sense, right?

That kind of logic briefs well. But when your work crew thinks they are about halfway done and you turn around and add three additional days of work to the project, you better offer up lots of good home cookin' to smooth the way!

Once the guys had the walls torn apart we could see the frame of the coop. It is made from hand hewn wood. How cool is that? 

This is a hand-cut notch in one of the corner posts.

Here, Richard points to the marks left from the felling axe, a tool used to hew wood.

This means the basic structure of the coop was built before there were power tools.  Could be as much as 100 years old. 

It took Richard and G.W. an entire week to renovate this coop and that was with the use of power tools. Can you imagine how long it must have taken to build the coop using only hand tools? I'll bet it took a good solid month.  

But meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I forgot to mention that the guys had rebuilt the gate into the coop yard. It's solid now!

Richard had a great idea for added weather protection for the treated plywood we used on the walls.

Painting the walls with this stuff will add years to the life of the coop!

It was my job to paint the outside walls with it. It's thick like tar but not that difficult to work with. The rough cut lumber siding will go on top of this.

The window and door will have decorative painting on them. For now, they're left unpainted.

The guys were hard at work rebuilding the side of the coop.

With absolutely nothing square or even close to square, they had their work cut out for them.

Then it was my turn to paint with the asphalt stuff.

On the back of the coop, the very bottom of the boards had rotted out.

Rather than try to trim that off, the guys covered the ragged edge with treated plywood that had been painted with the water proofing. 

Then I was up again to paint the wall.

The last task for the day was getting half of the new roof on.  We chose the roll roofing because it's cheaper than shingles and easier to work with. 

Colorado building code doesn't allow the use of rolled roofing on homes. (But it's fine for barns and chicken coops) Some people apparently were using it on houses  anyway, so now stores don't sell it. G.W. got three rolls of it while on a trip to Wyoming a few weeks ago.

Although we had storms roll through in the afternoon and had to knock off "early" (meaning before it got dark), the coop was coming right along!

I believe all three of us took Advil before bed that night!  This kind of work seems to get harder as we're getting older.

Before any of us were ready, the next day dawned and we were at it again.

The other side of the roof went on quickly. I'm proud to say that I was up there pounding nails right alongside the guys.

While G.W. went to the sawmill to pick up the slab wood, Richard and I worked on the gravity feed watering system and the feeders.

Oh, that's right...we changed our minds about using rough cut lumber for the siding and went with slab wood. Nice looking and very inexpensive! More on that in a minute.

I'll do a separate post about the construction of the waters and feeders. For now, let's just say they are very ingenious, will save lots of time and will prevent dirty water and wasted feed.

Here's Richard installing one of the feeders. The gravity fed watering system is on the left (Blue bucket, hose and PVC with poultry drinking nipples).

Another feeder...

...and the second watering system.

The box fan in the window is to help keep air moving through the coop. It's a heavy-duty, rain resistant one.

Again, storms blew in by mid-afternoon, so we had to knock of "early". But thus endeth the seventh day of the coop renovation. Unfortunately, we did not rest on the seventh day.

The next day was crunch time, since all of the chickens were going into the coop at 5PM. 

I worked on wrapping the outside of the coop walls with chicken wire to prevent any critters from digging in. I only had to do part of the outside, since there is a concrete footer along one and a half of the walls. No digging through or under that!

G.W. and Richard started on the siding. I think it looks fantastic! Very much in keeping with the other old barns on the property.

Should I send this photo to the people at DeWalt?

The guys got enough siding up to cover the one corner next to the coop yard fence. Then they could finish the fence.

Just in time too, since the chickens were ready to move in! Not only did I have my thirteen to relocate, I acquired eleven more hens from a neighbor who is moving to Canada. Now I have two flocks to integrate. In my next post, you'll meet the whole gang!

The Old Homestead Coop a.k.a Fort Huevos

There's so much to catch ya'll up on that it's going to take me a while and several blog posts to do it!

It's been chickens, chickens and chickens!

Back in mid-May, I got my order of Golden-Laced Cochin chicks. The hatchery delivers the chicks to the post office. As soon as I opened the door to the post office I could hear my chicks hollering in the back. They were not happy!

The babies' first home was the "Little Deuce Coop", made from a large storage tub.

That's some food on a paper towel in the middle of it. Setting it up that way helps the chicks learn to eat.

Once they catch on to eating, they can use the regular feeder.

Of the sixteen chicks who arrived, one died within a few hours and two others died over the next month or so.  The remaining 13 chicks quickly outgrew the Little Deuce Coop.  

Thanks to my friend Kristi, who gave me a large box from her new patio furniture, I built the "Coop de Ville".

With the extension fashioned from part of a large moving box, the Coop de Ville measured six feet by just under four feet.  

They looked so small in it at first. 

But just five weeks later, they were HUGE and ready to move into their permanent home.

This is the chicken coop that came with our homestead.

 Someone had used particle board on the exterior of the coop. Not the best choice of material for outdoors. The particle board was crumbling apart. The roof was a mess, too. Lots and lots of work to be done before the chickens could move in.

I started the demo work a few weeks ago. First to go were these particle board patches.

Next, off came the door and window cover. I saved the old pieces in case we needed them as templates for the new ones.

Then came the frustrating process of getting all that rotten particle board off the front. 

Whoever put that stuff on used screws in some places and nails in others. Some of the screws were small, 2 1/2" ones and others were four-inch monsters. Same for the nails, with a few of them worthy of spiking railroad track to ties. 

Slowly, bit by bit, piece by piece it all came off.

This huge mouse nest was in the wall above the door. Gross!

All of this old chicken wire, which wrapped around the coop to keep digging predators out, had to come off as well.

Then it was time for the big boys to step in and do the heavy work.  Enter Richard and G.W.

While I was at work last week, they were hard at it on the coop.  By Wednesday, they'd completely rebuilt the front of the coop as well as the door and window cover.

Considering that nothing was square on that old coop, cutting all those pieces to fit was a nightmare! They used treated plywood, which will be covered by rough cut lumber as siding. 

The original scope of the project was to rebuild the front of the coop, make a new door and window, replace a few rotten boards on the other two sides and put a new roof on. Then I said those fateful words..."could we do the other sides the same way you did the front?"

And so it began....more demo work....

Tearing off the old boards from the side...

...and from the back of the coop.

Once the outer layer of rotten boards were removed from the back of the coop, we found a second layer of boards that was in very good shape. This meant the guys didn't have to cover that part with the plywood. We'd just put the rough cut lumber siding over it.

I've got to give Richard and G.W. credit. I tripled the amount of work I was asking them to do and neither of them said one word of complaint!  Bravo, guys!

And they worked until it got too dark to see!  G'night and come back tomorrow for the next chapter.