A Small House, Transplants and Chickens
The newest addition to Double S Farms is rapidly coming together in preparation for their newest residents…..chickens.
Little Farmers #1 & 2 are having fun as the chicken coop is being built. Little Farmer #2 loves to play in the dirt….can you tell?
Newest addition, The chicken coop is being put together by Farmer #1, with some help from family members. I think Little Farmer #2 (on the right side) thinks the chicken coop is his own little fort.
The residents of Double S Farms, my mother, sister and brother-in-law, are transplanted Californians like myself. They moved to Arizona a few years ago and just love it here. According to my sister, if you had told her 5 years ago that she would be living in Arizona, away from Southern California and the ocean, and be living on a small ranchette, raising fruit trees, vegetables and getting ready for chickens AND loving it….she would have said you were crazy. But they do love living in Arizona and all that it has to offer.
Future Nesting Boxes
The chicken coop is almost finished. My husband is going over today to help them finish up the coop. You can see the ramp that the chickens will climb up and the nesting boxes.
Little Farmer #2 is ready for the chickens.
In a couple of weeks, six chicks will take up residence. There will be no rooster since the family already have their own alarm clocks and don’t want to irritate the neighbors.
I can hardly wait for fresh eggs…
I will post more as the chicken coop is painted and finished and of course, when the chickens arrive.
*I am spending today at a community Green Fair as part of a landscape discussion panel. I am excited to post about it next week.
Living Green in the Desert Garden
Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
Wow, lucky chickens! (and poor kids to lose their fort) I love the design- nice modern, sweeping views. Nice enough to stick in the front yard as sculpture!
We had chickens at my last place for a while. We had to have a taller coop though because of raccoons. The fresh eggs are great. I hope they have lots of space to spread the manure. And they made a wise decision about no rooster.
Hi Noelle,
I hate to admit this…but…I lived on a farm for 20 years and never once did I allow any consideration for raising chickens. I was dead set against it whenever the topic came up. However, I love eating chicken and farm fresh eggs are the absolute best! I nljoyed your photo story of building a chicken coop. I look forward to hearing about your green landscaping panel discussion.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Very cute little farmers. What sort of chicks will your sis get? Hope we get pics of them too. Good luck with the discussion panel, looking forward to reading about it.
Oh, part of my dream is to have chickens. Did they use a kit to build the coop or design their own? Cute little farmers, wait until they have a warm fresh egg in their hands!
My, oh my, those chickens are going to be living in style! And what a wonderful experience for the cute, little farmers. Enjoy the fresh eggs! Pamela x
Great post, chickens are a wonderful addition, I've always wanted a couple of brown hens. Looking forward to the arrival pics! 🙂
What a cute pair of little farmers! Sounds like a fun project…
Noelle, farmers #1 and 2 are simply too cute. I'll bet they can get into some stuff in very short order. Hope you're having a great weekend.
Very cool! What kind of chickens are they getting?
I bet you were happy when your family followed you to Arizona! The little farmers are so cute and they sure are doing a great job on the chicken coop!
What fun! Looks like a super duper chicken house. I am sure the kids will love it.
The chickens may have to make room for Little Farmer #2–looks like he has found the perfect play space:) I grew up on a farm where we raised chickens for many years. Your sister was wise to decide no rooster–we had a mean one once that used to chase me around, but that's a story for another day…
Noelle, there is nothing like your own eggs. They always taste better than store bought.
Your boy's are precious! I use to love playing outdoor in the dirt when small. Well, wait, I still do. LOL!
Anyway not matter what you did dirt always just finds you and attaches to a face or neck. 🙂
Sweet coop! I am seriously admiring those carpentry skills. Kids are cute, too.
Rosey
Those little boys are so cute…and what a nice chicken coop.What kind of chickens are they getting?
I enjoyed your previous post on the garden on the landfill.
I come to your blog to get warm…everyone else is in the deep freeze…lucky you.
Balisha
Fresh eggs and a great source of natural fertilizer for the garden! I think your children will enjoy learning about the chicks. Good luck!
Well those chicks will have a grand view from their roost! I am sure that will increase their laying! I have serious chicken/fresh egg envy!
I can imagine the joy of receiving the first egg and the birth of a baby chick. I had 9 hatched in my garden.
Hope all the best in your new little chicken farm.
Hi Noelle, this is most exciting! The coop looks perfect and the little farmers will be overjoyed with the baby chicks. My daughter raises chickens and her boys are just as smitten as she is. Such a good way for kids to learn about nature, life and the universe. 🙂
Frances
I miss hearing the cockeral's morning call to wake me up and the noisy clucking of mother hen when she has a egg to lay. I do miss my days of rearing chicken while growing up in the countryside. Now, we are forbidden to rear chickens in the city.
Noelle, I'm going to send the URL of this post to my daughter and son-in-law in Omaha, NE. They've been talking about raising chickens and they'd love to read about your efforts, I think! I'm sure you'll enjoy having the fresh eggs… I grew up on a farm. We raised chickens and always had lots of eggs (even made angel food cakes from scratch!) 😉
Hello Everyone,
I wasn't sure if people would want to read about a chicken coop in a gardening blog and I have been pleasantly overwhelmed by your comments. The coop is almost finished. I am not sure what types of chickens they will have, but I will post about it when the chickens arrive. *I heard somewhere that store-bought eggs are at least 45 days old – hard to believe isn't it?
Oh this reminds me of my childhood days – collecting the eggs was great fun. Fresh eggs are so much better than supermarket ones – plus they have such different colour to the yoke than the shop bought ones. Look forward to seeing the chicks.
I love those beautiful boys, and their eyes. I am laughing when reading this post, real lol. My mother and sister with 2 kids are in the province and i visit them 2x or once a month. We have native chickens at home and they are roaming free in the property, they are real organic chicken, haha, only corn grits fed to them. Whenever new chicks hatch the 2 kids get their share to give names. The problem is we cannot dress them for meat if they have names. So immediately my mother say i am giving the names to the new chicks, by then we can eat them when they get older. haha again.