About a week and a half ago, I sat down with Mackensey Lunsford, food and wine writer for local weekly publication Mountain Xpress. We chatted about chickens, canning, death, butter, and more (not necessarily in that order...). You can read the full article here. *For what it's worth, the reason why, as the article mentions, my social life is dictated by when my chickens go into their henhouse for the night is a bit unique. Our ladies live a life of luxury, in a very large run, which is open overhead except for the awesome aerial rope course/predator deterrent Glenn installed in January. We live on 12 acres, in a forest, way down a dirt road. In short, we're rather isolated. We have neighbors, but they have active lives and are often away from their home on the weekends (when most of our summertime socializing occurs). Based on the fact that chickens go in to roost according to the wax and wane of sunlight hours, in the summer, they go to bed late. In the winter, however, when they're in bed at 4:30-5 in the afternoon, or even in autumn or spring, it's not an issue. We can go out to dinner, see movies, what-have-you. For most backyard chicken owners, however, whose chickens are fully enclosed or for whom getting the next-door-neighbor to lock up their flock is not an issue, then my situation would almost never apply.
2 comments:
Add in the awful heat here in AZ, and putting the chickens to bed determines what goes on here too. 20 acres next to the Gila River bed, where most of the predators left here reside, means that we are constantly upgrading our fencing and routines. Fruit tree netting over the chicken runs freed us from worrying about the flyers. It comes in a huge size and lasts a long time too.
We have this chicken problem too! My friend has a nice solution at her place, though-- her coop's door is on an automatic timer! It is light-sensitive, which is how it knows to close at dusk, and it beeps characteristically before closing, so that the chickens know to go inside, if they haven't already. I'm not quite sure how she trained them to know what the beeping meant, or if they just figured it out on their own.... I like the idea of trying it, though.
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