Sometimes when you think something is a brilliant plan it is, in fact, a “why the hell did I do that?” plan. I wouldn’t say what we chose to do was that bad, but we are definitely having to rethink the old plan.

Last Friday night we went out to milk the goats. It was getting dark and Tom went in first. Before even turning on the light I hear him say “Oh Shit!” Of course I can’t see anything but once he flips on the light I can see. There, laying in the middle of the goat barn is our little Ameraucana cockerel, or should I say what was left of him. Having livestock is not for the squeamish.

Once I settle in Tom goes into the kids stall. The kid stall should probably be called a nursery because it’s where we brood chicks and keep the goat kids. Well, the chicks were getting larger so they were allowed more and more access to the world. Their brooder was rigged so that they could get in and out but none of the other animals could. Then at night we’d close them in there. The kid stall was left open during the day because it served as a second feeding spot if Bella and Daisy decided to not allow Sedona near the regular manger.

Tom goes into the kid stall to put the rest of the chicks away only to find that three more dead next to the brooder cage. The bodies were all together and didn’t have any external injuries. The two remaining chicks are still alive and well in the brooder cage. From what we could gather it appeared that the chicks had been laying together outside the brooder, which they had a tendency to do, and Bella and Daisy had probably chased Sedona in there and she had trampled them by accident. Then one of the chicks had been pulled out and eaten by the adult hens. Have I mentioned that chickens are cannibals? Yeah, no joke.

It became clear that we needed to move the chickens out to their own place. All of the chickens. It’s just been such a hassle trying to keep the chickens and goats together. Between this and trying to keep the goats from killing themselves on chicken feed it’s time for a divorce. We immediately began looking around our yard and thinking of options regarding where we could put the chickens. A couple of months ago our neighbor’s dog busted through our wood fence and killed three of our hens. Then we’ve had another neighbor’s dog kill several of our chicks. Obviously we needed to keep the chickens away from the side fences.

As we scan the yard the obvious spot jumps out at us. The old chicken run location. It’s in the middle of the yard, closer to the house.  The posts for the old run are still in the ground we would just need to re-build it. It won’t be the same as the old coop. Over time we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t so it will be a complete redesign.We’ve got the wood ready to go – it will all be reclaimed from Sonoma Compost who has KILLER deals on lumber.

The bonus is that we can reconfigure the goat barn once we pull the chickens out. The kid stall will move into the barn (right now it’s an addition) and the storage area can expand.

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Tags: chickens, goats