Supporting the Songbirds

An unintentional side benefit of having the chickens is that we are also supporting, to some degree, the local songbird population.

The way the roof of the coop yard is designed, the local small birds can fly in and out. I have seen lots of these smaller birds come into the chickens' space to drink from their water bowl or snap up a bit of seed or bird feed.

One of our favorites is the cardinal. We love their color and their personalities - both the males and females. We often use cardinals to represent our home.



We're fond of all of the local birds and make sure to keep shrubs for them to hide and nest in, as well as keeping the bird feeders filled all winter long. Because of this we get all kinds of blue jays, robins, doves, chickadees, finches and woodpeckers. Many of them have become used to us and don't fly off when I am sitting outside letting the chickens free range.



Some things you can do to support local birds are to provide cover (shrubs and trees), water and keep your cats indoors. Not only is this better and safer for your kitty, but it will prevent many of these birds from getting killed.

Meet the chickens

Welcome to The Daily Coop!

We just wanted to share with everyone the great experiences we have been having since we moved to our little town. There are always adventures and having chickens is a new one for us!

First, meet the chickens:



Napoleon is our rooster, in the front. We think he's a Bantam, but we need to do some research on all three of them.
Gertie is the black and white hen in the middle
Nutmeg (a.k.a. Meg) is in the back.

We've had the chickens just a few months now, so I think we're in a place where we can share some actual learning about them - although we are still learning more about them everyday.

I'll have to get some more and better pictures of them. This was taken not long after they joined us. You can tell because the pen yard still has tons of grass in it. This is no longer the case because they've either scratched it up or eaten it (Yes, they love fresh grass and veggies and fruit - but more on that later).

Each day, I'm going to share how they are, what they do, the food we've given them and the egg production. It will be interesting to see how the first year goes.