Little Okie Homestead

It took us several weeks to get this silly coop together with all the rain we've been having here in Oklahoma. It's been a crazy wet year. We've broken so many records that I can't even keep track of them all. Last I heard we've had about 26 inches of rain in our area just this season. All that rain meant many days of Hubby home from work unable to work on any projects. But will a friend of mine holding chickens for us we had to get the coop built quickly. I keep telling Hubby that he can make the prettiest things out of junk. I'm serious! Look at our coop! Doesn't it look great? It was made our of mostly free junk we had laying around the property! First we attached it to the side of the shed to save on materials. Then we used the shelf that was already there that we used for the boys outside toys for their nesting area. (Still needs a little work. We have to put dividers up so they will actually hatch eggs in their own boxes). We used scrap wood fro...

We plan on having our chickens do what chickens do best...hatch more chickens! Chickens were made to hatch their own and raise them. Of course chickens today don't actually do it on most farms but for us we want to let the chickens do what comes naturally to them. Of course this means less work for us as well. The more the birds do the less responsibility we have. And of course we trust that God created them to be self sufficient so why not let them do what they were intended to do in the first place. We thought Ms. Fancy Feet pictured above was going to be our first to try and hatch some baby chicks for us. She was enjoying the eggs and trying to snuggle up with them but after 2 days she still hadn't actually taken responsibility for them and one of them actually got broken from one of the roosters. For now no hatched ourselves baby chicks. We hope to get a mama nesting soon! It takes 21 days for them to hatch so we need to get them started. Two to four eggs a day just ...

We got our first official farm animal!  Chickens!  We brought them home on Friday afternoon just before 2 full days of rain. We've been having fun checking on them and watching them during the breaks in the storms. They have been fun to watch and learn from. All of them have been pretty nice and gentle with us. Big Daddy Rooster is the exception. He really hasn't shown an interest in us which as far as I'm concerned is OK. He's a little bit intimidating. He's huge and when he puffs up his feathers to shake them out he's even bigger. Not sure how we will ever wrangle him up again but we will just have to learn. We got their nests filled with some cozy pine chips for the time being. We are still figuring out the best and cheapest product to use for their nests. We have their food mixture all made up and a nice feeder and water container. We are working on where to house the food and water permanently without getting them pooped on all the time. We might en...