Sunday, October 31, 2010
Getting ready for winter in the High Desert,
Enya enjoys her refurnished "dog bed", we have had the turtle for a long time, used it for the pups when they were little, used it for the chickens, now I am using it again for the dogs. They love to curl up in it when I put some blankets inside.
first snow on the mountain, the leaves are still green, last week the temperature dropped below freezing in the early morning hours, but not long enough to kill the leaves yet
the chickens love the new water setup, the small cooler is small enough for me to take back to the house in the evening and in the morning I bring it back out filled with lukewarm water so the chickens don't have to drink ice cold water after a night of freezing temps. I also got a heated water bucket for the chickens and one for the goats, so I shouldn't have to carry around a lot of hot water this winter.
We get lots of cold windy days in the winter, with the wind coming from all different directions except for the Northeast direction. So I have wind breaking cloth up all over the place so depending on which way the wind comes the chickens have a place to get out of the wind
I put two layers of plastic over the chicken door entrance to keep out rain and drafts.
plastic tarp over the feeding station, the corner behind it protects from winds coming from the South and Southwest
feeding station protected mostly from the North and Northwest, the left part of it is filled with straw so they can take a break from the wind if needed. A few weeks ago I started spreading straw in the chicken areas. Throughout the summer I had taken all the ground cover out and had just the bare soil, but this wasn't working very well, anytime it got wet the ground gets very slippery and the bare soil doesn't hold he moisture well except for getting really slimy and muddy. We recently had several days of rain and the straw worked out very well to keep everything in good shape. I am just going to add more straw to it little by little to allow it to break down as the chickens turn it over and over.
lots of wind breaks on my original coop area, I just put some more up, so this is a place they have lots of protection from high winds
the new water station as seen above, in the winter things don't dry up as well as in the summer, so I set the water container on a wooden platform so the chickens won't have to stand in water or cold mud to get a drink
the area to the left where the fence posts are on the ground and the flower pots is my future vegetable garden. The area is about 60 feet long (20 meters) and 10 feet wide (3 meters). It is fenced off so none of my critters can't get to it. Anything that is not edible for us can immediately go to the chickens and if I give them occasional supervised access they should be able to keep the numbers of bugs down I hope.
Sam patrolling the chicken yard
Teddy squeezed himself into the new revived turtle doggie bed
Teddy all pleased with himself, when I move any blanket, he immediately wants to be on it, so here he feels he won the war over the blanket. I sure can't move it anymore once he puts his weight on it
here is Enya posing on the new doggie bed in the making
I have gotten a bunch of iglus and other dog houses, but usually my dogs prefer to sit in the open, this old door frame has been a favorite for a few years, so I brought it up next to the house and put some new blankets in there, Enya is rather happy with it.
we moved this shade structure away from the house and I covered it with plastic to waterproof it. I put new straw bales on the North and South side of it to provide some protection from the wind, then I put a bunch of fresh soft straw inside, so far the dogs love it
Enya enjoys her refurnished "dog bed", we have had the turtle for a long time, used it for the pups when they were little, used it for the chickens, now I am using it again for the dogs. They love to curl up in it when I put some blankets inside.
first snow on the mountain, the leaves are still green, last week the temperature dropped below freezing in the early morning hours, but not long enough to kill the leaves yet
the chickens love the new water setup, the small cooler is small enough for me to take back to the house in the evening and in the morning I bring it back out filled with lukewarm water so the chickens don't have to drink ice cold water after a night of freezing temps. I also got a heated water bucket for the chickens and one for the goats, so I shouldn't have to carry around a lot of hot water this winter.
We get lots of cold windy days in the winter, with the wind coming from all different directions except for the Northeast direction. So I have wind breaking cloth up all over the place so depending on which way the wind comes the chickens have a place to get out of the wind
I put two layers of plastic over the chicken door entrance to keep out rain and drafts.
plastic tarp over the feeding station, the corner behind it protects from winds coming from the South and Southwest
feeding station protected mostly from the North and Northwest, the left part of it is filled with straw so they can take a break from the wind if needed. A few weeks ago I started spreading straw in the chicken areas. Throughout the summer I had taken all the ground cover out and had just the bare soil, but this wasn't working very well, anytime it got wet the ground gets very slippery and the bare soil doesn't hold he moisture well except for getting really slimy and muddy. We recently had several days of rain and the straw worked out very well to keep everything in good shape. I am just going to add more straw to it little by little to allow it to break down as the chickens turn it over and over.
lots of wind breaks on my original coop area, I just put some more up, so this is a place they have lots of protection from high winds
the new water station as seen above, in the winter things don't dry up as well as in the summer, so I set the water container on a wooden platform so the chickens won't have to stand in water or cold mud to get a drink
the area to the left where the fence posts are on the ground and the flower pots is my future vegetable garden. The area is about 60 feet long (20 meters) and 10 feet wide (3 meters). It is fenced off so none of my critters can't get to it. Anything that is not edible for us can immediately go to the chickens and if I give them occasional supervised access they should be able to keep the numbers of bugs down I hope.
Sam patrolling the chicken yard
Teddy squeezed himself into the new revived turtle doggie bed
Teddy all pleased with himself, when I move any blanket, he immediately wants to be on it, so here he feels he won the war over the blanket. I sure can't move it anymore once he puts his weight on it
here is Enya posing on the new doggie bed in the making
I have gotten a bunch of iglus and other dog houses, but usually my dogs prefer to sit in the open, this old door frame has been a favorite for a few years, so I brought it up next to the house and put some new blankets in there, Enya is rather happy with it.
we moved this shade structure away from the house and I covered it with plastic to waterproof it. I put new straw bales on the North and South side of it to provide some protection from the wind, then I put a bunch of fresh soft straw inside, so far the dogs love it// posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 1:04 PM 
