During our first winter here on the farm, we discovered our huge distaste of rotationally grazing the chickens and rabbits through the winter weather months. The animals tolerated the weather remarkably well, but we hated trucking the feed and water to various locations on the farm.
We researched other methods and settled on the deep bed method in our greenhouse. Our first year of utilizing this method was the winter of 2022-23 and we were very happy with the results.
As with all projects, you find things that you want to improve, and we worked to do that this year.
We revamped the doors of the greenhouse.
Our old doors were not sturdy enough for the strong winds that we receive on the top of the hill. We had placed tarp band aids on them but really needed to find a better solution.
The hubby utilized better plastic and set up a rolling doorway. This is easier to secure, and we hope will do better during the winter months.
We rolled the door up to allow the mobile chicken coop to be backed into the greenhouse for "easy" transfer of chickens.
Of course, nothing is as easy as you plan them to be, and we had a few escapees that required a game of Chase-That-Chicken-Before-The-Dog-Does. We were too busy to take pictures of this event, but it isn't as fun of a game as the title implies.
We placed a deeper layer of woodchips at the onset.
After our first winter of deep bed method, we hoped to have a large amount of composted soil in which to plant our spring garden. We learned that the mulch layer wasn't quite deep enough to provide the amount of composted soil that we needed.
I believe that this is because we didn't have the layer deep enough to provide enough heat to encourage the composting process. We were fortunate enough to have a tree service deposit their wood chips onto our property after they cleared some areas for the electric company. We are using a good portion of that to start our winter season in the greenhouse.
Here is a picture of the greenhouse after all of the produce was collected and we experienced a hard frost with the sides accidentally left up.
Here is a picture of the wood chips. We have it piled roughly 4-5 inches deep.
We have a better setup for our rabbits.
Last year, we had exclusively grazed our rabbits in cages attached to the mobile chicken coop. We scrambled to find adequate housing for them in the greenhouse.
This year, the hubby spent some time constructing custom rabbit hutches that we carried into greenhouse.
The hutches are great with the small exception that they are heavy. The process of moving them must have been comical as my daughter was quite enjoying her job of photographer!
We heard the term "Pivot" multiple times in a throwback to our days of watching Friends.
It took much longer than expected as some individuals were lacking in muscle strength. However, all of the hutches were eventually moved into the greenhouse and the rabbits were resettled into their homes.
Do you notice the buckets and black tubing system? This allows us to provide water in a more efficient way without filling up multiple small waterers every day. The black tubing was necessary as the clear ones would grow algae and clog up the nipple dispensers.
We added a section for compost.
Last year, whenever we fed the chickens kitchen scraps, we simply threw them out on the ground. While this works, we wanted to try a dedicated compost area.
The hope is that by utilizing this area for scraps, the scraps will compost faster and possibly provide another heat source.
The chickens have free access to anything in this area, but they cannot spread the pile out too far.
We introduced a new batch of chickens to the larger flock.
In the fall, we jumped the gun in introducing a group of smaller chickens to our larger flock. They were bullied and kept escaping through the electric netting fence. We lost a few of them to a fox in the area and I don't believe that the fox ever crossed the electric fence.
We decided to avoid this by introducing the new chicks in a stepwise manner. We placed them into a smaller coop within the same area as the larger chickens. They spent about a week getting to learn about each other, while the smaller chickens were protected.
This worked and now the chickens are getting along together well.
We extended the netting to the ceiling of the greenhouse.
Towards the end of the season last year, the chickens were becoming bored and repeatedly escaped the enclosure and ventured into the front area of the greenhouse where we kept the feed and other gardening supplies.
To prevent this from recurring, we extended the netting to the ceiling and placed stronger barriers with a gate and an old door.
We set their laying boxes on a pedestal.
Last year, we set the laying boxes on the ground. The hens used them, but the eggs were constantly dirty.
This year, we placed the laying boxes on a stand. The chickens are still roosting in this area, and we plan to add a top to it in the near future to allow us to collect cleaner eggs.
We have provided a pool for the duck.
We added a duck to the mix this year. He is simply a pet at this time and loves hanging out with our chickens. We moved the kiddie pool into the greenhouse for his enjoyment.
Overall, we like this new setup better than last year. Utilizing this structure provides protection for the animals and places a lot of our chores in a good location relative to the house for our own comfort in the cold days ahead. We are also generating great composted soil!
