Complete Change Inside the Chicken Greenhouse

Oh look, the graders did this! We got us a ditch dug down to the creek. I see that chicken just jumped out. The good news is the grader said our ditch is deep enough. We're just gonna do a French drain just real close up to the top. You know, having the water is a good thing because we can see our slope.

Well, you can see how high it was up here.

Yeah, and how it is taller ground up here.

Look at this. Yeah, when I dug this out, that water ran into it. So that water— we had had a major rain event— would have gone in there. Yeah, right here. Yeah, where our issue was. It was super high here.

I would say we're going a foot below this 2x6 everywhere. Our greenhouse has been flooding. We have a slope here and we have the runoff from the greenhouse.

No.

Did I say this year?

Well, you said our greenhouse has been flooding.

This is one of those things where we just want to knock out a little bit at a time. You think you've done enough today, or you want me to grab a shovel and let's do some more?

Well, how far out do you want to go? Uh, I guess we should go a little bit further.

Enough? 6 inches out? Because I'm making stuff up right now.

You're funny.

Well, we just need 2 inches of slope. From here to there. We're going to start with just an even dig a foot below this 2x6, and then we can adjust our slope with some gravel. Or when we're done, we can wait for it, rain event, or get a hose and get it to where we can actually get the water to drain. All that's going to be a slow drain at 2 inches over 50 feet. This is going to make it a little bit more interesting. Wanting to get the Chickshaw out of there Hopefully today. That means we need to build another nest box stand. I think we can do it. Getting that Chickshaw out though, hopefully it's narrow enough to get out, and hopefully we can all gird up our loins together and get it over that ditch. That's in a minute. I want to show you guys the cows and the sheep are on deep bedding for the winter. It's definitely a different setup. Hey, what you doing? Just looking for two bucklers in here for our A-frames. Rebecca, if they're not in there, we have some over at the cabin with— from our land. Gideon, do you know where Henry cart is? There it is. I thought I saw it this morning. Thanks, Josiah. All right, today since it's wet, we're going to keep them off the sacrifice. All right, now what we do is we get all the sheep out of there and the bull, and we put them out here on the con— well, since you guys are going to do this today We can put them in the sacrifice right now. When it's wet and not frozen, we scrape off the manure and the hay and get it up on the bedding. Come on, stud. Do you guys have two feed pens for the calf? I mean, for the cows?

Yeah, one there, one over here.

All right, all right, we'll go with it. Well, the cows came in and out. They want to go out, so let's get all the sheep out and then maybe we can get the cows in. Come on, come on. All right, go ahead and put the fence up, Jonah. We bury manure and scrape concrete back. Let's get them set up milking, and then you and I will start on this nest box. Doesn't this look much better? Okay, we don't want stud.

Oh, you got it.

Just flossy. I would have moved him. Yeah, all right, it's working.

It's funny, I think they remember from last year No, I've been training the last 2 days.

Okay, and they're a little rusty like us.

Justin had to go up and wash a milk pail because one of the cows kicked it, and I'm just going to cut 4 feet 2x4s.

Forgot the back. We have a Phillips close by so I don't have to use my Leatherman for this. I don't know if that's to 1 foot. It is, so we'll just do it like that. I'm just doing a little bit of a pilot to get that screw in there. We don't have enough bolts. We ran out of bolts, so we can only do one. Where would it be most powerful? One on each side. I was thinking up that— up at the top as well. That's gotta go so that that can be on the shelf. Okay, this is going A lot quicker this round. I don't think they'll use these unless we take the chickshaw out. Making me a little nervous that nobody laid in there. I'm thinking they will lay in it as soon as we get the chickshaw out. 8 feet. This is only 6 feet wide, and that's 8 feet. Yeah, the wheels stick out though, but I don't think they stick out 2 feet. We have a jacked up wheel, and I want to put a hitch on this thing, so we're going to get it out of here so we can work on it all winter. Oh wow, those are beautiful. I think we're gonna have to fix this though to get it out. I mean, a little bit, because it's definitely not gonna roll. I don't think Jonah's gonna pick up— no, I don't think I could pick up this thing. Wonder Yeah, I can raise it up on this.

That wheel off the ground.

They're loitering around those nest boxes. They will figure it out. Do you see what's wrong? Yeah, we just want to fix it a little bit. We just want to fix it enough to get out of here because we are going to fix it a lot. This was a mistake. That's a platform for a nest box. I mean, if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. It's been a mistake for us because we just haven't been putting a nest box You fixed it enough to roll it? Yep. You sure? Okay, let's get our crates out. Here, here, grab our crates. Thanks. We don't need our little feeder box, mineral box. This is— this is— we're gonna have an arm that comes straight out, and we're gonna— it's gonna be where we can attach a hitch to it. We can move by hand or move it with a— with— with Willie. How are those chickens getting out? Oh shoot. All right, we lean this up. It's ready to go.

All the poopy eggs.

Okay, poopy eggs. And so many eggs right now, we're turning that eggs into Boston butts.

Good deal.

Can you spot me?

Yeah, good luck getting across.

It's gonna be interesting. This door is nice and wide. Thought we were gonna have to finagle it out. We're hitting over here.

I hope they get it.

That looks like maybe they're not gonna— looks like maybe they're gonna start laying on the ground. Let's cross our fingers. Oh, you know what? We're missing one thing— perches. They don't absolutely have to have perches, but I think it'd be better because we can move our perches around and they'll poop in different places at night and we can spread the love. And I don't know if it's this weather. I think I'm getting to my limit. Feel a little— well, a lot of arthritis-y type pain on my knees. Is it this wet, cold weather? For those of you new to the channel, introducing the turkey shawl. The turkey shawl is pretty much nothing foot purchase, and they can perch here tonight. They're already up on it. And then we got all the manure love right there. Then we move it and we spread that love out. See, the chickshaw was here so long, we got so much manure right there. But we want to spread that love out. I put the nest box around and right there so they can kind of easier get into it. Let's do lunch and come back, and hopefully we'll have an egg or two, although they might have already laid all their daily eggs. What do y'all think? Look at you guys! What's on the menu today, Beck?

Chicken fried rice.

We're gonna de-skin this, eating the skin of course, and just putting little, little tiny bite-sized pieces in this bowl just so— okay, they don't have to be that tiny, but okay, you're getting the idea. I learned a trick yesterday on YouTube, Cooking with Babish, I think it was. He taught me how to get the meat off of a leg. This is what I've been doing in the past, but that always cuts into the bone sometimes. He was doing this and it works. Look at that, look how easy that comes off. Isn't that handy? I minced garlic. Rebecca so kindly chopped up some carrots and onions. Can you actually mince ginger? Let's put a bit of ginger in this. Let's see. I don't know if you can mince ginger in a garlic mincer. Whoa. It's much more liquidy.

Yeah.

I guess you can. Look at that. He is not gonna sleep on his own. You think he'll let me hold him so that you can— because she's the better cook. She's the way better cook.

And it is done. Justin is over here with Henry. We switched off.

You did a really good job. It looks amazing. It looks like something off of TV.

I'm pretty excited. Pretty excited about it. This is good. It is good.

Smells good too. He fell over. I'm surprised he didn't.

I'm kind of curious to see if this rollaway nest box is actually even gonna work. You think, Becca? Hey, there's somebody on it. Oh, look, she going in it.

There's someone in it.

There's somebody coming out. You might be a crazy chicken lady if you get that excited about them going in the nest box. Hi, Wave. No? Oh, are you serious? Well, there's people in there. I think they might have laid everything today.

Okay.

We fed you, remember? This one's kind of sloped, so it's gonna work anyway. All right, well, tomorrow is another day.