Winter Egg Shortages | Backyard Solution

Chickens are all cooped up, madder than wet hens right now. I cooped them up because we gotta move them. One, we need to get this compost going. If them scratching it down, it doesn't build up the critical mass to heat up. Two, really, they're not laying many eggs. 3. You come help me catch this chicken. Yeah, but look, crawdad, we've got to catch that chicken because she won't know where home is if we just up and leave her. The third thing is the saturated bedding. Yeah, it's getting gross. She's walking in soaking water. Can somebody help me? I need help catching this chicken. Is it my voice? Wait, wait, back up, back up! We're catching this chicken. Go back, go back around. Come on, come right here, come right here, please. Get in this corner. Don't let him pass you, please. Grab it. We've got to cover this door. Door in order to get them out to unbury these fence. That's enough to get them out. There's a silage tarp right there we need to get up. This always makes me so happy because look, it makes them so happy. It's raining and they don't care, they're out and about it. You ever heard the saying, madder than a wet hen? They hate rain. But you can see how hard it's raining. We just rolled these in. We did that to be able to get the chickens out easy. We got to get them back out and bring in a more roomier turkey shop. We could certainly do it. They just take up unnecessary room. I'm talking about the chick shawls, the coops. You got it. I'll give you a boost. It's brighter in here, it's warmer in here, and it's drier in here. We're gonna get more eggs. Plus, they're already prepping our spring garden. Scratching, pecking, pooping. Let's get our tomato— what would you call these— twines up out of the way. I'll move the ladder and you climb up and cut them, okay? It's pretty convenient. You just cut them from the thingamajig, and next spring when we need more, you just go and release and just wind down more. It's pretty nice. Now that the pigs have a new winter home, don't have to share it with the chickens, let's get this old setup gone. Hey, should we add that mama and her rogue chicks to the mix? There's 4. Just keep an eye on them. There's one more up there. Is that everybody? Got him. Now y'all are safe and you have plenty to eat. You guys want a tour? We got a 52-foot by 24-foot high tunnel here, more than enough for 60-some-odd birds, plenty. We have the removable gate, we need to still screw that in. We still need to get all the old tomato vines off. Mama and her chick. About 18 inches of cedar, uh, wall. This helps retain the deep bedding in here, the wood chips. If you're gonna have chickens or any animal in one spot continually, you gotta give them deep bedding. Above that, we have a cattle panel lined with poultry wire because chickens could just run right through it. This is also predator-proof. It's even butterfly-proof in its heyday. They're gonna till and scratch. If we water this down, this will begin breaking down because compost needs air, carbon, which is the wood chips, nitrogen, which is their manure, and then water will get it to where these wood chips are broken down just at the end. And when spring, when we move the chickens out, we'll move in the heat-loving crops like tomatoes and cucumbers and squashes. We've got swinging doors at the end. We have deep bedding that is mucho compacted from the pigs. I think they'll just make it worse. Hopefully we can get the Mini X in here one of these days and stir this up and loosen this up so the chickens can start breaking this down. If we can get the track loader in here— does say Mini X track loader— we can also pull these very sunken in T-posts. Hey, it's Dark Helmet! I can't breathe in this thing. Do we have enough feed in here? Yeah, let's get a little more feed. And you guys will not believe this— I put the freestanding nest box— it's a rollaway nest box, so eggs will theoretically roll out. And for our collection, keeps the eggs much cleaner. This is where they could perch on the turkey shaw. Look at that! If that ain't a good omen, I don't know what is. They've already laid an egg in there. It feels So good, so good to have a job that makes so many live beings happy. That's my job. In return, they give me eggs. This is great. What a great feeling. Afternoon Christmas party, because we're homesteaders, we ain't having a Christmas party at night. We got to go to bed. Started our party Forgot to film it. Uh, had snacks and then played a bit of a— what do you call that game? Well, every family brought something they love as a family to give us a gift, and we draw out names. And people who— when it's your turn, you can either go pick out a present or steal a present. Okay. Oh my goodness, pure raw honey! Let's just keep that hidden. He's gonna keep it hidden. Daily Matcha. Oh my goodness, that was a roll of toilet paper. It's a Kleenex because the Labradors really love that. No, it was honey and it was raw honey and matcha. Oh, they're stealing the salt. We want the honey. Yeah. You could steal something or you could pick a prize. I'll take the knives. Oh, he stole the knives. You get to steal or you get to pick again. I'm gonna take the knives. Good round right there. You knew you wanted those knives. I saw it. Yes, I'm actually happy they stole the honey. Cover your assets. We brought those because there's a series of games that's called Grandpa Beck Games. And it's a grandfather who made these games for his family. If y'all haven't heard of them. And then he started producing them. Okay, the McKinneys. Nothing has been stolen twice. You can steal anything. Or you can pick— you're the last. You're the last to go to make it count. Or you can pick out a present. Oh, this is the good thing. The good news is you got to pick another one. He's begging her to take it back. Oh, you lucked out. No, this is better. This is better. So we got salted caramel truffles. Oh my gosh, do you want some chocolate? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, Chaney's, why'd you bring that? I know you got this. The Rhodes family introduced us to that chocolate, and now it's a nightly treat. Yeah, that's our everyday treat right there. One of the things that's notable to me is this is a lot of local people, like within 15 minutes. We're really pressing in to try to build that local community and throw parties for any reason we can think of to try to build community. And it seems to be working.