Our routine is pretty established with the onset of fall. The six birds keep the cube pretty scratched down, so that a new layer of pine bedding each week is essential. The two laying boxes are both in use and each receive a fresh pile of bedding along with the cube. The run is where most of the bedding ends up, but that keeps the muck down and absorbs the fertilizer. This will become an excellent source of nutrition for my gardens in the spring.
The girls LOVE scratch (a variety of grains and corn), which I sprinkle in the run each morning by the handful. This gets them out of the cube so that I can fill their feeder (layer pellets - 16% protein, all natural) and their water. The water has been a bit of a challenge to keep clean and must be changed each day - I have it on a raised platform in the cube, in a corner and this seems to be working.
We give them all of our kitchen compost and anything that has "gone" in our fridge and is not moldy - all scraps are cut up into smaller chunks and thrown into the run in the morning. As I clean out the gardens, I am also giving them a variety of greens, which they eat down to nothing. All very efficient and very satisfying.
The photos include the two plymouth barred rock "chicks" roosting in the cube and the four highliner layers busy grubbing our lawn. A wonderful variety in our flock which is only slightly discernible in the egg coloration (the barred rock eggs are paler and smaller, while the highliner eggs are a richer, deeper brown and are frequently double yokers!)
Happy days on the farm!
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