#pen building

[kedreeva]

Did a quick clean of the grow out pen for the quail Monday before this heat wave hit, so that everyone would have fresh bedding while it was hot as balls out. They love refresh day, everyone gets big into dustbathing in the new shavings. They can totally get in and out of the big dust bathing bin in the middle, I see them in there all the time, but fresh shavings are closer, I guess.

I normally don't put babies out this little, they usually get a smidge more time indoors, but there were a LOT of them from the last hatch, and it's hotter outside than inside right now, including overnight, so they got moved to where they can make a big stinky mess and I can use a shovel and big scraper/broom to clean.

[kedreeva]

Did some more work in Bug's coop to hopefully keep it a little warmer. Stuffed empty feed bags with straw and attached them between the studs, covered them all with weed mat. Then climbed up and covered up most of the vents with butcher plastic to keep drafts down. I'll be working on getting some foam insulation and putting it up on the ceiling (and covering that too so she can't eat it). It's definitely not going to be WARM, but it can at least not be too drafty. The birds themselves are quite warm and if given fresh straw and shavings to bed down in, they can stay pretty toasty during the day, and broad pieces at night can help them cover their feet and stay warm while sleeping.

Bug kept an eye on the proceedings to make sure we did everything right. Mantis was so exhausted from all the work that she had to take a nap once we finished.

Thankfully the work passed inspection

The hardest part of doing work in the peafowl pens is not tripping over the birds that need to be involved in whatever you're doing and is it treats for them??

In all, a good day of work. Goodnight babies!

[kedreeva]

Sark and I put a shade cloth up this morning over the hottest part of the flight pen off the barn. These birds do not like to come out of the barn usually, because the pen is pretty open/exposed, but they were out this evening, after a good watering of the clover and replacement of the second water bin out there. I'm really hopeful that the shade cloth helps them to spend more time in the grass, where it's potentially a lot cooler than inside the barn.

[kedreeva]

Okay I thought I posted this but maybe it was just to the farm discord. But here's my brooder setup! The chicks from both levels are in the bottom while I'm cleaning the top portion.

You can just see on the bottom left of the first photo there's another wire cage for overflow, but it's rarely used. That doubles as the sale cage when I go to swaps. The water has vitamins in it this round, it's not dirty.

Chicks stay in the top portion for the first 2 weeks or so, where they have access to heat. I hatch chicks weekly, so the oldest move down when the new ones hatch, and the middle chicks by that time are usually sleeping on the cold side of the brooder, meaning the new hatch can't go over there and get cold, because there's always bigger birds to snuggle up to.

It also prevents a lot of stress, to have staggered hatches. I used to hear a lot of crying when a new hatch got put into the brooder alone. Now one or two might protest being alive for a few minutes directly after being relocated, but they calm down almost immediately and begin following the older birds around to eat and drink.

The stand is made of 2x4s screwed together. The bottom of the brooder is a Low Boy 50g aquarium that doesn't hold water. The top is 2x2s and 1x2s screwed together and covered in 1/4" hardware cloth. It actually fits snugly over the lowboy and is not attached to anything, so it technically can be removed but it's a massive hassle to do so. The entire front opens and folds down flat, for easy access. The heat lamp (I actually got a new one yesterday) is secured with metal shower curtain rings in several ways from several points, to prevent failure, and plugs directly into the wall. Both top and bottom have an aquarium grow light bar on top for full spectrum lighting.

I really love this setup! It's been very easy to use and clean, and it serves the purpose very well.

Bonus, it looks rad as hell at night

Softly glowing monstrosity.

[kedreeva]

How do your heated perches work? I'll be building falconry enclosures in southern Ontario pretty soon, and had seen some online chatter about heating perches with water run through the perch. I'm curious how yours operate!

Base level is a 2x6" perch. On top of that, a 3-4" strip of flat reptile heat tape is secured with aluminum tape, leaving space for a thermostat probe. On top of that is a stone sheet tile (10 inches x 3 feet), which is taped in place with duct tape circled around it several times on each end. On top of that is a blankie (removable) taped in place with one ring of duct tape on each end. I scrape the blanket off daily, and change it as needed, but Bug and Mantis are pretty good about not making a huge mess of it.

The probe is placed in under the heat tape on one end, and the thermostat is set to 90F. This is just warm enough to lightly warm the tile/blanket combo when the bird sits on it (but the surface of the blanket is still cool to the touch before that point) and the wood underneath is just cool to the touch instead of cold to the touch. I don't want the perch to actually be warm or hot, I just want a surface that doesn't make their bodies work hard to keep warm. The birds are already warm! They run 105F and their down is SO thick that if you were to point a heat meter at them, you'd see that it's mostly their head and feet where heat escapes.

Bug shivers when she's outside standing in the snow, but when she follows me in and hops on the perch for bed, I often stick my hand into her down to make sure she's not ACTUALLY cold, and she never is. She's always perfectly warm in her big down coat. The perch is more a luxury than a necessity- her perch is only the second one I have done, the first is in the first pen, and was used mostly for Aurora as she aged. It's on now for Eris, because she's the only one smart enough to use it.

[kedreeva]

Part of the substrate for the snails and isopods includes baked, crushed leaves. These are collected at my place once freshly fallen, and dried for a little bit before being baked at 275F for an hour. I dump them into a bus bin to cool, and then hand crush them to the right size crumbles. Then this beautiful stuff gets mixed into the rest of the soil mix, at around 60-40 soil-leaves.

The soil is a mix of clean topsoil, tree fern soil, fir bark chips (small/mini), and coco coir. I usually mix in some crushed sphagnum moss, but I didn't have any this time so we'll see how it goes.

The snails (Helix lucorum) are a forest dwelling species, so they prefer to have a very soft, woody bedding, which suits the oreo isopods and springtails greatly! Eventually, over the next year, they will turn all of this into the most beautiful, rich soil. Unfortunately since it's in a tank and not outside, and there are no burrowing insects or anything to fluff it up naturally, it will compact down and I'll have to pull half of it to discard, and use the other half to make fresh substrate.

[kedreeva]

Well, we MOSTLY finished the winterizing of Bug's half of the coop. This is where she and Mantis sleep, and where they prefer to hang out when they nap or lounge.

The doorway I'm taking the picture through leads to the other half of the coop, and the outside door is over there. The whole coop is 8x24, so her section is 8x12 or so.

We added insulation boards to the walls and ceiling, and covered it all with weed mat so that she wouldn't eat the foam board. I still have curtains to hang over the doorway but they're pretty long so I'm going to wash and pin them, or maybe convince my mom to cut and hem them to fit. I may also add a little more butcher plastic over the entrance area, but I don't want to block light completely on that side so we'll see. For now, they shouldn't have to deal with wind, and if they hunker down in the straw or up on the perch, they should be plenty warm.

They are both in here hanging out with me.

We'll see how they feel about it tonight when it gets dark!

[kedreeva]

Sark built me a new quail rack for my birthday. The dimensions are. Off. But I love the color of it, I picked out the wood and they had a shipment of really nice, red 2x2s.

Anyway, this one currently holds the original wild type group and the WT x roux fee group for now, and eventually it will just have three sex-linked breeding groups. Roux males over WT hens, which will produce groups of birds that can be sexed at hatch. I sell frozen day old feeders, and it will be very nice to be able to tell which babies are which. I won't have to grow these guys out to 2-3 weeks to tell, which will result in less wasted time and a greater ability to supply laying hens to people locally!