Daily Check for Fowl - PEP BB animal.sand.dailyfowl

I wiped out and refilled nest boxes. This was latter in the day so eggs had already been collected. Eggs where decent condition. The water bowl was dumped and washed. They free range and prefer the cow waterer, this is mostly the ducks splash pool. Their bowl was dusty   so I rinsed it and filled it with scrap. The feed the get is just get-in-the-pen feed at night. The netting had stretched and got gaps in it so laced that tighter and put the pole back up. That gives the turkeys more head room to fly up. Poop was sraped off the roost and shoveled under it. I also picked up the trash that somhow always flies in there.

Here is a description of what and how I do my daily check for my chickenses.

- Water: Experience thaught me to place the waterbucket a bit higher off the ground, so that the chickens don't poop in the bucket. Sometimes, mulch still gets in, though. In this case, I could simply remove the pieces of grass. If the mess is too big for a quick fix, the water goes to a fruit tree close by and I refill the bucket.

- Food: I choose to not use a chicken feeder. Instead, I check the terracotta bowls daily and clean them when dirty.

- Nest: I daily check for eggs. The 2 chickens use the same nest. This time, I noticed that it needed a little more material, so I added some more bedding. There were no eggs when I photo documented this daily check, so the egg check had to wait for another day The next day, I found 2 beautiful eggs, perfectly shaped, with the strongest eggshells I have ever seen! I thank them every time: "Thank you, chickenses!"

- Roosting area: Chickens poop so much in the night! The way I put the bedding, I can take out the part that has the poop on it, without having to replace everything. This time, I could do it like that: take the poopypart out, and add new bedding under the perch. From time to time I do take everything out and give them new grasses.

- General check for safety:

cover

Part of the coop is covered with branches and palm tree leaves because we ran out of chicken wire during the build. I check that part of the roof regularly. It's holding out quite well

walls

I often check for signs of anyone having been digging (too much), both on the inside and outside. To make the chicken area more fox proof, the outside of the walls has branches (half) buried in dirt. So far, no digging sings found.
Concerning sharp things, I went around and found 3 protruding screws, some metal wire hanging around and some chicken wire with the pins pointing toward the inner side of the coop. It surprised me that I had not noticed all this earlier, so this BB has made me up my game a bit. Good! I screwed a piece of olive branch on each screw, removed the hanging wire and pushed the chicken wire pins towards the outside.

rain

Usually when it rains, it's a true event. Before the rain starts falling, I check the roof of the nesting and roosting area to make sure all is in its place to keep the water out. After the rain, I check again to discover water entrances, if any. Regarding the outside area: there is a canal to make the water flow out of the coop. The canal is covered with big stones to keep foxes out, so I have to check that the water can still flow through the canal under the stones. When the rain event is forecasted to last several days, I put 1 food bowl inside the roosting area (away from the poopy place) so there is at least some dry emergency food available.

wind

We get a lot of wind, half of the wind events are true events. Before the wind starts blasting, I check if everything is standing strong, no loose objects around that can hurt the chickens or destroy the coop.

heatwaves

Whenever the temperature hits 35 degrees Celcius, I provide my dinosaurs with a pool big enough for the 3 of them. In the beginning, I had to guide them a bit, but they soon understood the wet feet deal, and they hung out at the pool all summer The hotter it is, the more they hang out in the pool, the more I have to change it (once a day during the hottest days).

- Chickens themselves: While I'm doing all this, my chickens follow me all the time (especially Señor Santos, and the girls follow him of course). I always sit down with them for some quality time: how are the beaks growing? (they were clipped), how is the color of their faces?, do they have clean feet?, who is the boss today?, any bird showing signs of itches?, etc. While documenting this daily check, Santos decided to sing me a song, so loud when just a few feet away!

Writing this out, it seems like a lot of work, and depending on the weather I do spend quite some time at the chickens's. Usually, it is a 2 minute job. The quality time can last up to an hour though
I feel like I have gone into too much detail, maybe, but since it is already written, I am uploading this post anyway, with all the details about my daily check for fowl. My apologies!

Chicken Check:

Waterer - I filled the bucket with water from the rain barrel and cleaned the spout where they drink. I deep cleaned it recently, so there was no algae in the bucket.

Feeder - I suspected mold in the bottom, because I had not snapped the lid on tight a few times. I was right - there was lots of moldy food in the bottom. Cleaned it out and added new food.

Nesting boxes - I gathered 3 eggs that looked good, cleaned out the poop & dirty straw and added clean straw.

Coop - The roosting ladder was broken with a nail sticking out. Yikes! I got in there and put a new wood piece in the middle of the ladder with a drill. I also scraped clean the wire flooring - there was lots of dried poop.

To complete this BB, the minimum requirements are:

- Complete and document a routine daily check for your fowl.

To document the completion of the BB, provide the photos or video (<2 min) of the following:

- Photos/video of your poultry waterer before and after your check.
- Photos/video of your poultry feed/feeder before and after your check.
- Photos/video of your nesting boxes before and after your check.
- Photos/video of your coop before and after a safety/wellness check was performed/issue was addressed ( please provide a written description of what you checked as well)

The coop/run were inspected for damage or overlooked penetrations. While doing the inspection, the only deficiency was the missing carabiner to the run door entrance. We had just cleaned out the nesting boxes and the condition of the coop interior was clean. Roosting bars were not loose, automatic chicken door was functioning with good battery health, and there were no damage witnessed inside the coop. Exterior of the coop was in good condition as well.

I performed a wellness check on the chickens before I travel back to my home state later today.

There were some leaves and green bits in their water. The wind from overnight blew the cover off the food.

Their eggs have well forned shells and a lovely eggy shape.

An inspection of the coop area showed some chicken wires protruding up into the convas cover - I witnessed a chicken relaxing on top of it earlier in the week so I pushed all the ends down.

There was no signs of extra digging around their shelter of fenced in yard (thanks in part to Lavender their great pyrenees)

Like many I have tiny birds I’m caring for. Quail.
Checked and fixed up the edges of the coop where the hardware cloth meets the wood and also the vanity piece on the door. They won’t get injured by it but I might.

There were some holes in the side that could have allowed predators so I’m glad to have put some staples in there to button it up.

Edit to add egg collection

In addition to the daily water/food and now egg checks I already perform, I walked around today and found no safety concerns in the coop or run.  

Performed wellness check - the bedding under the roosts needed to be freshened up.

I save hot water from starting my shower in the mornings and clean out and fill up their watering pan every day.

I toss the flock a scoop of scratch daily and soak grain in the pan every other day - or sooner if they finish it. They always have access to clean food.