{"id":2599,"date":"2013-01-16T17:43:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T17:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=2599"},"modified":"2013-01-16T17:43:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T17:43:25","slug":"small-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=2599","title":{"rendered":"Small changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the many time consuming and expensive improvements to the chicken run, I have also made some small and inexpensive improvements recently. I found that as the girls are in the coop such a long time at this time of year, I was crouched in front of it poop picking in the morning for a longer stretch. This was making my back and hips ache. I decided I needed a mat of some sort to kneel on. I then found the perfect mat, it’s a rubber exercise mat and was on sale for six pounds. It was full length so I cut it into four mats. I now kneel on it each morning to poop pick the coop and this simple mat has made my life easier, no more aches.<\/p>\n

When changing the wood shavings in the coop, I noticed that the wood floor was getting a bit wet. I \u00a0decided to put the metal tray from the rat cage we have (we use it as a transport cage if needed), over the coop floor to protect the wood. This also means I can pull the metal tray out to change the shavings, making this job easier too.<\/p>\n

Once I had done this the temperature plummeted and it’s been well below freezing at night. I started to worry that a metal floor would be colder than a wooden floor so my next improvement was to put a layer of cardboard over the metal tray then cover with a thick layer of shavings.<\/p>\n

This seems to work well as this morning I found poop picking easier and no wet patches on the cardboard yet. When it gets wet I will replace it but am hoping it will only need replacing when I renew the shavings so shouldn’t be a problem. It makes a change for the improvements to be easy and to cost very little.<\/p>\n

The other change happening at the moment is that Dotty is finally growing up.<\/p>\n

\"Dotty's<\/a>

Dotty’s comb is growing at last<\/p><\/div>\n

This photo shows the beginning of Dotty’s comb and wattles, where there was no sign a few weeks ago. I have also noticed recently that Dotty doesn’t seem to stick with the other girls so much at the moment, she is often a bit apart from them. There is no pecking or bullying, she just seems to like doing her own thing and seems just as happy. I think it’s because the other three girls are all mature egg laying ladies now and she has got left a bit behind. It will be interesting to see if she changes again when she starts to lay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the many time consuming and expensive improvements to the chicken run, I have also made some small and inexpensive improvements recently. I found that as the girls are in the coop such a long time at this time of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2599"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2653,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2599\/revisions\/2653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}