This is for the birds...and three cows

The few chicks that we have right now came from the local library that gave us them after hatching  them for the little kids to watch. The ducks we bought as replacements for the three we had that met their end one night by predator.

This is the chick cage for when they get big enough to be outside once they get feathers. The barrels are propped in there to help shield them from all the cold rain we have been getting lately. It was made from scrap material ( the tin leftover from Hunter's man cave, the boards from a fence we took down. The chicken wire we had. The door on the end came from a stack of 20 of them we got off of Craigslist for free.

AWWWWW...look at the sweet cows. They are jersey/angus/holstein crosses that we purchased last year and bottle feed. We, along with a friend of ours, got a deal from a dairy farm they were buy two calves get one free on Valentines Day. The cost ended up being $75 a calf. 

The cow house...the telephone poles were free( I talked the utility company into leaving several here when they were working on poles near by). The wood came from an auction of miscellaneous wood. The door came off of the trailer house when we replaced those doors. The tin on the roof was a free find too.

The feeder for the cows. Hunter and Chris came up with the design but Hunter and I built it. Okay, I helped,Hunter built it. All the wood in it came from an auction pile The tin was leftover pieces from adding onto the barn. The plastic barrel to catch the extra came from an auction for $3. The top has a pin that you pull and it tilts up to make it easier to put in the bail of hay.

The side view of the big chicken tractor. It has been moved down into the area where the cows stay because I am trying to grow a garden and the chickens like to scratch and eat all my seeds. They are in field fence down there so they have lots of area to roam but they can't get up to the garden. Once the garden is growing we can move the chicken tractor back up closer to the house. We were also told that keeping the chickens by hooved animals helps keep the predators away.( Raccoons and opossums) 

The frame of the chicken tractor is an old trampoline frame, the wood and chicken wire we bought. We probably have $100 in all of that because some of it we had. THe tin came from a pile we bought to fix the barn. We bought it used for $4 a sheet. ( Hannah painted it with leftover paint)

This is the front side that holds the nesting boxes. The top half  has the nesting boxes the bottom half is how they get in and out and where the food sits. The doors used also came from that pile of free doors. ( the cows broke the bottom door so it had to be replaced. They were rubbing their horns on it)

This is what it looks like open to the nesting boxes. It makes it easy to collect the eggs and clean it out.

One of the hens....

See, she likes it well enough...

The male turkey, the female is in the background. There are 6 hens,one rooster, one guinea, and three ducks that also share the space. 

The ducks. Actually four more are coming because a neighbor stopped by and asked if we wanted some he has an excess of them at his house. We end up getting about 3-4 eggs a day ( most from the chickens, but one from the duck and turkey every couple of days) Honestly, that seems to provide us with more than we use and we cook a lot!!

Lastly, we have three dogs( two outside, one in) and 5 "barn cats". As you can see our "barn" cats are really wild. (ha,ha...the girls have them named and they even come when called)