Woops! Today is my day to post and the day is almost gone… I think I will share what I have been doing as my current project would be a great family activity for those who like doing things outdoors.

We have been keeping chickens in our backyard (our lot is 3/4 acre) for a couple of years and really enjoy the eggs. I just purchased some smaller birds, which (in my opinion) will be more appropriate for a small lot than what we have been keeping. I hope to scale down the bigger birds.

Here is a picture of my new pair of BB Red Old English Bantams.

I plan to add a few more hens, but not too many. Bantam eggs are smaller than those of our other hens. It will take two or three eggs to equal one egg like the ones we have been getting from our larger hens.

At best hens lay an egg almost everyday. These bantams won’t lay quite that often. Hens also stop laying when the days get shorter. Since I only obtained this pair less than a week ago, I’m not surprised that I haven’t seen any eggs yet. You don’t need a rooster to get eggs, but I think the roosters are pretty. This little rooster isn’t nearly as loud as our other roosters. If you want to hatch your eggs you have to have a rooster or the eggs won’t be fertile.

We plan to build a “tractor” type of coop with a run area for these chickens. That means it will have wheels on one end and handles on the other so it can be pushed around the yard. Click here for a web page that shows chicken tractors.

We are also building a cage for quail. Here is a picture of some of my quail in a temporary cage. I have six, but I couldn’t get a good picture with all of them in it for fear they would jump out. They now have wood shavings on the floor and feed and water in this deep plastic tub. I hope to be able to put them in their completed cage tomorrow.

Quail are even smaller than bantam hens and so are their eggs. But their eggs are extremely nutritious and good for you. Their cage will be smaller than what we make for the chickens because they don’t have to get on the ground. They will have both an enclosed and an open section to the cage so they can get both fresh air and shelter. Some people keep their quail in rabbit hutches.

We will have to be very careful every time we open their cage as these birds could fly away, and if they did we probably wouldn’t see them again.

We will use hardware cloth which is much stronger than chicken wire for our chicken tractor and our quail cage, as predators like raccoons, opossums, foxes, and coyotes prowl at night. Rats can also get into the quail cages and kill the quail, so we will have hardware cloth even on the bottom of the quail cage.

I am excited about my smaller birds. If they prove to be productive egg layers, we may get rid of most of our larger birds and keep only two or three of them. If my grandchildren lived closer, I know they would take a lot of pleasure in caring for them and harvesting the eggs.

Written by Janice D. Green, author of The Creation and The First Christmas.