Gorgeous! Love your chickens! I so want some chickens. I'm plotting on getting some next spring.
Tally HO!

Lovely! Bill- I love your greenhouse- can you tell me a little about it? Nice yard and cute chickies!
Thanks for sharing- great job!
kasha77

I bought the kit for the greenhouse from Harbor Freight. They are on sale right now for $549.00. The size is 10' x 12' with the peak about 10 1/2 feet high. It took a bit of labor to assemble it but it was well worth it. It has sliding doors on the front and 4 roof vents. Harbor Freight also sells a kit with two aluminum tables and two shelves. The greenhouse heats pretty well with a propane wall heater And circulating fans. I opened it up this year the first of March. I little too soon, I think.
Bill

Your yard looks great. I just love your chickens. I want some but DH doesn't. The zoning laws have been changed here and now fowl are allowed in residential areas. Eventually I'll talk him into it.

The HF greenhouse is definitely a good deal but the modifications that are recommended raise the price quite a bit.

Bill-
My hubby want to get a better look at your greenhouse- would you mind posting a few more pictures- like the base, etc? Thanks and it looks great! (Maybe I'm getting one for Christmas?!)
thanks!
kasha77

Your yard looks great Bill, thank you for sharing the pictures! I really like your greenhouse too, and would like to see additional pictures if you have them. Adding a greenhouse is on our to do list for the spring.

Em

your yard looks great, I love the look of your GH, Thank you for posting your Pic's

Elizabeth

A little more on the greenhouse. Besides the kit I had to buy 1 1/2 yards of pea gravel for the floor. I had to dig up the area for the greenhouse (10 x 12) about 3" deep. Build it and then fill in around the outside and fill the inside with the gravel. I think the gravel anchors it so the wind won't blow it away. This has seen over 50 mph winds with no problem. I had to call the manufacturer and buy another bag of anchor clips for the plastic since they didn't seem to be nearly enough of them. Pretty cheap though.

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I use the heater shown and it does a great job. It has a thermostat. I used propane since I didn't want to run gas pipes. The aluminum tables can be bought from Harbor Freight also. I bought two sets. ( 4 Tables and 4 shelves. ) That's about all I had room for.

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I really enjoy this little greenhouse. Next year I will cut down on the amount of plants that I start though. I couldn't give them all away and I hated to throw them away.
Happy Holidays,
Bill

Hey Bill,
Your brugs are beautifull. thanks for the pics. I just got 28 from winning Kathy's conest and I was lucky enough to get a Xena. Now seeing your Kelly ann, I know I have to add her to my list! Right now, I am pretty tied up with what I have now but I will be looking for this one come spring!
Andrew

These were the best instructions for the HFGH modifications. If we hadn't employed some of these modifications the GH would have been trashed after a couple seasons. There's such a big difference between the summer and winter temps here and we've had some pretty severe wind storms. I had a small gh get picked up by the wind and dropped into the pool a few years ago! I looked outside and couldn't figure out what had happened to it but saw something glinting near the pool. It was surprisingly intact.

Here is a link that might be useful: HFGH modifications

I have a few questions when you have a moment. First and foremost, I love your chickens!!! :) I used to keep raise pullets as well but the area we live in now would go crazy if we had chickens. The questions I had was how big are your "Kelly Ann" flowers? They look huge! And is Kelly Ann fragrant at all? Second, how big are your pots? Your pots don't appear to be too big but seem to be giving you really good growth? I have one of my trees in a pot that looks three times bigger than one of yours and it grew stunted this year even after I heavily trimmed the roots in the spring. I'm thinking I have to move it up to a bigger pot but the one it's in now is already heavy to carry inside during the winter. Thank you for sharing.

Hey Bill, your brugs are beautiful and all the flowers in your yard made me happy! How neat to have 2 things I'd like: a greenhouse and chickens. Good going!
Diane

Hi Ladybuggyz. My Kelly Ann was started from a cutting this time last year. I started them in the garage under lights and moved them to the greenhouse the end of February. Kelly Ann was the first to blossom and had 10 and 13 blossoms the other flushes. That's probably why it didn't need a very large pot (10 inches.) The last blossoms where about 12" long not counting the bud casing. ( I don't know the right name for it.) I fertilized them 3 or 4 times this summer. A friend of mine unpots and trims the roots quite drastically in the spring and has very good growth in fairly small pots.
I love having the chickens and the day before Thanksgiving I got my first egg. Ten so far.
Happy Holidays everybody.

I love your brugs and GH, but most, I love your chickens! Darn raccoons got three of mine Thanksgiving night.

I'd have to build Fort Knox to keep them at my house - foxes and coyotes, plus raccoons! They'd never survive ):

The foxes are the problem around here. We have some neighbors whose chickens are free to run around. You never see the same chicken for more then a couple weeks. It would be cheaper for them to build a coop then to keep replacing chickens. I didn't know that raccoons killed chickens.

We close up the coop at night and lock the gate to the enclosure. We have raccoons, Oppossums, fox and coyotes around here. Imagine all that stuff and we are in the suburbs. We also have deer buy I think the chickens are safe from them. I have netting over the top of the yard to keep the hawks out, also. They are a problem here, too. Now if we can get around "Murphys Law", We should be okay. All this being said, The city will probably see them and make me get rid of them. Oh well, it's fun for as long as it lasts. At least the city won't bother my Brugs.
Cheers,
Bill

Maybe zoning laws will change there like they did here. So many people have been illegally keeping poultry in this area over the past few years. I guess the local government decided it was easier and more cost efficient to change zoning laws then to go after folks. I think the only regulation here is that the coop must be something like 20' from your property line. One day I'll talk DH into them. lol

Do you need a heater for the coop or does the structure and bedding provide enough insulation? I know that you need something to keep their water source from freezing but was wondering if the chickens themselves needed extra warmth.

Bill, you sure have a lot of chicken predators there! I lock mine up too, but that night I was a bit late in getting them in and they roosted up in the orange tree. The raccoons snatched them off the tree.

Yes, raccoons kill chickens. It's gross, but they cut off the heads and leave the rest behind. Two were found in my neighbors backyard, and I haven't found the third one, but there was evidence all over the place that it was also killed. You would think that it would be cheaper to build a coop than to keep replacing chickens! We have horses and chickens in the next block over, but assume they are illegal, yet, it so nice to see them.

I had my one foot tall Dorthea brug give me another bloom! I brought it in the house to admire. My DD and GD came to visit, and next thing I see my 4 y.o. GD with the bloom in a basket! Oh well, there's next year for more blooms.

I guess your Grand Daughter likes pretty flowers just like Gramma.
Bill

Yes she does Bill, and every time she visits, she is very generous in cutting flowers to "take to mom, my sister, my daddy, my brother," LOL! Out in the yard, she has stayed away from the blooming brugs after I warned that they would make her itch. Guess Dorthea in the house looked like a different flower.

I still have some noids and MM blooms going on, but you can see the cold is affecting them.