Cleveland Backyard Chickens and Upstairs Worms

Having chickens and worms (not the stomach kind) has been one of our ambitions since we moved back to Cleveland, and one that I think will be a lifelong habit. It all came together in time for summer, and now we have both. Thanks to Lynea's dad telling us about the pallets and wood containers they throw out at his shop, we've got a worm bin and a chicken coop, mostly out of free, used materials. I had to buy the chicken wire and latches.

Here's a bit of the process:

The basic frame

Laying box to go in the coop

The almost finished product with our yet to be named hens. The top box will be a flower bed.

First egg!

Lynea did an amazing job with the garden beds!

Thanks to our friend Jeremy for gifting us with 2 Golden Buff hens. Our life with chickens in Cleveland has begun. I read that this breed is mostly quiet, and hence, good for city life. They've only been loud so far when a squirrel came close, but then they calmed down. In an effort to gain our neighbor's blessing, I gave her the first egg. Let's hope they stay chill.

Our worm bin is sitting in our dining room for now. I took this used container that was getting thrown out at my father-in-law's shop, drilled a few holes on each side and stapled some window screening over the holes. Lynea ripped up tons of newspaper for the bedding. Then we added a bit of soil, wet it all down, and put in 2,000 red wiggler worms that we ordered online. We've been burying our kitchen scraps and the worms have been been going at it, converting the organic material into rich, earthy-smelling humus (not hummus). Or another way of saying it is, "they eat and poop." Their poop (or worm casting) is like black gold fertilizer for the garden.