Cirque des Poulets

Address: 36347 Christine St.  , Newark, CA 94560

Description:

We have chickens, mini-orchard, raised garden, native bee housing.

Native habitat front yard designed to attract indigenous

pollinators, including hummingbirds as well as insects.

We water our front yard once or twice a year, the vine

maples slightly more often.

The picture is at the bottom. On the left

is the steel aviary with a plastic house inside where the

LF layers live. On the right is the breeding housing

for the Dominique bantams, the white boxy thing

barely visible. The aviary has “circus tents” – fitted

canvas covers for shade and to keep rain out. The

bantam housing is built of Coroplast on a steel frame

and was shipped in from the Great Plains due to being

coyote proof – a problem animal at our cabin in Nevada

 

The Dominiques patrol the orchard and the

berry rows and keep insects down and eat low

hanging and fallen fruit. Since we acquired them,

our yard seems to be slug and snail free, although

mollusks didn’t seem to be eaten by the other breeds

of chickens we have had here. In fact, our top hen,

a four year old Black Star is not interested and

looks disgusted when she runs over for her share

of what the other girls are eating and discovers

it is a slug or a snail. She lifts all of her feathers and

sort of stalks away looking very offended.