My way of preparing an Omlet Chicken Coop

I am a huge fan of Omlet’s products. They’re easy to put together, easy to clean, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, well ventilated and the dreaded red mite can’t live in them! I have Omlet homes for nearly all of my pets, so when I decided to get chickens, I headed straight for the Omlet Cube. Whilst preparing it for my new babies and in the weeks following, I experimented with how best to stock it to keep the chickens clean and warm, as well as making it easier for the next cleaning session. After a few weeks I had it down to a fine art, and yesterday I suddenly thought about how it may help new comers to chicken keeping to know what to do. So here we go!

 

 

 

 

 

Line the nesting box with newspaper and dust free pine shavings.

 

Slide in the pink ‘poo trays’ and line with newspaper. I also put newspaper over the adjoining section to stop poo going on the centre bar.

 

Cover the newspaper with dust free pine shavings.

Pop the roosting bars in and lots of dust free straw in the nesting box.

 

Slide the lid back on.

 

Pop the back on and you’re done! I do this big clean once a week, but I do open it up every day and take out any major poos especially from the nesting box. As for cleaning, it’s easy! All the poo and newspaper are composted and the rest is jet hosed. I give it a light disinfectant spray, wipe down and done!

Homemade Shaving Cream

We get through shaving cream like there’s no tomorrow in our house! With three men shaving every day there’s the inevitable bits of toilet paper stuck to various parts of their delicate 😉 faces where they’ve cut themselves. I decided to grab the bull by the horns and have a go at making some face friendly cream that would help with the cut faces, save on our shopping bill and most of all, not be full of all the nasty chemicals that appear to be in most shop bought creams.

After a lot of research, a few tweaks here and there, and a little bit of trial and error, I produced a more than half decent shaving cream. The men love it and claim it’s the best they’ve ever used and gives the closest shave ever – which is praise indeed! The ladies of the house have tried it too, and all are agreed it definitely does the job – well!

It does go hard in the pot, no matter where you store it, but as soon as you rub it between your fingers you get a nice slippery product that easily glides on the face, or even under your arm pits or legs! Give it a go!

Ingredients

1/4 cup of coconut oil

2 tablespoons of cocoa butter

1/4 cup of castile soap

2 tsp of baking powder

3 drops of essential oil (I’ve tried lemon, tea tree and bergamot – all are fab!)

Firstly heat the coconut oil and cocoa butter together until liquified. Add the castile soap, baking powder and essential oil if you’re using one. Then using a electric whisk, mix the ingredients to a nice fluffy cream. Pop into a clean jar and you’re done! I use mason jars but any clean jar should work just fine!

As I mentioned above, the cream will go hard in the jar, but if you rub it between your fingers it produces a nice silky cream again.

That’s all there is to it! Have a go and save yourself some pennies!

Homemade natural deodorant

With three burly men in the house we get through a lot of deodorant! (of course us ladies don’t need it quite so much 😉 ) Some mornings it was like walking through a chemically laden smog just to brush my teeth! Worrying about the effect of all the chemicals in deodorants has been something that’s been niggling away at me for a while, and with the increasing times of ‘mummmm pick me up some deodorant when you’re shopping please’, I began to think there was a better way to be caring for my family!

After scouring the internet and coming across many recipes, I decided to experiment and find what would work the best for my family. The result? A deodorant EVERYONE in the family is happy to wear, no more sweat stains on clothes and no more extra hot washes for their clothes. Give it a go and see for yourself!

Ingredients

1/2 cup of baking powder (I use Tesco’s own and find this better than most)

1/2 cup of cornflower (cornstarch)

Coconut Oil

A few drops of essential oil (i use lemon or bergamot, you can try whatever you fancy!)

This is such a simple recipe! Just add the baking powder and the cornflower into a bowl. If you use solid coconut oil like I do, melt as much as you need to moisten the powder mixture. I find that 1/2 cup is roughly ok, but this is trial and error. When you have a nice moist paste add a few drops of essential oil and pop it into a clean jar. I bought a box of mason jars from eBay for all my homemade products and just keep on reusing them. Works for me! You can get empty roll on deodorant sticks for this use, but I’ve not come across any in England.

The deodorant will become hard in the jar and look unusable at first sight. Simply scoop a very small amount into your hand, give it a rub between your fingers and you’ll see it start to become moist. Rub it sparingly (very sparingly!) under your arms and voila! The tiniest amount works, trust me!

This deodorant is rarely an irritant to anyone, but if you have super sensitive skin just reduce the baking powder by half.