Final chicken preparations

We took ourselves off to B&Q this morning to buy some sand for the dust bath and several sacks of softwood chippings for the floor of the run. There's a good deep layer there with huge scratching potential!


The final job was to make the chicken ladder so they have access to the raised hen-house doorway. It hooks over the frame of the hen-house support so it's really secure but can be removed by lifting the front of the house a little and un-hooking it. I was going to paint it in the dark oak wood preservative that the stand is painted in, but I had a little think and decided that when the light is going and you need to find your way back home before the final darkness falls and the pop-hole closes, you need a light path to guide you, not something that sinks into invisibility in the twilight. That's the theory anyway!

Finished!

Three of the bricks I reclaimed from the rubble-strewn hedge-bottom that our Britain in Bloom group were tidying last week have formed the threshold of the hen-run door.

This vision of loveliness - painted by me in a fetching shade of ordure - is the support for the house, which forms the 'chicken cafe' where the feeder hangs out of the weather. It is hollow at the top so that the house doesn't sit on another board and allow the wet to seep in and rot the wood.

This shows the door which has 3 hinges and a bolt top and bottom and opens outwards. There's a handle on the outside but the last picture shows that the inside has a hook fastening you can pull behind you to latch the door shut while you are playing with (sorry, cleaning out) the chickens or collecting eggs.

Flooring, bedding, a ladder (to be made next weekend) and we're ready for chicken-husbandry!

Up to the Rigs

Heavy Duty Sewing!

On Saturday we decided to press on with rigging the structure. (So the Chicken Cafe is still unpainted!) The point of making the framework with galvanised construction angle was not only that the whole thing looks light and airy but that we can 'stitch' the netting to the frame. Not quite quilting but I like to find connection between my differing interests.

The result is light and see-through - even more so than it looks in the photograph. We can still watch the horses in the paddock behind. I was very keen, for the neighbours' benefit, that it shouldn't have a Steptoe's Yard look about it. So although we could have built it for much less, it would have taken more time and not been so aesthetically pleasing (to me, anyway). The top is weld-meshed in 3 parts, which overlap. The sides have had the 3ft mesh wrapped around so there is a horizontal join in the centre which again will be stitched with plastic coated wire. I shall also anchor it with wire stitching at the uprights, so the final job in the rigging process will be to staple the bottom of the mesh to the gravel boards.

Top Rooster looks quite at home in it, anyway!

Another step nearer

Today we laid the flooring of the permanent run and Himself manufactured a secure raised platform for the hen house. This gives the chickens a sheltered place to feed and I can hang their feeder from the rafters so the food is at beak height and is less likely to be kicked onto the floor or pooped in. First task, though, was to level and fasten down the gravel boards and bolt them to the run uprights.

While the platform was under construction I was levelling the floor of the run and covering it with landscape membrane. The logic behind this is that the gravel won't sink into the soil and disappear. The run will be covered with wood chips for scratching around purposes then the flagstones and gravel can be hosed down when the whole thing needs a good cleaning out. We brought the flags through from the front garden (delivery point) to the back using my trusty wheelbarrow, then laid them in the run. It would have been an easier task if we had made the run an even number of flags wide and deep but then we would have lost valuable run space. The extra area is made up with gravel. This means also that I can cut through the membrane here and there to knock in supports for perches and the like.

Tomorrow (or later if it's raining) I will paint the supporting structure with a weatherproof brown paint. Then we need to make a ramp (with added claw-holds) to the pop-hole, a door for the run and then to rig the run with weldmesh, sides and roof. Then it's chickens for us!

Just to set the scene I've put two of my stone chickens in to try it all for size.

Starting the chicken-run

Friday morning we undid the pack of 3 metre lengths of galvanised construction angle that will form the basic framework of the chicken run. There's some tanalised timber involved too - for the door frame and gravel-boards for the bottom of the mesh sides so that the wood chippings can be contained. Himself drew up the design - I specified what I wanted the design to include. He cut the angle-iron, I dug the holes. What a team!

By mid-afternoon we had reached this stage. The blue box is a fish box which will be partly sunk and filled with sand and compost for dust-bathing purposes. The house - moved for the duration to the fence, will go along the back wall of the run, elevated on a sort of upturned box with 3 sides. This will give the hens a sheltered feeding area. Much of the area is protected by pathways which can't be dug into, and where there is no path, there will be netting underneath.

There is also going to be a paved floor in the run so we can sluice it out from time to time. When we'd knocked off this afternoon we went to order pavers and some sand which will be delivered on Wednesday. One day next weekend (Friday if it's fine) we'll be flooring the area.

After a good soak we took ourselves off to the local pub for tea. A grand day altogether!

Run on hold

After a protracted design session a couple of days ago, Himself was awake for several hours last night re-designing from scratch.
The good news is - it will take much less time to build. It will be tall enough to walk in (and take a chair in and play with the hens and share my lunch with them - they are welcome to the lettuce from my sandwich).
The bad news is - the new design has to gestate for a few days, no materials will be bought this weekend. He won't start it till March becasue it's too wet underfoot at the moment.

D'oh!

The Hen-house is finished

We had a lot of fun yesterday afternoon putting together the new hen-house (when all else fails, read the instructions!) It seemd like a good design - it's from PandT poultry n Wales - and was easy to construct. I would prefer the roosting bars a little higher - I might adapt this as we go along - see how the hens get on with it first.

After much Umming and Ahhing I have come to the conclusion that the only way we can be sure the hens are safe from foxes is to make a permanent run for them. Having made the decision - I'd like to make it bigger than our first plans (have to convince Himself that he's making a run that goes round a corner!) I'm still working on whether to floor it initially with gravel on which I can strew a thick layer of wood chip or straw. Any ideas welcome.

I also bought a light activated automatic pop-hole opener and it seems brilliant. It closed up at 5.00 p.m. last night and was open when we looked out this morning (Saturday - a bit of a lie-in!) This is going to make life so much easier, particularly if we go away for a few days. It's one thing to ask my sister to feed the hens before work - quite another to expect her to be up at crack of sparrowfart to open the pop-hole!