We spent several hours on Sunday with old fencing panels, left over weldmesh, stakes and even bamboo canes, producing an area where the chickens can roam safely and scratch at green stuff. Part of the garden contains the vegetables and has to be a no-go if WE are to eat as well as the chickens! Some of the rest contains fox-gloves and other plants I don't think it would be wise to let them munch on. 
The area near the camera is fairly grassy - why do they choose the scratty bit with ancient gravel and remains of strimmed comfrey? Topaz and Garnet were test pilots on Sunday evening - to see if we'd missed any obvious problems. To get there they have to cross a patio and gravel path. Every step was punctuated with "Oooh a weed, must peck this!" and "Hey, bit of grass, must beak this!" The journey was longer than anticipated! They have a pop-hole in the fencing to get in and out - we have a bit of a gatey-thing.
We hope to let them have a grassy session fairly regularly while we are there to supervise. This grass run is definitely not predator-proof.
Four eggs a day now. clever little things.
5 comments:
They look like very happy girls (and Head Rooster looks quite contented too {grin})
A topic close to my heart at the moment. Tikka and Korma are staying and I really want to fence them into a particular piece of soil that I want them to scratch over... and not the rest of the vegetable garden.
After letting our hens free-range to their hearts content for several months, we finally decided to invest in some netting to keep them where we want them. It's electric netting, but we don't electrify it. £85 for 25 metres, which seemed quite expensive, but we really wouldn't be without it now. We were worried that they would just fly over it, but find that clipped-wing birds like to land on something rather than fly straight over, so no problems yet.
Hi Karen and Mark. Yes, they do seem to need somewhere to balance before they fly down the other side! Ours don't get out as much as I'd like - maybe that will change in a couple of months when Himself retires. Sadly our area is plagued with foxes so we darn't let them out without supervision.
Your girls have grown!! I see their 'Daddy' is enjoying them as much as you!! Who thought it could be so much fun to just sit and watch your girls destroying your garden, eh? :)
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