Day Two at Beak House

Caught in the act of having a bit of a gossip, here are the young ladies, 2 in the nest box and 2 on the perch and facing one another. They don't like my offerings of chickweed or chopped up grapes but it's early days. These things might look different out in the cold light of the chicken run.

I reached in to remove droppings this morning and to clean out and refill the water pot and the feeder. I think I woke them up! The auto pop-hole opener will have woken them at dawn but when I got there at 7.30 they were sitting on perches and didn't seem bothered about foraging. However, the disturbance of the bit of a clean out got them wing stretching and they all came down for a good drink, a peck at the grit and a good feed. By the lunchtime water-top up they all had good full crops so everyone has eaten.

Day three tomorrow then - big wide world, look out!

Here they are!

First view of The Rock Chicks - Ruby, Garnet, Topaz and Amber. I'm sure some fellow pedant will be dying to point out that Amber is not a rock but a resin, but for the purposes of Precious Treasures it is near enough for jazz!

We set off this morning and went to the little North Lincs village of Ealand by way of the North Cave Wetlands - blogged about previously on Vegetable Heaven (http://vegheaven.blogspot.com) to see if the sand martins had arrived. They have - and the avocets. We then went straight on to visit Shaun at Outgate Poultry as we were too excited to postpone the moment any longer. I was impressed straight away by the invitation to dip our shoe soles in a disinfectant bath, and by the lack of smell in the poly tunnel that housed several pens of pullets. We had opted for the Rangers as they are reputedly the friendliest and there are 2 grand-daughters who will want to befriend them.

Shaun said that the pullets are 17 weeks old today and had just been moved into the pen this morning. Bearing in mind that they will have had 2 changes in one day, he suggested that we leave them in the house with temporary food and water containers in there, for 3 - 4 days to allow them to recognise the house as their place of safety. To do this, he suggested that we temporarily cover the pop-hole with wire mesh so they have light during the day but can't leave the house. He also suggested at least 2 weeks in the run before they get out to explore the garden further. I'm happy to go along with expert advice. Himself found a wire grid that covers the area well and still allows the pop-hole to move freely.

There will be more pictures later in the week.

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!