Moorenagerie
Hatching
Hi y'all! I'm new to raising chickens and without BYC I would be lost! So I thought I'd give back and share a solution to a problem that we recently had with our girls.
It's gotten HOT here in Central Texas and the girls want nothing more than to be inside the house but I've convinced them to take their respite on the shady patio. When not enjoying their frozen watermelon they are curiously pecking everything in sight...including the plastic/foam seal that runs along the vertical length of our back door.
This poses a few problems in our mind:
1. We don't want our girls eating this stuff
2. We don't want to compromise our a/c efficiency
3. It looks kinda crummy...as evidenced in photos 1 & 2
After doing a bit of web searching, my hubby and I found a lot of people experiencing the same issue but we couldn't find any solutions. I finally stumbled across this video which inspired me to take some pics of the door and hit the Home Depot for supplies. http://www.todayshomeowner.com/video/how-to-prevent-pet-damage-to-weather-stripping-on-a-door/
When I got to Home Depot (100 pound dog, Linus, by my side) I found one of Linus' favorite associates, Mark, and we started brainstorming. Mark advised me against using the products shown in the video due to my doors being a combination of wood, metal and vinyl...the last two being materials I wouldn't want to nail anything into. I love the guys at my Home Depot...they always steer me right. In the end, Mark showed me some basic adhesive door sweeps ($2.67/each). These are made of a flexible vinyl and are really easy to trim down with scissors if needed. I purchased two, 3 foot pieces...one for the outside of the door and one for the inside of the door where our cats had been doing an equal amount of damage...but that's another story for another time.
Here is one of the door sweeps.
We got home and got to work...See Linus there supervising the effort.
Installation was simple...
1. Open package
2. Peel off adhesive backing
3. Stick it on the door, covering up the damaged seal
4. Use scissors to trim down any excess door sweep that prevents the door from closing
In this photo you can see how much of the door sweep I had to trim down so the door would close, just over a 1/4". Also, here we see Tipsy-Canoe inspecting the solution to the problem that she originally caused on the inside of the house. Trimming the vinyl down was fairly easy to do with a pair of scissors. I just slid the scissors (didn't use a scissor motion) down the length of the door holding the scissors as flush as possible to the damaged door seal without doing any further damage to the door seal.
Here's a view from the inside. I opted not to replace the door seal at this time since I wasn't absolutely certain that I had a good solution to the pecking and scratching. Now that the solution is in place there is just enough room to fold the sweeps back and fit in some new seals...another visit to Home Depot!
With both doors closed you can only see a slight color difference between our sun beaten doors and the crisp, new white of the door sweeps - I'm sure a few months of Texas heat and sun will fix that. The sweeps don't run the entire vertical length of the door but it would be easy to add more lengths for continuity.
So, there it is. My first BYC post! Only time will tell if this holds up. I hope this helps others out there who might be experiencing the same problem.
I would love to see how others my have solved this problem for themselves.
It's gotten HOT here in Central Texas and the girls want nothing more than to be inside the house but I've convinced them to take their respite on the shady patio. When not enjoying their frozen watermelon they are curiously pecking everything in sight...including the plastic/foam seal that runs along the vertical length of our back door.
This poses a few problems in our mind:
1. We don't want our girls eating this stuff
2. We don't want to compromise our a/c efficiency
3. It looks kinda crummy...as evidenced in photos 1 & 2
After doing a bit of web searching, my hubby and I found a lot of people experiencing the same issue but we couldn't find any solutions. I finally stumbled across this video which inspired me to take some pics of the door and hit the Home Depot for supplies. http://www.todayshomeowner.com/video/how-to-prevent-pet-damage-to-weather-stripping-on-a-door/
When I got to Home Depot (100 pound dog, Linus, by my side) I found one of Linus' favorite associates, Mark, and we started brainstorming. Mark advised me against using the products shown in the video due to my doors being a combination of wood, metal and vinyl...the last two being materials I wouldn't want to nail anything into. I love the guys at my Home Depot...they always steer me right. In the end, Mark showed me some basic adhesive door sweeps ($2.67/each). These are made of a flexible vinyl and are really easy to trim down with scissors if needed. I purchased two, 3 foot pieces...one for the outside of the door and one for the inside of the door where our cats had been doing an equal amount of damage...but that's another story for another time.
Here is one of the door sweeps.
We got home and got to work...See Linus there supervising the effort.
Installation was simple...
1. Open package
2. Peel off adhesive backing
3. Stick it on the door, covering up the damaged seal
4. Use scissors to trim down any excess door sweep that prevents the door from closing
In this photo you can see how much of the door sweep I had to trim down so the door would close, just over a 1/4". Also, here we see Tipsy-Canoe inspecting the solution to the problem that she originally caused on the inside of the house. Trimming the vinyl down was fairly easy to do with a pair of scissors. I just slid the scissors (didn't use a scissor motion) down the length of the door holding the scissors as flush as possible to the damaged door seal without doing any further damage to the door seal.
Here's a view from the inside. I opted not to replace the door seal at this time since I wasn't absolutely certain that I had a good solution to the pecking and scratching. Now that the solution is in place there is just enough room to fold the sweeps back and fit in some new seals...another visit to Home Depot!
With both doors closed you can only see a slight color difference between our sun beaten doors and the crisp, new white of the door sweeps - I'm sure a few months of Texas heat and sun will fix that. The sweeps don't run the entire vertical length of the door but it would be easy to add more lengths for continuity.
So, there it is. My first BYC post! Only time will tell if this holds up. I hope this helps others out there who might be experiencing the same problem.
I would love to see how others my have solved this problem for themselves.
