I think we did pretty well for our first run.
I won't say whose idea it was, but we made the first Day Pen about a meter tall. That's no big deal for me - I am not a big person and can easily duck walk around inside it if I need to go in to deal with anything. I even made a little hatch, so that a taller person can stand up, and with a rake or shovel reach just about every part of the pen.
Still, people who agree to help me seem pretty daunted at having to squat to get into the pen to dump water pans or collect the occasional egg.
We will be building a new pen, that will be 5 to 6 feet tall (sloped top). Ah, yes. Sloped top! The first Day Pen top is flat, so heavy snow must be pushed off. With the new pen, the plan is to have a slope, and put 6 mil plastic over the top so that the snow will slide off. That's the idea - we will see how it works out.
Some things we did right are have the whole pen on a 2% slope - so water does not puddle. We have a shallow channel at the downhill side that goes to a garden. That's another good thing. I have coated chain link across the bottom to keep larger predators from digging under.
We needed to divide the pen to keep two separate flocks, and if I had known, I might have modified the layout, might not have, hard to know. I am glad that I put two access gates on the pen. That way, now that we have it divided, each side has a gate.
I won't say whose idea it was, but we made the first Day Pen about a meter tall. That's no big deal for me - I am not a big person and can easily duck walk around inside it if I need to go in to deal with anything. I even made a little hatch, so that a taller person can stand up, and with a rake or shovel reach just about every part of the pen.
Still, people who agree to help me seem pretty daunted at having to squat to get into the pen to dump water pans or collect the occasional egg.
We will be building a new pen, that will be 5 to 6 feet tall (sloped top). Ah, yes. Sloped top! The first Day Pen top is flat, so heavy snow must be pushed off. With the new pen, the plan is to have a slope, and put 6 mil plastic over the top so that the snow will slide off. That's the idea - we will see how it works out.
Some things we did right are have the whole pen on a 2% slope - so water does not puddle. We have a shallow channel at the downhill side that goes to a garden. That's another good thing. I have coated chain link across the bottom to keep larger predators from digging under.
We needed to divide the pen to keep two separate flocks, and if I had known, I might have modified the layout, might not have, hard to know. I am glad that I put two access gates on the pen. That way, now that we have it divided, each side has a gate.
