Hawkeye, I hope your buyer shows up for your little Silkie cockerel, that would be awesome!
Josie, I'm sorry you're having so much trouble with posting on CL, I just don't get people, I guess they have nothing better to do. I was hoping someone on the Farm Swap would want her. There is someone on there with Antolian pups who has been having some trouble getting homes for them too & they're full blood Antolians.
Well I'm just pooped out tonight bigtime. I went out there & I had hooked on 3 livestock panels to the frame boards for both sides & then I needed to bend the thing to get it into the hoop shape so I could hook it onto the end frame pieces. Danz, I hooked on those tie down straps & got them bent to a point & then couldn't get them bent any more with that, I think if I would have had one more strap in the middle it might have helped, but all I could find was two straps, one for each end. I looked at that thing & thought there is no way I'm going to get this thing bent into place by myself, I even texted Sunflowerparrot & told her I didn't think it was a one person job. Then I went back out there one more time & picked up the side that was bent & kind of flipped it over & then pulled the underneath side over & voila it was standing up, sort of anyway. I got the front end piece hooked on & looked at it & then decided after all that instead of 8x12 I wanted it to be 8x16, so I went & cut some other boards that I had extra that had been sitting in the garage for a long time anyway & hooked them together with the other one with a metal plate to extend it. I have 3 panels all hooked onto the frame & I managed after I got the extension boards on to screw on the other end piece for the frame. That was the hardest one of all. Then I put a brace across the middle to stabilize it some since it's so long. I just have the last panel sitting inside of the frame right now. Tomorrow I have to go out & hook it onto the frame too & then I will add some corner braces & a brace at the back in a triangular shape to give it some stability back there. I have a partial panel that I can use for making a door & still have two more panels out by the horse shed if I need them. I'm going to put hardware cloth up aways on the sides to keep the birds in for one thing because they're still young & small enough I think they can get through those squares on the livestock panels. Then I have a net I bought I will use for the top & I still have some chicken wire left from other projects & some other rabbit fencing I can use also to make it all more secure. Thank goodness for cable ties, those things are the handiest things in the world when you need to hook things together & to tie down tarps, I wish I had known about them years ago. I sure use a lot of then now though. I used those to hook the panels together where they intersect so they wouldn't move. I used about a bag & a half so far of those. Won't my DH be surprised when he goes out to work on the coop again to see a peacock pen taking shape, he won't be able to believe that I did that by myself. I'm kind of having a hard time believing it myself. I think it was sheer determination that kept me going tonight. I'm pretty stubborn about things when I start on something I usually find a way to do it if at all possible. I probably will be paying tomorrow for what I did today, but I'm so happy I got as far as I did. I should have this thing done I think by the end of the week so I can move my little peahens in there & then I can go get my peacock. I know they're molting right now, but from the pics the gal had she has some beautiful birds, I can't wait to see them. I will try to get some pics tomorrow of my progress on the pen so far.
