Consolidated Kansas

[HEChicken]

I've missed everyone. Just would like to say valuable lesson learned and hope everyone is surviving the heat okay. Danz, so sorry to hear about your nightmare.

Congrats on your new turkey HEChicken!

We missed you!

I am so glad to finally have turkeys. I got the jake as a mate for the hen I got from Trish. He is a little smaller because he is younger yet, but I know he will catch up soon. He is in a little rough shape so I'm looking forward to watching him improve condition on some good feed. The hen looked at me tonight and I knew her name was "Madge". I'm still trying to figure out what my poor little half-upper-beak guy's name is.

We woke this morning to thunder and lightning to both the south and the north but we didn't get a drop all day. Looking at the radar it passed us completely by, favoring those of you in the south instead.

 

[Hawkeye95]

okay-- I want to respond to everyone, so I will when I get back. Another long day that I will be gone most of it. I'll explain when I get back-- a long day at the Dr's I think. Anyway, the last few days have been CrAzY here!!!! CRAZY!! Just, super busy!! Karen-- so funny! I'm not sure if I remember it or not, but so glad that you got the heater and don't have to worry about glass. I think I may be switching too! I have had the bulbs break over newly hatched silkies and lemme say-- YIKES!!! Laters!!

 

[cherwill]

oh wow, I figured they lived longer than that. Well, if they aren't laying, it would be kind of a burden to just keep them around. I just don't know if I could butcher them... but that would be the smartest thing to do.

I know. DH keeps saying we should butcher the older hens that are barely laying, but I can't bring myself to do that to them after all they've done for us!

The hen died later this morning. I took her out to see the other hens I got her with and she had her fit and died. She is on the stove now and my dogs are going to have a nice broth and chicken pieces on their dinner. She had some levidity from not moving around so I didn't want to eat her myself. Sad, this one had an egg starting to form.

That's too bad.

Hi to everyone else! I have been out of the loop for a bit so sorry if I missed anyone. Lucie is doing really well with her new family. The kids love her to pieces and the neighbors dogs love her too. It is a perfect set up for her because the neighbors board horses and they are right next to the peoples driveway so she can go hang out with them when the boys are in school. Last I heard the two youngest were having a hard time sharing her! I am sad she is gone but I have also had a ton of birds get loose the last few days and it is nice to not have a panic attack that they are injured or killed. Instead they are just wandering around wondering how they wound up on the wrong side of the fence!

I'm glad to hear Lucie's doing well. I'm sure that makes it easier, too, to know that she's in a good place and happy.

 

[chicken danz]

Hawkeye, I hope everything is okay.
My internet has been down most of the time for several days. My cell phone which usually doesn't work well at home is worse than ever. I could scream. I feel like I've been detached from the world. Yesterday was the most miserable day. That heat and humidity was just too much. I finally got the brooder cleaned out late yesterday. I need to put the baby chicks I have in a top bin in something else and I think I am going to pressure wash it out today, then oxine it and let it dry. Hopefully that will have it clean a safe for a while. I need to move some of these inside chicks out and I don't want anything to happen to them. I moved the pheasants out yesterday and sure hope they got along with the older birds. You just never know what they will do. Sometimes the males will attack if the babies are male. They know a long time before I can tell what sex they are. I hope they will all be gone by the end of the week. I have a couple buyers if they show up.
It sounds like it will be cooler in the next few days and I am really looking forward to that. Maybe I'll feel like getting out and getting some work done. It seems like I have been dragging for months.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hi to everyone else! I have been out of the loop for a bit so sorry if I missed anyone. Lucie is doing really well with her new family. The kids love her to pieces and the neighbors dogs love her too. It is a perfect set up for her because the neighbors board horses and they are right next to the peoples driveway so she can go hang out with them when the boys are in school. Last I heard the two youngest were having a hard time sharing her! I am sad she is gone but I have also had a ton of birds get loose the last few days and it is nice to not have a panic attack that they are injured or killed. Instead they are just wandering around wondering how they wound up on the wrong side of the fence!

Danz- Seramas are doing well. The little hen has been a good mom to her brood and I stuck the eggs in the bator and candled them last night and several of them had movement. I don't know how far along they are but nobody has pipped their air cell so I guess I will just keep an eye on them and crank up the humidity when they are getting ready to hatch.

SO glad to hear that Lucie is doing well and can't kill birds at her new home. Hopefully they will never get the urge to have chickens. I do the same thing-- I wait until they are close to internally pipping or have already done so before I crank up the humidity. But I was also doing staggered hatches, so I didn't want everyone else sitting for days with the extra humidity. Yes, I think we will get to stay, which is some what a relief, even though we can't be 100% sure.

With this heat I have 10 chicks back in the craft room in the A/C, just after working very hard to clean it all up and make it usable for its intended purpose. They aren't taking up much space, though, and haven't made much of a dust storm, yet. As soon as it cools off again they'll go back to their new brooder in the unfinished part. For those of you who saw the original brooder, DH cut it in half and made two separate brooders for me. Each will accommodate 125 chicks, if necessary. Right now the chicks are in a big black tub thing I got from Atwoods and are very content to be out of the heat.

I bought an EcoGlow 50 to use in place of the heatlamps. Thanks Hawkeye for the suggestion so I wouldn't have to worry about fire. You may not even remember suggesting it to me, but I kept it on the back burner until I felt I could more easily afford it. I am so glad I got that thing. It works great and the worry over breaking glass or fire is gone.

The next thing on my agenda is a wide impedance energizer for my electric fence. I bought a solar energizer for my fence but it is a low impedance energizer which I've learned, to my dismay, doesn't work that well on dry grass. We've had to "water the electric fence" to keep it working correctly. Really, we're watering the grass under the electric fence and out about 2 to 3 feet. Then, of course, it has to be mowed so as not to draw down the charge too much. A wide impedance energizer will cause a stronger shock on dry grass. I just can't see us out there in the dead of winter watering the fence, you know? We still hear coyotes at night and now we've attracted owls. No more losses though, since I made the mistakes of connecting too many sections of fence and letting the birds stay out at night.

I'm really concerned about protecting against mice this winter. I'm afraid if I poison the mice, then they'll get sluggish and the chickens will eat them and get sick too. Does that happen?

Sure hope it cools down sooner rather than later.

OH wow, your brooder was HUGE-- so neat that you can have separate sides, now too! That is a great idea for all kinds of reasons! We have always used the livestock chargers for electric fencing-- I know your poultry fencing is entirely different, but it would sure be nice to have one that worked as well as our livestock chargers-- ZING!! Boy they can knock you off your feet! I wonder if you could hook one of those up to the fence?? LOL Wouldn't that surprise a fox or coyote? I say set out some poison where the chickens can't get to the poison. I set out poison in my garden under the beams that hold up my raised bed. I just stick it down into the mouse burrows. (evil cackle...) I HATE mice!!

I'm thinking the best thing for me to do is just invent a trap to catch all of those little burgers, contain them and let them breed. Free chicken feed! Take the little pink babies that can't run yet and give them as chicken treats!!

I still think I could invent my own ecoglow heater if I could just find a heat source that worked on a lower wattage. One of these days I'll have it figured out.

There you go! I new feeding option! You could run your new operation out there and sell pinkies! If you could invent a lower wattage ecoglow, that would be worth something! I wonder if you could sell the idea to the company?? Or just build your own?

We missed you!

I am so glad to finally have turkeys. I got the jake as a mate for the hen I got from Trish. He is a little smaller because he is younger yet, but I know he will catch up soon. He is in a little rough shape so I'm looking forward to watching him improve condition on some good feed. The hen looked at me tonight and I knew her name was "Madge". I'm still trying to figure out what my poor little half-upper-beak guy's name is.

We woke this morning to thunder and lightning to both the south and the north but we didn't get a drop all day. Looking at the radar it passed us completely by, favoring those of you in the south instead.

I'm so glad you have your turkeys too! LOL I have no room right now, but I would sure like to have one later on down the road! Replace my Seymore. I need an escape proof pen for night, though. I think I'd free range them during the day in my back yard, but make sure they go in the coop at night. Hmm... maybe I could stick them in with my layers?? You could name your guy "Beaks, Beaker, or Striker" -- all of which is kind of funny considering he has been debeaked. We got rain this morning- yay! I'm sorry you didn't though, I know how frustrating it is to have it go all around you.

I know. DH keeps saying we should butcher the older hens that are barely laying, but I can't bring myself to do that to them after all they've done for us!

Hawkeye, I hope everything is okay.
My internet has been down most of the time for several days. My cell phone which usually doesn't work well at home is worse than ever. I could scream. I feel like I've been detached from the world. Yesterday was the most miserable day. That heat and humidity was just too much. I finally got the brooder cleaned out late yesterday. I need to put the baby chicks I have in a top bin in something else and I think I am going to pressure wash it out today, then oxine it and let it dry. Hopefully that will have it clean a safe for a while. I need to move some of these inside chicks out and I don't want anything to happen to them. I moved the pheasants out yesterday and sure hope they got along with the older birds. You just never know what they will do. Sometimes the males will attack if the babies are male. They know a long time before I can tell what sex they are. I hope they will all be gone by the end of the week. I have a couple buyers if they show up.
It sounds like it will be cooler in the next few days and I am really looking forward to that. Maybe I'll feel like getting out and getting some work done. It seems like I have been dragging for months.

No fun about not having a good connection. That really bites. I'm waiting for cooler weather and hope it just doesn't go straight into winter before I can get some things done outside. I'm not real keen on killing myself in the heat out there. Ugh.

Okay, so today I ran an elderly friend to the Dr. And when I say elderly-- ONLY in number of years is she 'elderly'-- not by any stretch of the word could you call her that. She is fun to be with, spritely and likes getting out. But she has a serious throacic condition that could kill her right now unless she gets surgery immediately. She is opting for the the less invasive, but the Dr isn't sure it is going to hold if the artery bursts and he has to run some test simulations to be sure. If not, then he is recommending an Open surgery, and that is much more extensive and takes a 3 month recovery. She is already refusing that one. We were sick to see how bad the condition has gotten since the last scan. I took her out to lunch after the appt, but really, we should have gone straight for the bar to drink down our sorrows. Sigh. Anyway, so that was kind of a crappy morning, as far as news goes. Still fun to be with her, though.

Then I had to go pick up my youngest child from my MIL's but she had taken her to a Mc D's playland. (sigh) and I could not get out of there for anything. Between MIL talking and my daughter not wanting to stop playing, I was ready to scream. I pushed the speed limit to get to the restore place that sells nice kid clothing that I had already bagged up and is filling my trunk-- only to get there 12 minutes TOO LATE! And everyone was gone and it just made a bad morning even worse. So now my trunk is still full of kids clothes. Sheesh. Oh and because I was so upset, I had two more errands to run for my parents who are out of town (involving paying some bills for them) and I just drove home and forgot. Mom called to double check I had done it and was disappointed it wasn't done. Even I was upset I forgot. Tomorrow is a new day and I'm going to drop off groceries and my elderly friend's house and get all the other stuff done.
Just thank God every day that we have our health.

 

[Trish44]

I have been really busy here the last few days, but I have missed you all & am glad to be back. I was frantically working on trying to get my peacock hoop coop finished because I thought I was going to be able to go get my male this week, but so far the lady hasn't been able to catch him. I think I have found another young one about the same age as the ones I have that is thought to be a male. So I guess if the other one isn't able to catch the original one I was going to get at least I can get this one. Do the males fight if you put more than one in a pen together if they're not mating age? I really don't know that much about peacocks. I know if they're breeding age they probably would fight, but I didn't know if young ones would or not. I don't want to just bring an adult here & let him loose only to have him disappear. I figured that I would have to keep them all penned for awhile at least so they knew where home is. Here is a pic of my finished peacock coop/pen, not a very good one, but at least you can get the idea. I have no idea what those reflections are on there.



Anyway, I got the two peahens moved in Sunday evening, it was kind of a fiasco. I had my DH help me catch them to take them to the new pen & the first thing I said to him is don't let them get out. Well you can guess what happened, he let one out right after I said that. Fortunately it flew & landed in a bush & was kind of stunned so he was able to catch her. Then while I was trying to help him the other one got out & I was terrified she was going to head into the trees, but I got my net & caught her thank goodness. So they're now both in the new pen & seem very happy in there. They have lots of room to walk around now & a roost to sleep on at night, although I'm not sure they have used it yet.

HEChicken & I went to see the Birdman on Sunday so she could get her little jake turkey to go with the hen I had left for her & I decided to get a couple of pullets from him just for laying. They're pretty close to point of lay, so hopefully I will get eggs from them soon. They're a mix of Rhode Island Red & Buff Orpington, so I'm hoping they will be good layers. He raises a lot of birds there & sells a lot, it's kind of a 2nd job for him. He is the one I got my last set of guineas from. He has his incubators going all the time I think because he said he hatches about once a week. He has chickens, guineas, ducks, & the turkeys belong to his daughter. I also heard he has goats, sheep, & pigs but I didn't see them either time I was there. I did see him at the Mulvane Swap meet on Sunday morning with a whole livestock trailer full of cages of chickens. I took 3 of my rabbits to the swap, but didn't sell a one & actually came back with two more rabbits from my friend, yeah I know that's not how it was supposed to happen. I was really disappointed in the swap, I don't know if that's how it usually is or not I had not been this year at all due to the heat & the time they have it. Mostly who was there to buy were Vietnamese & they wanted everything dirt cheap & were mostly looking for chickens. One tried to jew me down on one of my rabbits & I knew she wanted it to eat & I told her no. It was a Mini Rex & too pretty to be eaten. So I brought them all back home along with the two I really didn't need, but I didn't want them eaten by a snake, they were too cute for that & I can breed them & raise some really cute Netherland Dwarf babies. I will have to get pics later, they're just cuties & I got them dirt cheap from my friend too, it was just too good of a deal to pass up. She bought a whole cage of them from a guy across from us & she will resell them for double or more than she paid.

I now have my two new pullets in the pen where the peahens were before they moved to their new pen. They look perfectly healthy, how long would you all keep them in quarantine? They have really nice heathy looking feathers & are very vigorous acting pullets. My two GPs catalogued them into their brains when they came in & Lily slept by their cage the first night like she usually does. They're doing great by the way since their surgeries & are running around like nothing happened. Their sutures can come out Friday or after, so we'll see if I can take them out or if I feel like we need to take them in. I know Lily has been chewing at hers, I haven't been able to stop her from doing it.

I still have 3 pretty sick little chicks in the crate in the run, 2 are Cream Legbars & one is a Swedish Flower Hen. I have treated them so far with Tylan & then Denagard & the Denagard didn't seem to be doing much, so I went back to the Tylan. I hope that Sulmet gets here soon & I may even try it too. The chicks in the grow-out pen seem better, although there might be one or two that still look a little droopy yet, but they're all running around & eating & drinking well. The problem with the Denagard is it's so bitter that you have to add sugar & I still don't feel like the birds drink it well.

I went out this morning to find a real disaster in the run, it was a mess. We had a wind burst last night & it was supposed to be about 50 mile an hour wind. We heard it when it came through. When I went out to the pen to let the birds out I just couldn't believe what I saw. All 5 full bales of straw were knocked completely over & they fell over the little cover over my pop door & knocked it totally off the coop & broke it apart. Then the crate that has the 3 sick chicks in it was turned over on the ground in there, the poor chicks were all huddled in the back of the crate. It took me a good 30 minutes to get the mess all picked up & everything righted again. It looked like I might be missing a guinea keet, so maybe they all panicked & one got out, I don't know. Those little critters are the best escape artists I have ever seen. There was straw everywhere in there & I didn't deal with all of it, I just did what I had to & will take care of it when it's not so hot. I guess we still have a couple of hot days left & then we're supposed to have a cool front coming. I can't wait for that. I sure hope the forecast is right & it's going to be cooler when we go to KC so I don't have to worry about all the animals & birds here. That was the idea of making the appt. later on. I knew we would get rain here this week because it's land rush for the bluegrass festival tomorrow morning & it wouldn't be the same without mud out there, it happens about every year that way.

We had our granddaughter here Monday instead of Sunday this week because I had too much going on Sunday. I'm telling you that child can talk grandpa into about anything, they came home from the store with a play bow & arrow set. I was just pooped by the time she left because I had to get up at 5 a.m. Sunday & hadn't had much sleep since I had to get up to get to the swap meet on Sunday morning & I was still tired on Monday. We're going to have to take her again back to OKC when her appt. gets scheduled to get her permanent crown put on her tooth. I sure hope she can keep that on, geez. It probably still will have to be changed out later on because the dentist said her teeth are still growing. She told me she is going to have to have braces too, I'm not sure how that is going to get paid for. Neither of her parents has dental insurance, so it's all out of pocket.

Danz, sorry to hear about your chicks you got, what a bummer.

My DH has been working on the big coop & has the outside walls up. I will have to take some more progress pics when I get a chance. He's doing a pretty good job so far, he has made a couple mistakes that we know of, but that's to be expected.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Do the males fight if you put more than one in a pen together if they're not mating age?



Anyway, I got the two peahens moved in Sunday evening, it was kind of a fiasco.

I took 3 of my rabbits to the swap, but didn't sell a one & actually came back with two more rabbits from my friend, yeah I know that's not how it was supposed to happen.

My DH has been working on the big coop & has the outside walls up. I will have to take some more progress pics when I get a chance. He's doing a pretty good job so far, he has made a couple mistakes that we know of, but that's to be expected.

LOVE your new pen! I think it looks great! Glad the peas are happy with it. Crazy about them getting out, glad you got them caught again. I have no idea if pea males would fight when they are little. I know my roosters growing up together all get along. Of course, they are silkies and they are laid back. Didn't you say that the lady you went ot visit a while ago only had males left? If she had lots of males hanging out together, they must get along and not run each other off?? So funny that you came home with more rabbits than you left with. You and Danz must have similar ideas on "downsizing"...

I think it's funny that your GD can talk your DH into getting her things. Honeslty, I think a play bow and arrow set would be really a lot of fun! I used to have a set when I was a kid. Oh, the hours i spent aiming at bales of hay! I sure hope her teeth stay fixed this time. Maybe your son will have dental insurance by the time she needs braces? Didn't he get a new job? How is his girlfriend handling things?

I can't wait to see a pic of your breeder coop!! Oh, I want one soooo badly!

 

[chicken danz]

I am covered in chicken shavings, poop, dust, feed , pond scum and whatever else you can imagine. I do mean covered, I thoyught i Had the brooder house cleaned and vacuumed out for the most part until I hooked up the pressure washer. There was stuff flying every where. It's in my hair, my clothes, covering my face, legs and arms. At the same time I was draining the duck pond and it's such a nasty job so I drug the vacuum over there and the hose and worked in there for a while while the brooder was drip drying. I re-vacuumed the brooder then brushed a gallon of oxine all over the floors with a broom. Now I'm waiting for the duck pond to get full again and the brooder to dry. They I can put the chicks back in the brooder and get the pump and filter running on the duck pond. I still have some feeding left to do . I swear I go backwards some days.
Hawkeye, sorry about your friend but I am relieved to hear it wasn't you or one of your family that had to go to the doctor.
So when exactly does a person officially become elderly? Is that the same time you become a senior citizen or some other time? At any rate I am thinking I could be one!!!

 

[Trish44]

Hawkeye, yeah the lady with all of the peacocks free-ranging did have all males, but they're all free to roam. I just know that people who have peacocks in pens say they have to put up some kind of barriers so the males won't fight through the pens, so I guess during breeding season they do get more aggessive. These I'm hoping to get are 3 months old & a year old, that is if the lady can catch the year old. They have been free-ranging & she said they have caught two so far, but not the one I was wanting, figures. I still want to go up to the peacock farm when we're in KC & see all the different colors, I think that would be interesting to see & he is developing new colors too. I told my DH I want to go there & he seemed all right with it, so hopefully we'll get to do that. I'm also trying to figure out how to pick up my little buck rabbit while we're there that I never got transport for. The lady isn't very willing to travel much to meet me, which could be a problem since we will be aways from where she wants to meet. I'm not sure my DH wants to drive both directions, but we'll see. He always gets mad at me for wanting to transport rabbits & birds in the car & I tell him well either we do that & combine the trip or I can drive for hours just to go pick them up. He doesn't like either choice, oh well, he should be used to it by now. I have had him picking up rabbits twice for me when I didn't go to Missouri too.

I really clobbered the top of my head on that peacock pen door this morning, kind of saw stars, so I have to remember to duck going in & out!

 

[HEChicken]

Okay, so today I ran an elderly friend to the Dr. And when I say elderly-- ONLY in number of years is she 'elderly'-- not by any stretch of the word could you call her that. She is fun to be with, spritely and likes getting out. But she has a serious throacic condition that could kill her right now unless she gets surgery immediately. She is opting for the the less invasive, but the Dr isn't sure it is going to hold if the artery bursts and he has to run some test simulations to be sure. If not, then he is recommending an Open surgery, and that is much more extensive and takes a 3 month recovery. She is already refusing that one. We were sick to see how bad the condition has gotten since the last scan. I took her out to lunch after the appt, but really, we should have gone straight for the bar to drink down our sorrows. Sigh. Anyway, so that was kind of a crappy morning, as far as news goes. Still fun to be with her, though.

Then I had to go pick up my youngest child from my MIL's but she had taken her to a Mc D's playland. (sigh) and I could not get out of there for anything. Between MIL talking and my daughter not wanting to stop playing, I was ready to scream. I pushed the speed limit to get to the restore place that sells nice kid clothing that I had already bagged up and is filling my trunk-- only to get there 12 minutes TOO LATE! And everyone was gone and it just made a bad morning even worse. So now my trunk is still full of kids clothes. Sheesh. Oh and because I was so upset, I had two more errands to run for my parents who are out of town (involving paying some bills for them) and I just drove home and forgot. Mom called to double check I had done it and was disappointed it wasn't done. Even I was upset I forgot. Tomorrow is a new day and I'm going to drop off groceries and my elderly friend's house and get all the other stuff done.
Just thank God every day that we have our health.

Oh my, it does sound like you had an awful morning - I know that feeling of rush, rush, rushing and then the let down when you realized what all you forgot. I had a day like that a couple of weeks ago, and completely forgot I had made plans to have lunch with a friend that day. I got home after rushing around all morning to find an email from her at 8:30 to say "are we still on for today" and then one at "11:30" saying "well, I'll just go and hope to see you there". I felt so bad that I had just totally forgotten about it and it turned out she went and had to eat alone reading a book waiting for me

I have been really busy here the last few days, but I have missed you all & am glad to be back. I was frantically working on trying to get my peacock hoop coop finished because I thought I was going to be able to go get my male this week, but so far the lady hasn't been able to catch him. I think I have found another young one about the same age as the ones I have that is thought to be a male. So I guess if the other one isn't able to catch the original one I was going to get at least I can get this one. Do the males fight if you put more than one in a pen together if they're not mating age? I really don't know that much about peacocks. I know if they're breeding age they probably would fight, but I didn't know if young ones would or not. I don't want to just bring an adult here & let him loose only to have him disappear. I figured that I would have to keep them all penned for awhile at least so they knew where home is. Here is a pic of my finished peacock coop/pen, not a very good one, but at least you can get the idea. I have no idea what those reflections are on there.

You pen is just terrific. You should also take some pics of the little stone path you made to go out to it - I thought that was pretty great too.

We had a storm go through last night and got a little rain - maybe between 1/4-1/2". I forgot to set the rain gauge out so I don't know for sure. It created a real mess though because all of my feeders were out in it and got full of water. I normally keep the layers feeder in the coop where it will stay dry no matter what but pulled it out a day or two ago and since it has been so dry and warm, I never got around to putting it back in. So it was full of water and had to be dumped, cleaned and refilled. The feeder in the turkey pen also filled with water. No big surprise there. The pen is covered by a tarp but since water can blow in from all four sides, even though I had it in the middle I wasn't surprised it got wet. And I had also left my chick feeder outside so it was full too. Grrr. So much wasted food not to mention the time it takes to clean them all out, dry them and refill them.

I am kind of psyched this afternoon though. My 9 chicks are outside in a little chick run that is only 2x4. They are 3 weeks old now and at the stage where they are visibly bigger everyday so I've been wondering where to put them when they grow out of that little run (which is imminent). The turkeys aren't ready yet to be released into the general population, otherwise I would move the chicks into their run. Anyway, while browsing CL, I saw a 6x8 dog run for sale for $25. It is a little smaller than the turkey pen that is 6x10, but not by much. AND, it is the panel kind!!! It is only 4' high, not 6', but for chicks it is plenty big and it even has a gate in one panel. So I contacted the guy and asked if it had all the brackets and he texted back that no it doesn't so he will just give it to me! That was a deal I couldn't pass up so although it was a bit of a drive to go and get it, it was worth it to me. I am so excited to have somewhere to move my chicks once I get it put together this evening or tomorrow!!! Since it is the panel kind, I'm going to just wire the corners together. I stopped in at TSC on the way home and I was going to buy the brackets I'd need but it turns out TSC doesn't sell ANY chain link supplies. I was surprised because I was able to get what I needed for my last pen at Orschelns. Anyway, since Orschelns was the other direction, rather than make a special trip there, I decided to just wire the corners together. Then I'll reinforce the bottom 2' with chicken wire, which I already have. I'll have to get a tarp to put over the top and then it will be good to go.