Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

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featherhead007 said:
I have metal wheelbarrows all around my yard. Old metal ones that were left behind. I only use one to keep the yard clean.
I’m not sleepy yet tonight. It’s hot and humid outside. Like Georgia weather.
Mosquitoes are abundant, some are in the house, but damn the mosquitoes, full sleep ahead! :D
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Ugh that’s miserable dealing with them in your house.

Around here people tip their old barrows o er and put potting soul and flowers in. Might not be an option for you with the chooks though 😁 or plant chicken friendly plants like petunias 😊
 
RoyalChick said:
I just got back in - it is cold out there!

Here is my guess at what is going on and what to do.
I think the French drain is the key to this. It is supposed to carry water from the East (down the steep slope into the French drain and away) and you can see from the water flow that it is also pitched to take water from the North West (where you drew the arrows of visible water flow).
If it is stops working, or is simply inadequate for the volume of water then you will get pooling at your lowest point which should be next to the French drain - and clearly is because that is where you get pooling water in the chicken coop.
French drains without landscape fabric get clogged with soil and even with fabric you sometimes have to flush them out.
So, I think the first thing is to really establish if that French drain is working - should be easy to test by seeing if water emerges out of both ends (I am still trying to fathom why a U-shaped French drain is needed but that isn't important for the chickens!).
If it isn't working it is worth trying to clear it. The problem is that it may be the stones that are bunged up rather than the pipe itself. I don't have any good ideas for how to do that beyond a pressure washer and some digging around with a pickaxe.

What I fear is that the French drain actually needs replacing. That is a big job and not one I could do without a pro to help.

In case you or hubby go - 'all that for a chicken coop' - my thought is that a failed French drain is going to get you into a swamp and probably compromise the barn it was built to protect - so it might need to be done anyway.

I would bet good money that solving the French drain issue will solve the chicken coop issue, but just in case I would probably do something on the North side.

On my own I would construct a berm of compacted dirt to divert water away from the coop and into the French drain - could also be a low wall or even some of that plastic garden edging. Anything to make it easier for the water to head East rather than SE.

However, if you are going to have to get someone in to redo the French drain I would probably ask him to throw in a mini French drain along the North face of the coop.

I think the damp areas in the South part of the coop are wicking from the drainage issue which in the North and so I don't think you need to do anything specifically for those.

Short term, I would throw a pallet or something like that over the spot marked 'very wet' until you can sort out the drainage.

I know this is a major pain but I am sure it will be worth it in the end!

Drainage tax: Sylvie, another judgmental chicken!
View attachment 3655730
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Thank you!

I've decided for now to make the trench a bit bigger, and fill it with stones to make it level for walking. I am thinking on a barrier too but not sure how that works with snow accumulation and clearing.

I agree a temporary floor of some kind is needed in that corner and next to it too, I'd like to get litter there though, so maybe a fixed-up pallet, but at hand I can use round stones from the gravel and bricks and then maybe pavers. DH came up with a stiff hardware cloth screen and started screening the gravel dirt pile, getting the bigger round stones out of it for the trench.

Exploring the French drain: Yesterday evening I took a closer look at the South / West end, and there's a pile of wet dirt in the end of the pipe, maybe it was about 25%-33% of the pipe. I dug out what I could reach with garden hand tools while I thought about a roto rooter thing. Then I ran the hose at the coop a couple of times for a couple of minutes each to see if any water would come out. I didn't see anything come out.

But both times water is now going nicely into the F. drain since mucking out that spot, without a huge pooling, and no water was accumulating in the coop corner. When it was raining all afternoon so everything including the F. drain was soaked, once the top F. drain stones by the run were cleared of muck and vegetation, they were draining the water from the trench and the hose pretty well.

DH and I agree the F. drain is likely getting clogged but we don't want to re-do it now, and it may not be really critical. I kind of want to see how it goes with more heavy rain and / or over the winter as right now the F. drain is working well enough for the run corner. One idea from DH to address just the run is to dig into the F. drain stones' top layer and lay another pipe near the surface coming from the run, which he admits would work only until freezing temps. I don't want to do all that labor to not address the real problem. If the drain needs re-doing we'll do that. Hire it, I mean! A professional.

Here's the bigger layout of the French drain. It was laid to try to redirect the seep water from the hillside, with a couple of pipes from under the barn floor join it too because it looked like a seep was coming up there. Behind the barn is not a huge steep slope, maybe eight feet high at the highest, and it's woodsy soil up there, shale under it. Water doesn't come directly down the slope. It's that water is seeping out of the entire hillside in spots here and there. Top is East like before.
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