Hurricane Hutch

[DottieMinerva]

I live in Florida in an area where we were under a hurricane warning for Dorian. Our nightly chicken coop has a large mesh door and mesh rear wall to help with ventilation during the hot months. Due to the coop being mostly open air, I figured we would need to figure out a temporary holding coop to place indoors. Luckily, the old owners of the farm had rabbits. We found an old rabbit hutch that needed some mesh repairs. We had some leftover from when we made the coop. We were able to fix it up and create two holding cages for our three girls. Two of the girls were found abandoned together and picked up by animal Control so we put those in 1 cage section and put our original chicken in her own caged off section. We added feeders and water troughs using whatever was available at Tractor Supply (supplies were running low). We added plywood to the bottom of the cage because it was 1/4 inch mesh and we didn't want their toes getting caught. We threw hay on top of that and gave them corn cobs to keep them occupied. We placed a fan over head to keep them cool. Although they seemed unhappy about being cooped up for two days, we still had three healthy chickens at the end of two days of uncertainty. I wanted to post the picture of this online in case it helps anybody in the future. This hurricane was a learning experience going from a city owned property on a quarter acre to having five acres with a barn, three sheds, a chicken coop, and the house to prep. We are going to keep the rabbit hutch in case anything comes up in the future. If you also live in a hurricane area I urge you to think about this ahead of time to make sure you're flock is safe.

Side note, we call the main coop the Ritz Cluckerton and this one the Holiday Inn Egg-spress

 

[sourland]

Well done.

 

[Folly's place]

Very nice! Not secure from predators, but great for the purpose.
And glad that Dorian misses you! Awful for the folks who were hit though.
Mary

 

[DottieMinerva]

Very nice! Not secure from predators, but great for the purpose./

Sorry, still learning about owning chickens. Which part of the cage is not secure from predators? I am not trying to come across as hostile, just concerned because the 1/4 inch mesh is what my main coop is made from too. I was told the holes needed to be smaller than raccoon hands so that's what I went with. Looking for improvement suggestions!

 

[Folly's place]

I was concerned about the latches, and the hardware cloth attachments. If it's possible to pull it off or open the doors, they will find a way.
It's a really good setup!
Mary