It's going to be super cold.

[KsKingBee]

There is more displaying go on around here than I have seen for a long time! Seems like the hens are fanning more than the cocks.

 

[zazouse]

There is more displaying go on around here than I have seen for a long time! Seems like the hens are fanning more than the cocks.

could it be that you have alot more hens than you use to

my hens also fan way more after breeding season it is what they do

 

[Garden Peas]

could it be that you have alot more hens than you use to

my hens also fan way more after breeding season it is what they do

@KsKingBee definitely has way more hens than I do -- I think everybody does

My poor lone hen isn't doing anything to attract anybody

and she is still a baby, she's only two... penned with three boys, poor thing. Maybe the other gals are having hot flashes

 

[zazouse]

I bet someone can help ya out with another hen

er two

you do know we are peabrain enablers ya know

 

[Garden Peas]

I bet someone can help ya out with another hen

er two

you do know we are peabrain enablers ya know

Yes, and it's a serious addiction! And I think I have ascertained the biggest problem with building more pens... Ya fill 'em, and then you need to build more pens

(Absent the kind of magnificent homestead you hang out in where you can free range by the gazillion

Big Blue accidentally got out one day up here and I thought he was a goner... We had gallons of tears and I thought I was going to get shot, pounding on doors after dark, trying to figure out which yard he had spooked to... Nothing short of a miracle that we got him back safely. Did I mention I wish I could move?

 

[zazouse]

I still have to build and rebuild pens, i made these last ones out of 6X10 chain link panels i have 28 of them and i cover them in hardware cloth and chicken wire, when i need fresh ground i move them, easy peasy just got to get the motivation and a week of good weathers cause i have to work smarter now days not harder

This pen is for my Silver pieds 400 square feet , i hope they like it, i have lots of eatables in there and it smells pretty right now with all the wild flowers blooming.

 

[Garden Peas]

I still have to build and rebuild pens, i made these last ones out of 6X10 chain link panels i have 28 of them and i cover them in hardware cloth and chicken wire, when i need fresh ground i move them, easy peasy just got to get the motivation and a week of good weathers cause i have to work smarter now days not harder

This pen is for my Silver pieds 400 square feet , i hope they like it, i have lots of eatables in there and it smells pretty right now with all the wild flowers blooming.

Zaz, that thing is awesome!

I laughed when I saw it, because I built one similar, but smaller, almost the same way. But yours is much better. I put a vertical pipe up to hold the center peak of the roof in the middle of the span, which I didn't like at all, and I had to fabricate some panels to fit the space I had. Then I put some upright poles pushed off from the end panels to hold the ends of the center roof support. But I really prefer your design. Tell me about the posts and cross bars that are holding up the roof supports -- what are those, and what are they made of? They look perfect. Whatever they are, that's just brilliant.

I had been stewing about a better way to support the roof, since I need to build a new pen, and then I need to raise the roof on the pen I'm using now, and I'm just not totally crazy about how it worked with that first pen (which is sadly, about 200 miles from me

) Yours looks way better.

I've been kicking around the idea of trying to arch some top rail (the stuff that holds up the top of a chain link fence). It's not very large diameter pipe, and it bends fairly easily. Well, if you're a horse, it bends really easily

(It does come in different gauges...) I was thinking I could get a tool like what you use to bend conduit, and draw an arc on the ground, and bend the pipe to match? I talked to a guy that owned a chain link business, and he said he had built things by bending top rail into shapes, so I think it's not too farfetched. Then I would just need a center top rail and to throw netting on top of it. There are these great T-shaped connectors that I used to attach the top rail that I used to hold up the other pen, and the roof supports on the current pen also, that would work to hold the arcs in place on top of the pen. Then the whole thing could still be mobile. Because, darn it, I have gotta, gotta move

And boy, oh boy, am I with you on the working smarter thing...

Seems like nothing works like it used to.

 

[zazouse]

mabe this will help i used frames from an old canvas covered storage thingy.for the center support .
sorry about the spelling errors

 

[Garden Peas]

mabe this will help i used frames from an old canvas covered storage thingy.for the center support .
sorry about the spelling errors

Oh, I see now, you used a frame from one of those carport thingies like people stick boats under.

I think yours will look better with peas than some old boat

But then, I might be partial....

What did you use for the 20 ft poles that go between the timbers?

 

[zazouse]

The 20 foot poles are well 20 foot galvanized poles my Hubby brought home from the navy base many many years ago

He never used them for anything so i took them over, i have alot of them

as well as a bunch of 10 foot 1 inch poles.
Here is the pile of them that i stacked on a 25 foot goose-neck after trying to pick up the bundle and the strap broke so that i took over the goose neck also

he was not real happy but i was tired of looking at his pig piles so what i could not use i had hauled away for scrap, that meant the old tractors went, the backhoe, an old navy trailer and anything else that looked to gone to re purpose