MJ's little flock

[MaryJanet]

I love the sound of that plan. I can’t wait to see it come together. Very exciting !

I hope to work on it a little each weekend. I won't push it. Instead it'll be a pleasure project, to be undertaken at a leisurely pace and with love and care, both for myself and for the hens.

Luckily one of the neighbours is a woodworker in his spare time. He mostly turns things on his lathe, but he knows all about woodwork and about chickens, so I'll be relying on him for advice when it's needed. It's the same man who gave me his big car to use yesterday and showed me how to tie the lumber down securely with the ratchet tie. A top bloke.

 

[RoyalChick]

I hope to work on it a little each weekend. I won't push it. Instead it'll be a pleasure project, to be undertaken at a leisurely pace and with love and care, both for myself and for the hens.

Luckily one of the neighbours is a woodworker in his spare time. He mostly turns things on his lathe, but he knows all about woodwork and about chickens, so I'll be relying on him for advice when it's needed. It's the same man who gave me his big car to use yesterday and showed me how to tie the lumber down securely with the ratchet tie. A top bloke.

Good to have such a neighbour

 

[MaryJanet]

I love the sound of that plan. I can’t wait to see it come together. Very exciting !

The one problem is that, because I'm not skilled, I can't do the roof first. I'll have to work from the bottom up. It'll mean the roof will be a little trickier, but I'll have been pondering it for longer, so I'm sure it'll be a better outcome even though a tradie would do the roof first.

 

[MaryJanet]

Good to have such a neighbour

Yes, I won the neighbour jackpot when I moved here! The whole street is bursting with gems.

 

[MaryJanet]

I had the study floorboards done last week. The finish needs a few more days to cure but it looks fantastic!

 

[LozzyR]

I've never even tried crating. I care too much about the hen's freedom to choose for herself to put her in a crate all on her own and force her into disharmony with her biology. It gets a big No from me.

I crated Charlie at least twice and I hated doing it.

 

[LozzyR]

I had the study floorboards done last week. The finish needs a few more days to cure but it looks fantastic!

View attachment 2977214

View attachment 2977215

Beautiful!

 

[RoyalChick]

Beautiful!

It really is!

 

[BY Bob]

No I haven't a sketch of that but it's going in the top left corner of the run, which is beyond the tables in this photo.

View attachment 2977088

The posts in the photo will form the corners of the roost.

It won't be a coop like you're used to with your cold winters. Instead, imagine a roost over a raised and easy to clean floor with walls on three sides that reach only as far down as the raised floor to create a breezeway beneath, and a skillion roof.

The patch beneath will therefore be double shaded some of the day and triple shaded most of the day. I'll put food and water under there.

Once that's built, I'll dispense with the old tables and put some plantings where the tables are and it goes without saying, I'll exclude the hens from that patch until the plants are well-grown. I'll be selecting the plats from what I see thriving around the neighbourhood, things like plumbago and wisteria, and from one of dad's ornamentals that he put in the wrong spot. That won't be until spring at the earliest.

Once the plantings are established, the hens will have a good stretch of deep shade, plus the misting. By then, the flock should be around 6-8 hens and I hope to have provided sufficient layers of shade for them to stay cool when the heat is at its worst.

What a marvelous vision you have. I'm excited to see it come to fruition.

 

[BY Bob]

I've never even tried crating. I care too much about the hen's freedom to choose for herself to put her in a crate all on her own and force her into disharmony with her biology. It gets a big No from me.

We will disagree here.

I do not believe that brooding the summer away is something I would permit. I for one do not think that they always know what is best for them. For example, Phyllis would have died brooding if I had not intervened and took her off the nest everyday.

These hens we are all raising are not like Shadrach's tribes in Catalonia. They have not been re-educated in the ways of natural chickens. Many of them have not been raised by mothers. They have instincts but not the knowledge handed down by generations of parents. I will not let them make bad choices when I can help them to avoid such bad outcomes. Just like I posted tonight regarding Betty and roosting outside.

If I have a broody going longer than 28 days I am going to break her. If I have to use a crate to do that then so be it. Better that than a hen that is now malnourished and subject to disease and other bad outcomes.