Well, we wanted to get the girls out of their winter digs and give them a summer home. We couldn't get them into Girl Guides or ballet class so the next best thing was a nice summer camp. We also wanted to move them around the yard every few days so they have a chance to feast on all the yummy spiders and bugs we get out here at the lake. (The fish flies will be coming up out of Lake Erie in about 3 weeks so they'll be in heaven)
Though we loved our Catawba coop and it was fun to build, it's just too darned heavy for we two gals to move around like we'd hoped we could. Even with the wheel assembly we constructed to push it around like a wheelbarrow, it took the two of us to move it.
So we borrowed some ideas here and spent the day yesterday building a little 8' x 8' hoop house for our 4 girls. We built it out of 1/2 inch PVC conduit on a frame of 2 x 4s. Right now it's covered with hex chicken wire but later today I'm going to run some hardware cloth around the bottom 3 feet.
The tarp we had is smaller than we thought. It was the tarp we used for camping and since we haven't been camping since we moved out here to our cottage, we couldn't remember how big it was. Looks like I'll be buying a bigger tarp.
One of our neighbours was throwing out an old 3 tier wooden trolley. The shelves have an edge around them so they're like trays. When we saw it sitting out by the road we immediately thought, "Possible nest boxes?" We covered the two wide ends with black landscape fabric we had left over from last season's gardening project. Then put some straw in each enclosure for nesting material. Meringue, our white hen, was the first to go inside to check it out.
We put one of our old saw horses inside to give them a place to roost and moved them in last night. They seem to like the room and having more fresh air. I'm glad we got them moved for the summer.
Now I have to start planning their winter home and I'm thinking of ways to cannibalize the Catawaba coop for lumber and fittings.
Here's some pics. Please take a look and let me know it you can think of anything we missed or need to put in there for the girls. Thanks.
Though we loved our Catawba coop and it was fun to build, it's just too darned heavy for we two gals to move around like we'd hoped we could. Even with the wheel assembly we constructed to push it around like a wheelbarrow, it took the two of us to move it.
So we borrowed some ideas here and spent the day yesterday building a little 8' x 8' hoop house for our 4 girls. We built it out of 1/2 inch PVC conduit on a frame of 2 x 4s. Right now it's covered with hex chicken wire but later today I'm going to run some hardware cloth around the bottom 3 feet.
The tarp we had is smaller than we thought. It was the tarp we used for camping and since we haven't been camping since we moved out here to our cottage, we couldn't remember how big it was. Looks like I'll be buying a bigger tarp.
One of our neighbours was throwing out an old 3 tier wooden trolley. The shelves have an edge around them so they're like trays. When we saw it sitting out by the road we immediately thought, "Possible nest boxes?" We covered the two wide ends with black landscape fabric we had left over from last season's gardening project. Then put some straw in each enclosure for nesting material. Meringue, our white hen, was the first to go inside to check it out.
We put one of our old saw horses inside to give them a place to roost and moved them in last night. They seem to like the room and having more fresh air. I'm glad we got them moved for the summer.
Now I have to start planning their winter home and I'm thinking of ways to cannibalize the Catawaba coop for lumber and fittings.
Here's some pics. Please take a look and let me know it you can think of anything we missed or need to put in there for the girls. Thanks.
