PICS of Critter Hill's Run Concrete Pouring Party!

[CritterHill]

We ended up pouring 4000 pounds (dry weight) of concrete that day. It went really fast since we had a lot of help!

I advertised free food and beer to all of my friends if they would come work. We had about a dozen people show up!

Here are some pics!

Pickup full of concrete bags before we start. We ended up with 2 truck loads:

Getting the wire entrenched:

Mix and Pour!

Keep working!

Not smooth, but for free labor, pretty darn good:

More work:

Taking a chicken break:

Gratuitous chicken pics:

DH is now working on putting a welded wire roof on the run (lots of hawks/raccoons around here). I'll post pics of that at some point.

 

[JennsPeeps]

OMG your gratuitious polish is hilarious!

How do they lay - decent?

 

[CritterHill]

Quote:
Good question on the laying. They are only 10 weeks old now, so I don't have personal experience yet, but I am told that it depends on the chicken. Some good, others not so much.

I'm not expecting an egg a day out of them, but if I could get 2 or 3 dozen eggs a week from 11 hens, I would be really happy!

 

[skennedy]

Where is the grass?

 

[CritterHill]

Quote:
Grass? Hahahaha! You must have us confused with someone else. We live in the woods. Too shady for grass. We do desperately try to grow some closer to the house, but it has never survived more than one season and i am getting tired of replanting.

Here is a picture standing at the coop, looking down into the yard, and at the house. You can see we have a little grass:

 

[AllChookUp]

Nice, critterhill!

Is the concrete just for around the perimeter of the run to make the fence edging predator-proof?

 

[CritterHill]

Quote:
Thanks! Yes, what we did (and you can't really tell from those pics) since our soil is so rocky, we could only dig a few inches to sink the wire fence. So we laid a few feet of wire out along the ground on the outside of the run and bent the edges down into the small trench we dug to sink the vertical wire into.

The we poured concrete in the trench cementing the vertical and horizontal wire pieces together.

Hoping that is reasonably predator proof.

 

[dixygirl]

Oh it's not too shady for grass. I am in DEEP shade and it works whereever i plant it. Try fescue, rye or even orchardgrass.

That looks super safe!!!

I LOVE your cement party.
What is going on top of the run?
Good luck
dixy

 

[CritterHill]

Quote:
Thanks for the grass tip. We'll try those varieties next spring when the grass we planted this year fails to return

DH is currently working on putting 2x4 welded wire over the top of the run. A real pain since the run is so wide. He is having to sink posts in the middle of the run to build the skeleton to staple the wire to. So it is taking longer than expected, but it is getting there!

I have a tarp over half the run to discourage hawks currently and he is actively fencing over the other half.

 

[skeeter9]

That looks great, Critter Hill! I did the same thing with the cement around the perimeter of my run and it works great! Your chickens have a very nice area to live. Nice work!