A few weeks ago I was given a dilapitated rabbit hutch by one of my DH's friends. It has laid on it's side in my yard for WEEKS with the roof rotting off, legs needing sawed off a the ends were rotted and really they were too tall...Missing a door, had a hole in the hardware cloth....DH really just wanted me to trash the thing!
Well, over the weekend I made an impulse buy...of a pair of Wheaten Ameraucana Bantams....I had no where to keep them, as all of my pens, even the one I normally use for quarantine, are in use! (oops)
So I told DH, I am just going to have to work on that rabbit hutch. Clean it out, etc.
I lopped off the legs, making it only stand 4 ft tall instead of 5. I cleaned out the inside and sprayed a bleach solution in all the corners and on the hardware cloth to kill anything that might make my chickens sick.
I patched the hole in the hardware cloth and since I didn't have all the materials handy to make a new door for the missing door, we have temporarily covered it with more hardware cloth.
Then I put a piece of OSB that we just had laying around on for the roof. Wasn't enough to cover the whole top, so we found some heavy duty wire that we folded in half and stapled to the top. It's strong enough to hold the weight of my tom turkey if he jumps on it!
Here's a pic of the coop as it is for now...we'll be doing some changes to it soon.
And here's a pic of the two inhabitants after they moved in.
Later I plan to put hardware cloth around the bottom of the hutch and put a door where the hardware cloth is now on the house part. I also want to put a small ramp from the house part to the run part of it which will include space under the hutch for them.
Well, over the weekend I made an impulse buy...of a pair of Wheaten Ameraucana Bantams....I had no where to keep them, as all of my pens, even the one I normally use for quarantine, are in use! (oops)
So I told DH, I am just going to have to work on that rabbit hutch. Clean it out, etc.
I lopped off the legs, making it only stand 4 ft tall instead of 5. I cleaned out the inside and sprayed a bleach solution in all the corners and on the hardware cloth to kill anything that might make my chickens sick.
I patched the hole in the hardware cloth and since I didn't have all the materials handy to make a new door for the missing door, we have temporarily covered it with more hardware cloth.
Then I put a piece of OSB that we just had laying around on for the roof. Wasn't enough to cover the whole top, so we found some heavy duty wire that we folded in half and stapled to the top. It's strong enough to hold the weight of my tom turkey if he jumps on it!
Here's a pic of the coop as it is for now...we'll be doing some changes to it soon.
And here's a pic of the two inhabitants after they moved in.
Later I plan to put hardware cloth around the bottom of the hutch and put a door where the hardware cloth is now on the house part. I also want to put a small ramp from the house part to the run part of it which will include space under the hutch for them.
