I wouldn't buy one because I'm too cheap.
Mroo - I wanna see that when it's finished!
Wow, wish I'd thought of that for HulaHoops, rather than tossing them once "destroyed" in pony training... Even saw a "play-pen" for chicks with HC w/ hoops top & bottom for stabilization, so cool.
well, some say ugly, some say functional, some say "Uhhhh - "non-printable"?, I say - it's what works for now...
What I started with (& didn't use the 2 uncovered pens from Jan 2015 - May 2018 due to unroofed & not sure how to build a roof by myself)... O, reading the text on the pic - I must have already figured out that I could do that - it just took me 3.5 yrs to do so.
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The chicken pen in the 2nd pic, w/ the broken board? It now has no wired roof and the board is still there. But that light is now covered in poo (well I hosed it off yesterday, LOL), since I have 11 birds that climb/fly up and roost on that corner of the run. They might just go into shock when I finally get the roof on that pen and they can't get up that high anymore, LOL. The two sheets of wood against the fence - on the ground right now - too rotten/rotted to put back up...they are working to make nice ground though will have to take a magnet or sifter out to get the hardware off the one sheet.
Then what I had before Hurricane Florence came thru and what I had after...
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What I used this summer to raise almost 100 chicks in our front yard (parts of the yard look great) - have processed some of those and lost some after Hurricane Michael went thru (didn't lose any during/after Florence, go figure)... Part of the problem was overcrowding in more secure areas (nuff said bout my learning experience). Tonight we are having our first freeze here in the sandhills of NC.
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So, wire has been repurposed a couple of times for different size pens (not permanently attached to anything). Sheets were free - either rocks or soda bottle tops used w/ haystring to tie them down. "White lining" at bottom of pens - feed bags opened out and cut into 4 sections, joined end to end then stitched onto the fencing - it worked to keep the chicks in until they grew enough they couldn't get out.. Then? They just flew up, perched, flew down - tho not everyday and not always the same ones...
Those pens are taken apart now, rolled up & strapped down before the two hurricanes swept thru. The woven haystring covering the rabbit cages - worked great. The 3 cages are all stored in the shed on the other side of the large/tall chicken coop/run for now (lost 2 sheets of tin from the roof during Hurricane Florence - haven't replaced those yet). The cloth sheets all went into compost - brittle, torn up and moldy. But they worked when I needed them to cover pens to keep birds in... Have several bags full of sheets/table cloths that weren't used by our vet clinic (donations). Will use them as I get some other pens done w/ wire fencing on wooden framing. Was supposed to work on that today, but didn't get to it...
I spent several hours on Friday clearing up one corner of our yard - creating several bags (reusing 50 lb feed bags) of sticks from pruned weedy fronds & a tree, a large pile of sticks and 2 bags of usable yard waste for the chicken coops/runs. All that takes is time and sometimes I feel so...
Who needs pretty, my girls are happy with functional! MY kids and spouse built our coop in a weekend and it takes 4 people to move it around ( we finally settled on it's forever home) and it is enclosed from the weather and easy to clean. In the winter my girls live in luxury as their coop is surrounded on 3 sides by 8" foam panels wrapped in plastic bags from our wood pellets pallets! They also have a heat lamp under their house that adds heat to the floor bu they cannot get to it. We live in Wyoming so it is cold during the winter. Not a great picture but gets the job done.
