Here's a picture of our chicken run, lower vegetable garden and a bit of the riding-mower palace that I converted into a chicken coop:
Today we had a fierce hailstorm! It looks like snow...
I made a portcullis-type door for the coop that I can raise and lower with a rope pulleys from outside the gate. If it ices up I'll have to operate it manually by going inside the gate. The gate is up about a half metre from the ground, to make it easy to open in the snow.
Decided to make a concrete floor. This was after hearing about the weasels that got into my neighbours' coops repeatedly, from underneath. Theoretically this should act as a heat sink in the Winter, storing energy from sunny days and releasing it at night... but we'll see. Put a drain underneath and sloped the floor
Got a price shock from the fencing; the welded wire fencing from China doubled in price from the time that I ordered it at the farm supply place, to the time that I picked it up. 'Everything steel has gone up' they said. So I paid $700 instead of $350 thinking only that the money was soon to be worthless in the coming commerical collapse, but my ability to raise chickens and protect them from foxes, weasels and raccoons would be important, at any price.
The run itself was tilled in early Spring and then I picked up the rocks and sowed a cover crop of rye and clover. Also planted random vegetable and wildflower seeds outside the fence.
I'll try to borrow a real camera and get some pictures of the chickens outside; they really seem to enjoy it. In the morning they peep like crazy to come out, and pour out when I raise the door like commuters from an overcrowded Subway train...
Today we had a fierce hailstorm! It looks like snow...
I made a portcullis-type door for the coop that I can raise and lower with a rope pulleys from outside the gate. If it ices up I'll have to operate it manually by going inside the gate. The gate is up about a half metre from the ground, to make it easy to open in the snow.
Decided to make a concrete floor. This was after hearing about the weasels that got into my neighbours' coops repeatedly, from underneath. Theoretically this should act as a heat sink in the Winter, storing energy from sunny days and releasing it at night... but we'll see. Put a drain underneath and sloped the floor
Got a price shock from the fencing; the welded wire fencing from China doubled in price from the time that I ordered it at the farm supply place, to the time that I picked it up. 'Everything steel has gone up' they said. So I paid $700 instead of $350 thinking only that the money was soon to be worthless in the coming commerical collapse, but my ability to raise chickens and protect them from foxes, weasels and raccoons would be important, at any price.
The run itself was tilled in early Spring and then I picked up the rocks and sowed a cover crop of rye and clover. Also planted random vegetable and wildflower seeds outside the fence.
I'll try to borrow a real camera and get some pictures of the chickens outside; they really seem to enjoy it. In the morning they peep like crazy to come out, and pour out when I raise the door like commuters from an overcrowded Subway train...
