Just thought I'd put up some pics of our hastily assembled winter accommodations. We built the Catabwa Coop this fall but as it got colder, we figured it wouldn't be warm enough to keep our girls over the winter. Just after we got our girls I was in a little car accident and haven't been able to properly build them anything so we rigged up a winter run in the lean-to behind our shed.
We live in a cottage and the "shed" is where our furnace and hot water tank are so it's attached to the house and the temp in there never gets to freezing point.
We've had our first real snowfall as there was a winter storm today. We don't usually have this much snow and when we do it doesn't last long.
We laid a sheet of plastic over the Catawaba coop then laid a couple of sheets of that styrofoam sheeting they use on the outside of houses over that and weighed them down with some scrap lumber.
I had a big cardboard box and so I folded it and cut it to wedge here to cover the ends. You can see how we backed the coop into the end of the lean-to.
A little better pic of how the coop meets the lean-to.
We covered the open areas of the lean-to first with plastic hardware cloth (so much easier to work with than the wire stuff). Then covered everything in plastic sheeting which makes a big "tent".
Here's the other end where we can access the inside and commune with our gals.
Inside it's quite cozy. An infrared heat lamp keeps the temp just above freezing and the girls love the space.
Since I'm still recovering and can't build, I put an old saw horse and a couple of small logs inside for the girls to climb on.
Incidentally, we keep a couple of 55 gal drums in the shed filled with composting worms. Here's a couple of pics of those bins:
And the little worms themselves. We've tried feeding them to the chickens and they will peck at them but otherwise seem disinterested. They do, however, go crazy for crickets and were in "bug heaven" this fall when the crickets were out. We're going to try and feed them some worms again now that the gals are older and see if they'll eat them.
We live in a cottage and the "shed" is where our furnace and hot water tank are so it's attached to the house and the temp in there never gets to freezing point.
We've had our first real snowfall as there was a winter storm today. We don't usually have this much snow and when we do it doesn't last long.
We laid a sheet of plastic over the Catawaba coop then laid a couple of sheets of that styrofoam sheeting they use on the outside of houses over that and weighed them down with some scrap lumber.
I had a big cardboard box and so I folded it and cut it to wedge here to cover the ends. You can see how we backed the coop into the end of the lean-to.
A little better pic of how the coop meets the lean-to.
We covered the open areas of the lean-to first with plastic hardware cloth (so much easier to work with than the wire stuff). Then covered everything in plastic sheeting which makes a big "tent".
Here's the other end where we can access the inside and commune with our gals.
Inside it's quite cozy. An infrared heat lamp keeps the temp just above freezing and the girls love the space.
Since I'm still recovering and can't build, I put an old saw horse and a couple of small logs inside for the girls to climb on.
Incidentally, we keep a couple of 55 gal drums in the shed filled with composting worms. Here's a couple of pics of those bins:
And the little worms themselves. We've tried feeding them to the chickens and they will peck at them but otherwise seem disinterested. They do, however, go crazy for crickets and were in "bug heaven" this fall when the crickets were out. We're going to try and feed them some worms again now that the gals are older and see if they'll eat them.
