It has been cold and rainy and I tried to make the chicken’s covered run more exciting by putting in a large branch. The branch has been sitting behind the coop for awhile, so cleaning off the tiny branches to make it more roost friendly was easy.
Large dead branch in runSide view showing the height of the branch
The chickens are not impressed. They love their branch perches in the uncovered runs, but this new one has been met with incredulous skepticism. If after a few weeks they still don’t like it, I’ll come up with something different.
They don’t like it as much as the other nest boxes, but I found a chicken in the metal nest box! And she laid an egg there! Cleaning and painting it was not a wasted effort, yay! Granted, their two favorite nest boxes were both occupied.
I spy a chicken!
I have been putting down plastic bins everywhere I find an egg on the floor. We are up to 6 nest boxes. For 12 chickens. A little overkill, but they fight over the two boxes under the workbench. Here is a video: https://youtu.be/6hDRHzRU3fQ. I thought Velociraptors were eating my chickens; no, it was just a hen screaming at another hen coming toward her nest box.
We have had unauthorized access to the chicken runs. Our outside/inside cat Sophie has figured out how to get on the roof, then she crawls onto the sunshade over the runs, and her weight bends the hardware cloth down enough for her to look in.
Sophie is stuck
Recently we came back home from being gone all day, and when I went to check the chickens I heard a pitiful meowing. Sophie had climbed on top of one of the closed doors to the runs, her entry point had closed up, and she could neither get down nor go back up. I have no idea how long she was stuck there, but she was very grateful for the help down. It didn’t stop her from getting right back up on the roof, though.
Sophie on the roof
To stop the cat from getting to the chickens and/or getting stuck again, first I took down the sunshade (since our temperatures are dropping, it was time anyway). Then I put up 2×4 supports under the gutter so that the hardware cloth could not bend down, even with a cat standing on it.
Additional bracing to prevent access
To be safe, I also tied down the hardware cloth with a loop of steel wire in the middle of each support. I don’t think the cat would have been very happy if she actually made it inside the coop. The chickens don’t seem to be afraid of her at all, and outnumber her 12:1.
The chickens have not seemed interested in the metal nest boxes, so I added a couple of curtains in the same fabric as on the nest boxes under the work bench. The curtains make it look nice a dark, we’ll see if it entices any hens!
Metal nest boxes in a new location with new curtains
I modified this idea from Lisa of Fresh Eggs Daily. I used the cut-off bottom of an old water bottle for the cup (because I didn’t have tuna cans), and I made a twine net to hold the wine bottle. I cut four long pieces of twine (about 8 feet each), and made a loop in the middle. I stacked four loops together, then used half-hitches to secure the circle (this is where the neck of the bottle will go).
Loop of twineFour loops of twineHalf-hitch secured circle
I put the twine circle on the bottle and made square knots using pairs of twine, then alternated the pairs to make the next row of knots. There are four knots in each row.
Square knot netting
I knotted 13 rounds, which nearly covered the bottle (the netting will stretch, so I didn’t want it too long). I attached the netting and cups to pieces of oak board, attached screw eyes to secure the top of the nets, and anchored the bottom of the net with a screw.
Finished netting attached to oak boards with plastic cups
I secured the oak boards to the legs of the work table with screws at the top and bottom.
I filled the bottles using a funnelI put a cork in the bottle before inserting the bottle into the net
Putting a bottle full of grit upside down is a recipe for disaster, so I put a cork in until I had the bottle in place, then took out the cork so the grit could pour into the cup. Then, yay! The dispensing stopped when the cup was full. Phew!
Critters and Craft 