Keeping hens and ducks chat.

edwink

Hi everyone

Managed today to finally get the netting done all the way round the top half of the coop and duck run today. We are so pleased that's done now as it's such a fiddly job to do. We started on one side and went all the way to the end with the roll of netting just attaching it to the steel bar at the top with cable ties. Then left the roll on the ground at the end and cable tied the netting all the way along the bottom of the netting so it was nice and secure. Then we did the same for the other 3 sides. The 2 sides that took the longest were the side with the 2 doors and the one that had lots of shrubs down the side. On the side for the doors we covered the door with the netting on the way along that side and just cable tied the netting in place then cut the shape of the doors out of the netting. Didn't need to net the doors as we had previously netted those some years ago. The 2 netting off cuts from the doors were used for an area we couldn't get to where the coop lines up with the back of a shed. With the side that has all the shrubs we had to have a severe cut back first so we could get down there to net that side. That was a job and a half I can tell you because we didn't want to cut too much back as we don't normally cut back those shrugs because it is used as shade for the coop as we are South facing but we didn't have any choice although there is still plenty left growing there and where we cut back will soon replenish itself in no time at all. That side also acts as a windbreak for the coop too but coming in to the winter we are not concerned that we have cut it back because the next job to be done is to fence all the way round the coop along the bottom half anyway so that will act as a windbreak from all sides. The things we do for our hens eh? :rotfl: We got soaked in the last half hour out there today :rotfl: The only reason we had to cut round 2 doors and not one was because our little Hoppy has a door of her own bless her

Right off to make some supper. We both still haven't warmed up from getting wet yet Brrr!!! and flatly refuse to light either of the stoves until October or maybe even later if we can get away with it. Funny how we only normally walk around in bare feet indoors but this time of year we start wearing socks :rotfl:

Hope everyone is ok.

Edwink

edwink

The fencing all around the coop and duck run has now been done . So that's the netting all done and now the short fencing, only thing left to do now is the roof. We are in the process of chatting to someone about that at the moment and might get them to undertake that job. We've managed to get two thirds of the alterations done ourselves so we are pleased with our efforts this past 2 months. Have been rained off a lot but didn't mind as it gave us more than a few days indoors to catch up with bits and bobs not to mention housework and my sewing which I really enjoy doing. Was so cold out today though so we pressed on to get the last section finished before we went back indoors. We certainly noticed a drop in temperature outside today but it was lovely and warm once the sun came round from the East.

Will take some pics tomorrow and then add them to the ones I have taken of the work in progress and get them on here so you all know what I have been waffling on about these past few months.

Yay I have time indoors now to get my dungarees finished. I purchased a plain denim pair as knew they would be hard wearing and last and I have been jazzing them up. Ok it's confession time..... I purchased 3 pairs :eek: and I am jazzing them ALL up one at a time so have plenty to be getting on with indoors while it is cold outside :j Only until my new girls are here of course, then I shall get my thermals on and brave the cold to supervise them. Wish me luck with 20 of them all running around like complete and utter loonies. With regards to naming them most will be given names according to their personality and some for the way they look. Any suggestions most welcome if you have any ideas everyone. Just fire away with any thoughts you have for names for them if you have a spare moment:cool: That will be most helpful.

Right off for a warm up and a nice decaf coffee. Have a warming homemade veggie Quorn curry for supper tonight from stash in freezer, then it's time to put our feet up.

Edwink


ETA. In preparation of being outside with new girlies I treated myself to a new pair of wellingtons. I used the MSE voucher code in this weeks email to finally buy myself a long awaited decent pair of Hunters. They were £85 originally, then discounted sale price of £69 and then voucher got me a 25% off that sale price, so I am one happy bunny here. And a beautiful pale pink pair too which I have always wanted :dance:

Cheery_Daff

Morning :hello:

MysteryMe, what a lovely story about your hen and rabbit hanging round together :j How lovely

Edwink, good to see your preparations for your new ladies. Is it the 20th they arrive? Not long now! :j Excellent wellies buying!

I've been to let our chickens out and it seems we have our first frost :eek: not heavy, but still frost. It looks quite beautiful out there so I'm going to resist the urge to get started early with work and go out for a little walk instead :j

All good here with our hens, although there has been SO MUCH RAIN that the coop is grimly muddy. Need to have a bit of a redesign I think. Part of it has a mid height roof but the other half is open to the elements so turns into a mud bath. I'd like to put a proper roof over all of it but Mr cheery seems to think that will be rather a palaver, and won't make much difference as rain will still come in the sides. I think it will be better than nothing! But we'll see.

Pleased to report that a couple of weeks of spraying Beaky with purple spray and all her feathers have grown back :j So clearly it WAS the other chickens pulling them out, and not just that it was taking time for them to grow back. Feel mean now for not doing this months ago but they've all been in various states of featherlessness since we got them and it's only after the others grew theirs back and Beaky didn't that it became apparent...

Anyway, of course she still has a big purple tail :rotfl: so is currently being referred to as Punk Chicken :rotfl: looks like it won't wash off feathers in the rain so she'll be like that til those feathers grow out - will be interesting to see how long that takes!

edwink

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

MysteryMe, what a lovely story about your hen and rabbit hanging round together :j How lovely

Edwink, good to see your preparations for your new ladies. Is it the 20th they arrive? Not long now! :j Excellent wellies buying!

I've quoted your post Cheery as I have memory like a sieve and would have had trouble referring to it without it sitting on the page with me so I could scroll up to it

I agree MysteryMe the story of your hen and rabbit is just so cute. Eight to nine years is pretty good for a hen I must say so she was obviously very well looked after. Some hens can be just like little dogs in that they will follow you everywhere. I had an ex-batt named Scarf and I swear she was actually a little dog as she was my shadow the whole time I was outside with them. To be fair on her though I did hand feed her for a whole month when she came to live with us as she was very unwell.

My hens are being collected on the weekend of 13th and I can't wait. As I am getting 20 I have just made our donation of £100 because they suggest a donation of £5 per hen. I have purchased some crumble for them and some bedding through the British Hen Welfare Trust just for their very first sack though. Not the cheapest way to buy it but they do benefit from their sales and it is jolly convenient having it delivered. I won't continue to buy through them though because it does get pretty expensive when you have 20 hens, I would like to but our local feed supplier sells feed for £10.10 and the bedding for £11.80. The BHWT feed is £17.25 delivered and the bedding is £19.99 also delivered. We normally would buy around 10 sacks at a time and 2 bags of 100litre bedding all in one go so only the one journey to go a get it. Petrol wise we have a hybrid car so as the supplier is local it costs us next to nothing journey wise.

Scrolls back up to the top to have another read :o:o:rotfl: Ok I am going to break this post in to two as I will hog the whole thing with just this post Plus I can't for the life of me remember what I am meant to be waffling on about.

Edwink


Be back in next post.

edwink

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Excellent wellies buying!
I've been to let our chickens out and it seems we have our first frost :eek:
All good here with our hens, although there has been SO MUCH RAIN that the coop is grimly muddy. Need to have a bit of a redesign I think. Part of it has a mid height roof but the other half is open to the elements so turns into a mud bath. I'd like to put a proper roof over all of it but Mr cheery seems to think that will be rather a palaver, and won't make much difference as rain will still come in the sides. I think it will be better than nothing! But we'll see.

Pleased to report that a couple of weeks of spraying Beaky with purple spray and all her feathers have grown back :j So clearly it WAS the other chickens pulling them out, and not just that it was taking time for them to grow back. Feel mean now for not doing this months ago but they've all been in various states of featherlessness since we got them and it's only after the others grew theirs back and Beaky didn't that it became apparent...

Anyway, of course she still has a big purple tail :rotfl: so is currently being referred to as Punk Chicken :rotfl: looks like it won't wash off feathers in the rain so she'll be like that til those feathers grow out - will be interesting to see how long that takes!

Right, I'm back...... The welly buying, I'm actually very excited about them. It's only a pair of wellies but I have wanted a pink Hunters pair for years now. For the first 5 years I could honestly say I had a pair of wellies a year as they were cheapo's so just didn't last. For the next 5 years a friend of ours gave me her unwanted green Hunter wellies and they have served me very well but now the tread on the bottoms has really started to wear away and they definitely have seen better days, in fact one of the heels has hardly any tread left on it at all . So it was either going down the cheap route again or biting the bullet and buying a decent pair that will hopefully last and last. I hate waste so will fill the old pair with soil and grow something in them even if it is just grass for the hens.

We are getting a bit of frost here too now so we have the heating on for the first time today. It was about 3 degrees outside this morning but with 2 stoves going it's lovely and warm now.

With regards to half of your coop getting wet Cheery could you put some tarpaulin on the roof of that section and maybe some around the sides? That would at least help to keep that section away from the rain. To be honest this is why after 10 years we have decided to have a proper roof put on our coop. It has nothing to do with the fox attack as it has always been very secure as is fitted with chicken wire over the whole roof. We get fed up with it being so mushy under foot for them and us and if it constantly rains it's a bit of a nightmare to say the least. We haven't made that decision lightly because of the cost but we felt enough was enough for us now after 10 years.

Aww don't feel mean Cheery about not spraying Beaky sooner. As they do moult twice a year it is hard to tell what is happening with their feathers sometimes. Some take a little longer to loose theirs and some take longer to get their new ones. You could easily have a newly feathered hen when one is still almost bald-ish. I had a hen that rarely grew the feathers on her back again. She was bald on the bottom half of her back for months at a time. She didn't have any sores or peck marks at all but I still sprayed her to keep the sun off of her skin. I love the name punk chicken by the way :T The purple colour will stay on there for ages and ages as it is waterproof to stop it being washed off.

Think that's the end of my waffling for today. Sieve head or what eh? Right off for an afternoon feet up

Edwink

edwink

I've waited 10 years to get this pair of wellies..... Not very exciting for you I know but after waiting this long to get a pair like these I thought I'd post a pic and show them off . Just look at how bad my old green ones are sitting next to them.





Bet you thought what's wrong with those green ones didn't you??? :rotfl: But, Just look at those soles, OMG there isn't any tread left on them at all




So yup it is official, I definitely needed a NEW pair didn't I?

Edwink x

edwink

Not the best photos but I am sure you can see the fencing ok. The whole coop was fitted with chicken wire all the way round including the roof and has been like that for 10 years now. As you know following the fox attack we have gone for gold and done everything we can think of that is possible to stop it happening again. The top half of the coop all the way round is covered in fine netting and now the bottom half has fencing fixed all the way round. We still have to put a roof on it, not because of the fox but decided it will be a completely dry area for them during the winter months if they choose to stay in the coop to keep dry. We will also connect some water butts in there from recycled guttering so we can collect the rain from the roof. This will save us time having to take the rainwater from elsewhere and having to carry it to the coop all the time. So there is a method to our madness.











The little huts to the right in the background are the huts we kept for the hens to use on rainy days if they were fed up with the wet weather. The 3rd hut on the right where the planks of wood are leaning is Hoppys hotel. There is a dividing chicken wire fence between Hoppys run and the chicken coop itself and also a door. It's a bit hard to explain to be honest but I am sure you get the gist of it, well hopefully anyway . Maybe I should have taken a pic from the bottom of the coop and the run by the doors as that would show it much clearer I think. I'll take another and post that in the week.

:dance: Yay we are getting there, it's been hard work but well worth it. Only one week to go until I get my new girls and I can't wait :dance:

Thanks for your continued support everyone. You have all kept me going and encouraged me which has been lovely

Edwink

Cheery_Daff

Oooh edwink, I do apologise, I'd missed your lovely photos! What excellent wellies :j :j and wow, look at your coop! It's like a palace and I'm sure your new ladies will be SO happy with you :j :j Not long now!

All good here. I took your advice and ordered some clear plastic sheeting (outdoor stuff) to cover the run. We are quite clearly not going to get round to putting on a permanent roof (too busy trying to sort out our own house ) so we've spent £25 and I'll staple it over the top and probably down the sides too, which will make them pretty much windproof and waterproof, although there'll still be just mesh over the door (that's at one end though, and will let a bit of air in).

edwink

Cheery_Daff wrote: »

Oooh edwink, I do apologise, I'd missed your lovely photos! What excellent wellies :j :j and wow, look at your coop! It's like a palace and I'm sure your new ladies will be SO happy with you :j :j Not long now!
All good here. I took your advice and ordered some clear plastic sheeting (outdoor stuff) to cover the run. We are quite clearly not going to get round to putting on a permanent roof (too busy trying to sort out our own house ) so we've spent £25 and I'll staple it over the top and probably down the sides too, which will make them pretty much windproof and waterproof, although there'll still be just mesh over the door (that's at one end though, and will let a bit of air in).

I am so thrilled with my wellies especially as they were in the sale, then I used a discount code from MSE. As they are Hunters they will certainly last which is what I need as I wear others out so quickly. Originally they were £85 :eek: but with sale price and discount it worked out I got them for £51. I must admit I wouldn't normally pay anything like that for wellies but this time I took the plunge and finally bought the pair I have always wanted. Only thing is we have been doing other work up in the coop that is currently muddy so I have continued to wear the old green ones as I would hate to make my new pink ones all dirty so soon :rotfl:

Yesterday we finally got the new cushion flooring down in the hens hotel and thrown the old one out. The old one was a bit worn so we found the new one at a Car Boot sale for £2 and it's been sitting in their feed store all summer. We always jet wash or thoroughly sweep their hotel out every year and finally got that done yesterday ready for my new hens. Hubby has made new perches which he makes out of the baton wood that is dropped off at ours to use on the stove or whatever jobs we need it for. It's astounding what builders throw away new wood wise in to skips, not to mention wasteful. Hubby curves the edges to make perching comfortable. We are reusing the ladder again that hubby made 2 years ago as plenty of life left in that. We are finally ready for our new girls now :rotfl: I approached BHWT about not only rehoming 20 but also 4 of what they call "their Luckies". The Luckies are extra ex-battery hens the volunteers bring on the day from the battery farm in the hope that some hen keeper can take a few more home with them. So hopefully if they are available we will be taking home 24 and not 20 but all depends if any are available on the day. Fingers crossed there is.

Glad you are finally starting to feel much better Cheery after the nasty cold that you have had and pleased you have managed to get some plastic sheeting as it certainly will help to keep the rain out and stop your coop getting so muddy. I am sure at some stage you will be able to have a permanent roof on your coop but these things take time and money as you know. We have kept hens for 10 years now and we still haven't got a roof on our coop yet, although it may finally be done shortly, fingers and toes crossed. After 8 years of not having any carpets upstairs that expense came before the coop roof. Like you Cheery we have had to do a lot to our house and it could only be done once we had saved the money to do it. You have not long kept hens and with your house to sort out some jobs outside just need to wait. You will get there I am sure but give yourself time and things will come together nicely. After we moved here I used to think how on earth are we going to pay for this, that and the other but slowly we are getting there with only a few more things to do now finally after 10 years. Still got the raised veg beds to do as we have slowly been putting by decking planks that are dropped off for our stoves, also got to sort new greenhouse bases as all three are being moved, plus need new shed to store DIY bits and bobs and tools as they are all currently in our summer house along with the outside freezer :eek:. The summer house was here when we moved in so it definitely needs some TLC after all this time, so hopefully I will be able to potter about with that next spring if the new shed has been done and it is finally empty.

Right time for feet up I think not that I have done anything at all useful today and won't do tomorrow either, as saving my energy for Sunday when we collect my hooligans :dance:

Edwink

maddiemay

Been away and now caught up on a few threads, so much hard work been done by Edwink and Cheery to make the hens home safe and comfy.

Love the Pink Wellies too.

Can't wait to read about your new girlies when they arrive Edwink, so close now.:)

Watching Gardener's World a few minutes ago, lovely young man growing so many wonderful flowers all in containers and with some very exotic chooks, he obviously is nuts about them.