New Chicken Run

The new chicken run is progressing nicely. I have finished welding the structure together and the last of the colour bond steel sheets are fitted to the outside of the run. Over the past 3 weekends, I finished the run with colour bond and chicken wire. It looks pretty good so far!

My lovely wife and daughters went through the run and cleared out the last remaining bits of old swimming pool from the ground and I’ll be making another run up to the tip to get rid of it.

I bought some timber from the tip shop to make the new chicken coop. The timber will make the floor and the frame for the structure; I’ll get some external grade plywood to clad the outside. At the same time, I picked up some corrugated iron to make the roof of the coop.

I also fixed the old gate on the chicken run on the 1^st weekend of October. Over time the door had slipped making the door impossible to open. It was out with the angle grinder and welding on a new gate latch onto the gate frame. Now it opens easily.

The chicken run, with its colour bond steel cladding, is now suitable housing for the girls’ pets. “Fluffy” an overstuffed white rabbit; and “Flower girl” a similarly overstuffed white guinea pig. We made some shelters for the pets in the chicken run with some corrugated tin and old logs. This should give them somewhere to escape to should they be threatened by the birds of prey that live around our little valley.

The lovely wife also picked up four new apple trees from the tip shop (at $2 each): two royal gala, and two ruby red. These new apple trees have been planted in the chicken run. We are hoping to stick a lemon or a dual graft lemon and lime in the middle of the chicken run. The idea behind planting the fruit trees in the chicken run is two-fold. On the one hand, the chicken run used to be a pool, so water is a possible problem and the trees will help abate the “swamp” effect. On the other hand, citrus trees are gross feeders, and with the permanent supply of chook poo that’s exactly what it’ll get.