Our humble chook pen state of the art poultry facility is finally completed! After 10 months living here at Brindabella and the chook pen being (apparently) high on the priority list we thought it about time our poor hens have somewhere to call home of an evening. (We only got the chooks back recently, they were staying at Mr M's parents prior to that).
Last time you saw Chateau le Chookie it may have resembled something like this, minus the aviary wire which Mr M started doing before I got my camera out!
We'd rammed the posts in, strained the assemblies, put guide wires up for the netting and put a sloping tin roof on half of the pen. Next step was to dig the wire into the ground all the way around the pen to fox proof it. Even though you may think this wire looks fancy and new (and we had taken an oath of using only found materials on the farm to build Chateau le Chookie) this 10mm aviary wire which is usually used for, you guessed it, aviary's, was used to fence off my Dad's new pool area on the garden side to make it kid friendly. So there - we didn't purchase anything!
After the wire was dug into the ground to stop the sneaky Mr Foxsy Loxsy's Mr M screwed tin sheeting we already had lying about to the back wall, enclosing the chookies little house. He also built their raised platform where their perch and nesting boxes would be.
The nesting boxes we put on the outside of the overall structure, with a tilted tin roof to weatherproof and a lift top to easily collect the eggs. Mr M was busying himself making the nesting box extension and then in a panic called me over. "Can you reach in there and get eggs?! Have I made it too high?!" Ah the joys of being 6'5" and thinking the rest of the world is too. It was fine though, I can easily reach in and get the eggs.
After putting the nesting box extension together, fiddling with the lift top, dividers and finding an appropriate stick to be their perch we turned our attention to the door. We put down a little pad of old red bricks to fox proof the doorway as well and hung our old door.
Then the other weekend Mr M and his brother completed Chateau le Chookie with a hinged door into the nesting area and added a little ladder for the little ladies, as well as hooked up their watering system to easily get a drink by themselves.
We used hay straw in their nesting boxes and sawdust on the raised platform. The mesh wire under their perch is so their dropping fall underneath the platform and can be easily collected for my garden! We've noticed a marked improvement on egg production, but the silly chookies don't seem to be able to perch at night and we've been literally putting them to bed of an evening! Any ideas how to make them perch or are they a lost cause? Perhaps the perch is too high or not smooth enough?
Chateau le Chookie I think could just be our greatest construction to date!
Chateau le Chookie I think could just be our greatest construction to date!
Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella
5 comments:
your chookhouse is awesome emma!! love it!! :) as for their perch, perhaps the stick isn't wide enough - my parents chook house had several 'perches' that were pieces of timber about 1.5 inches wide (by memory)...
That fellor of yours is a champion! What a fantastic chookhouse looks like a penthouse for chooks, very flash :)
Good golly it's a palace! For chickens! Huzzah!
what a beautiful chook house, you guys are very clever! & I'm sure you have very happy chooks!
I looove it, especially being able to just lift the lid to collect the googies. My poor girls lay their eggs in old roundup drums that are carved out at one end. I find that the clay cat litter is excellent for them to lay in, I always have clean eggs. You might just have to keep teaching them to roost inside the top bit. Good luck!
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