Monkey Boy and The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird were rather busy this past weekend. First on the summer project list was to build a new chicken yard for our backyard flock.
Ricky the Raccoon had made 3 appearances over the previous 2 days and so we knew he was casing the joint for his next meal. Knowing how much The Girl loves each and everyone of her birds, we decided to beef up security lickety split.
This meant a late night trip to my 3rd favorite store in the world, The Home Depot.
The boys picked up fence posts, caps, cement, horse wire, specialty nails and hauled them home.
The next day, Monkey Boy started digging the holes for the posts {please note the bulging muscles as he begged me to snap a photo}. He was able to get all the holes dug but 1, so The Girl had to finish it for him. Then, the kids hauled all the cement and posts to the backyard, mixed the concrete, and set the posts.
Then, on Saturday, while The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird and I were attending the Tacoma Urban Chicken Coop Tour, the boys wrapped the wire around the posts and nailed it in to place. And on Sunday, they built a gate. We have a gate! We have never had a gate before so this is HUGE.
All that’s left for Monkey Boy to do now is to landscape around the chicken yard, stain the posts, {and the part of the fence the HH had to rebuild} and then he can mark this project off his summer to do list.
How do they chickens feel about their new digs? They love it.
Good job Monkey Boy!
~ If you are looking for a little chicken coop bling, head on over to Amazon.com, they’ll got a bunch of goodies in stock and ready to ship.
Ma says
looks good! I do love a good gate also. You do have plans to enclose the top right? because Ricky the racoon and his buddies LOVE to climb you know. Love the updates!
Mavis says
Yes, we plan on putting the netting over the top next. Hopefully that will send Ricky packing.
Sarah says
Everyone did a great job! Looks awesome! Doesn’t it feel good to accomplish a big project like that?!
It’s a cute chick village – They’ve got there own zip code by now probably.
Patty says
How lavish! I’m waiting for a picture of the sign on the gate,
“Welcome to Resort _____”. Your kids did a wonderful job!
Those lucky ducks (I mean chickens).
Kate in NY says
Hey Mavis, I see you have an Eglu cube for your girls. Do you like it? We have the “classic eglu” (also in orange) for our 2 hens – but we have 6 more chicks stinkin’ up the basement right now, and I can’t wait to move them outside. We don’t have a new home for them just yet, and the hubs wants us to “build something” for them. The only problem is, we are both completely unhandy – even putting together Ikea furniture leaves us baffled. So I would like to “splash out” and invest in another eglu, but again – hubs is absolutely convinced we can somehow build it ourselves. Since I know you are both handy AND frugal, I’m curious to know whether or not you feel the eglu is a sound investment. My hens generally free range for at least part of the day, so building a fenced in area isn’t that critical right now (at least, not until I start gardening for real. next year). Thanks!
Mavis says
Hey Kate,
I.LOVE.THE.EGLU.CUBE. How does one justify buying a large piece of molded plastic? Hmmm. I don’t know. But it’s British, and cute and I bet you could get back 50-75% of what you paid for it if you wanted to sell it on craigslist or something. I know that if I were to ask my husband to build me a coop it wouldn’t turn out the way I imagined. The Eglu Cube was just one of those things I knew I wanted and had to have. I don’t spend a lot of money on “little things” so every once in awhile I’ll splurge. We did have the 4 hen eglu prior to getting the cube and I ended up selling that one after the new one arrived.
So yes, the cube was worth it to me. 🙂