I’ve been a bit busy recently, so sorry about the quiet time!
I thought I’d write about the wonderful work my husband has done on our hens pen this week.
For sometime now, we’ve had some waterproof material covering half the pen to give the girls some extra shelter and keep the ground a bit drier.
My husband brought some waste material (solid sheets of nylon) home from work to make a solid roof for the pen in preparation for winter.
We have 2 extra hens this year, so we’ll need more dry space and they’ll need to spend more time in the pen when the weather is awful.
Also, our back garden gets a bit swampy and the grass suffers, so last year I kept them in their pen for a couple of weeks at the beginning of spring.
Just to give the grass a chance to grow, because as fast as the new shoots were growing, the hens were eating them faster!!
I re-seeded the lawn, just to make sure there would be plenty of grass for them for the summer and there has been.
So, my husband drew up a rough design, we bought some hinges, screws and bits of wood and got to work.
I helped, held stuff, passed stuff but he did all the tricky measuring and cutting. Being an engineer, he’s much better at that sort of stuff than me!
Here is the supporting beam for the doors.
There will be two doors, one at each end.
The doors will open from a solid section, with the hinges over this piece of wood.
I have also put some sharp sand down on the floor to refill some of the holes that had been dug, and the girls love to pick the little bits of stones out of the sand.
Here are the two sheets of solid nylon laid in place, ready for cutting.
You can even see the guide line already drawn down the middle.
Here is my husband cutting the sheets, ready to put the hinges on.
This nylon is so strong he was able to sit on top of it whilst he cut.
It should easily take the weight of the snow and provide the girls with a good secure roof.
All cut and ready for the hinges!
As you can see by the sand, the girls have already tried to re-arrange everything. They are so helpful.
In case, anyone is wondering, they weren’t at all bothered by the circular saw sounds.
Hinges on and working perfectly!
Yes, that’s me…. LOL! The doors are quite heavy, but that works fine for me.
My husband has even made some struts to hold them open, as they don’t go all the way back.
Clever guy!
Here is V8 helping my husband to finish off. She’s a nosey thing and loves to be involved in everything, but then, don’t they all……
Here is V8 again, this time helping to carry a piece of wood.
She prefers to supervise and I think she does a pretty good job.
This wood was used to make some perching areas out in the pen.
They have a little climbing frame thing out there now!
Done, just got the tidying up to do.
You can see Mel in the pen checking it out.
She’s the top bird, so needs to see everything first.
The others were happy grazing and rolling in the flowerbed.
We have also put some bubble wrap around the outside of the pen just to keep any driving rain out.
We wanted to make sure our girlies stay nice and dry.
Thanks for reading!
Crispy Snippets 