I got up the nerve and tackled the chicken wire issues this past week.  The run needs to be covered in order to keep falcons and hawks from dive bombing the chickens.  Evidently out here in the plains the threat is from both above and below.  The below part comes next.

Chicken wire is infernally frustrating stuff.  It hangs up on everything and bends and then, of course, makes you bleed.  The local hardware store sold rolls of the stuff (technically I guess called “Poultry Netting” – as far as I’m concerned there is no “netting” about it) 6 feet tall and 150 feet long.  Just about right for the amount of space I needed to cover.

The first thing I needed to do was cut off the cute little decorative thingies that were on top of the gates.  They were welded on so I let the sparks fly with my reciprocating saw.  At one point the blade let loose and hit me in the forearm and BURNED me.  Gotta remember, metal on metal gets HOT!  I mounted sections of chain link top rail across the gates so there was something to tie the netting to over the gate.  The gates seem to be the weak link and are needing to be reinforced to both avoid escape and deter ground based critters.

I mounted six shelving brackets to the front of the building to use as anchors.  I needed to get the wire above the coop door in order to be able to open it and this seemed as good a way as any.  I cut a whole roll of re-bar connecting wire into 8 inch pieces and used it to tie the chicken wire onto the fence and the tick tack toe structure I put in to allow for the protective wire roof.  I was able to hang one end of the roll over the fence and then hold it over my head and unroll it the length of the run.  The six foot wide sections then needed to be “stitched” together with the wire ties.  Once done, then it needed to be pulled taught in order to avoid it all being droopy.  Most of it is fairly flat.  In some sections a little droop was unavoidable.  None of it looks like a chicken wire hammock though.

It all seems to have worked well.  We have had ample breeze and it doesn’t seem to have been bothered by it.  We will see what the first big snowstorm does to it, but so far so good.  This is one part of the construction I won’t miss.  I got all scratched up and spent three days working with my hands over my head tying the netting into place.  Need to find a good Jacuzzi.

This is one BIG birdcage.  Thanks for looking!

Father’s day 2013 is the day that marks the end of the refurbishing of the horse shed!  Its been months of weekend work and the building is now complete!  Sure there are a lot of things that still are needed to be done to make it a secure chicken coop but the building itself if DONE!!  I was getting pretty tired of being on the business end of a circular saw and drill.  I finished up the interior walls a couple of days ago. Then Zina and I spent the past couple of days finishing the priming and adding the final coats of color.  All that is left is to build the window shutters, trench and cement in the perimeter of the entire coop and run, and string chicken wire over the top of the run.  That may sound like a lot and it is – BUT!  – it isn’t nearly has heavy and awkward as heaving sheets of plywood, measuring and remeasuring everything and hauling, sawing and drilling 2×6 and 2×4 stringers.

To quote a simple half wit shrubbery:  “Major construction operations have ended.  The effort to refurbish and repurpose the horse shed  has been won!”  In other words….”Mission Accomplished!”

Here are  before and after shots: