Yesterday I visited my new chicken friend Jackie and saw her lovely chooks and her set up. Jackie’s run is completely roofed and I was envious of the lovely dry soil for the girl’s to scratch in and dust bath in.
The real disappointment with my set up is that whatever I do to improve it, it still remains wet and muddy. It was only recently that I added fresh wood chip and already that is now muddy. The girls dry corner remains only a small triangle.The weather seems to remain wet and the run never seems to completely dry out.
I decided to buy another plastic sheet and cover the whole outside area for the rest of the winter. The sheets are inexpensive, the difficulty is how to put it up. I had the idea of threading stiff wire through two sides and throwing it over the top next to the existing sheet then securing inside with wire as before.
My husband said we would never be able to get it over the top. The corner we have already done is easily accessed from our garden but the other half of the roof area joins next doors garden and he said he couldn’t see how we would reach it.
Then my husband had one of his brainwaves. He suggested we fit the plastic sheet to the inside of the roof by stapling it to the wooden batons. We set to work then poured a can of water over it to make sure it would run off okay. We think this will work but will have to wait for the next rain (which shouldn’t be long) to see how well it works.
Plastic sheet on the underside if the roof to give a much bigger dry area
I hope at last the girls will have a nice dry outside area.
When the girls went to bed tonight Treacle ate the pellets again and looked like she had a full crop for the first time in ages. What a relief!
Click here to see the history of my flock.
And there was me thinking you might think my WIR was a botched job (we are no DIY people) I am so glad to have been of use …Famous for 15 minutes. The first day we had our girls we did not have a roof …it tipped down and we spent the whole weekend in the pouring rain putting the roof on .
I am going to cover the whole outside area every winter from now on, I am fed up with the ground being wet. Do you find your run gets hot in the summer though? I know it’s probably not so bad for you as your girls can go outside though. I will take some or all of the outside cover off in the summer as when we had a few hot days (I know only a few!) it was pretty warm on the patio area during the day. There are lots of tall trees behind us so it was cool by their bedtime and they spent the warm days in the garden area..
In the summer I covered part of the roof with a large cotton bedspread.You could just hook it over the plastic like a canopy .
That’s a great idea. Mine can’t go outside the run though so I want them to have some sun. From now on I am going to completely cover in winter and partly cover in summer. Their part of the garden gets the sun in summer but doesn’t in winter because the sun is too low and blocked by the trees. I feel sad that they don’t get any winter sun. Roll on summer, that is if we get one this year!