|
Luckily I had some grating I had made from 6"x1" timbers nailed across supporting 4"x2"s so I chose a piece about 4'x3' and mounted it on some short posts set close to where the Australorps were roosting. It's a nice spot - at the foot of a bushy bank surrounded by treeferns with a small lawn in front. Getting the hen-house built without damaging the ferns was challenging, to say the least.
Being only night-time accomodation, it isn't anything fancy, just a big plywood box-shaped coop with a netted front, a side door, and a nice stout perch - just about right to fit 3 or 4 big Australorp hens into. I added a piece of plastic guttering on the back wall at perch height for a feeder and put some poultry feeding pellets in it. We were in a patch of rainy weather and I was keen to get them under cover, so I kept it simple.
Night came ...... and I got to go out there with the torch and slop around in mud trying to locate three black hens perched in some huge ferns in complete inky darkness. Setting the torch at head-height on the roof of the coop so its beam faced away from the birds but gave me a little light, I stuck my face into the wet fern they were in and grabbed them one by one. The next night I had to repeat the performance.
On the third night one of them was already in there. On the fourth night, they were all sitting in my new poultry house together.
Mission accomplished!
But of course it didn't end there................
Read More
|
WHAT POULTRY?
Our Poultry Housing - 2
