Our shed project begins

Strictly speaking, our shed project begins tomorrow with three guys booked to work for us for three days. Today though we did some preparation in readiness for them.

At the moment the back of the big shed at the top of our garden provides our boundary with a public foot path behind it and a golf course beyond that. The front of it provides the back wall of the chicken run. The shed was already here when we moved in eight and a half years ago and although it’s been very useful to us it is old and beginning to rot.

We have ordered two new sheds to be made for us and they are due to arrive in two weeks time. Our guys starting tomorrow, are going to take down and dispose of the old shed. They will even up the concrete ready to provide a base for the two new sheds and they will build a sturdy seven foot high fence as our new boundary.

One of the sheds will become the new chicken coop and will provide the back wall of the chicken run. The other will house our chest freezer, hot boxes, pans and anything else needing storing for our business as well as the contents of our small garden shed. The small garden shed is going to our next door neighbours.

There will be a concrete path running around and behind both sheds so that we can check  and maintain them and this will also stop any predators digging under. The boundary fence will also be set on concrete.

We have spent some time during the past week emptying the big shed. The water butts from the top patio have been stored on our bottom patio along with the wooden shelving from the big shed, now under a tarpaulin and my dog (chicken) crate.

Our patio is looking a bit cluttered

Because the shed provides the back of the chicken run we needed to construct a false, temporary, wall to contain the girls and keep them safe. My husband started work on this today using the door and some side panels from the old shed.

Our sheds before we begin

The garden shed on the right is temporarily housing our chest freezer. Because the freezer is now in a much smaller space my husband has taken the glass out of the window to allow some ventilation and rigged up a bit of wood to keep the rain out. The chicken run is on the left opposite the garden shed.

The chicken’s patio before we began work today, the end wall is the big shed

Half the false fence is now in place

We had to pull the storage cabinet out to get to the false fence.

Close up of the false fence which is the door from the big shed

The old shed provided us with the materials for the false fence

The false fence is nearly completed

The false fence is completed

I filled any gaps with fine chicken wire to keep out mice.

The new and temporary look of the chicken’s patio

We put the girls’ high bedtime perches back up for now and I put their little coop nest boxes side by side on the left behind the main coop.

The girls didn’t seem bothered at all by our works today in fact at times they were very nosey about what we were doing.

The plan is that when the new full height chicken shed is in place it will have a ladder of perches that we hope will be high enough to entice the girls to roost. We will take out the old coop and the current high perches and hope that the girls will then put themselves to bed instead of me lifting them from the perch to the coop each night.

We will take the automatic door closer from the current coop and fit it to the new pop hole which is going to be cut for us. I will be able to enter the chicken shed through the full size door for cleaning and there will be ventilation and an opening window which we will put weld mesh behind.  We are going to line the floor with lino to make cleaning easy. Being able to enter will also allow me to asses the temperature in the chicken shed.

That’s the plan and it is just a matter of time to see if the chickens do what I want them to do.