Concrete and snow

This morning our guy (R) was due to come at quarter past eight to concrete the soil box that the rats have been digging through.

I usually go and poop pick the coop at half past seven, although the automatic coop door doesn’t open until eight o’clock. I open it manually, do my chores with the handy head torch my eldest son bought me for this job and the coop door opens as I have finished. This enables me to get the job done half an hour earlier and gives the girls half an hour extra out of the coop.

This morning I needed to get the cleaning up done earlier so went out at seven o’clock and put the flood light on. The coop door opened and the girls came out but wouldn’t venture from the floodlit patio area as the garden area was still in darkness. I did my chores and left the light on so that the coop door would stay open and the girls would have light. They were unnerved by the partial darkness and all went up to sit on the coop roof. I won’t do this again as it’s probably not good for them but as it was only half an hour until the coop door would normally open, I left to do my indoor chores before R arrived.

I went back out at eight o’clock and turned off the floodlight. The coop door then closed. I shone my torch on it and it opened again and stayed open.

At quarter past eight R arrived and so did the snow. We really didn’t need this but he only had a couple of hours to give us and said we could get done before the snow settled.

Between R and my husband they knocked out the wood from the box, dug a trench and put in the concrete gravel board, dug out the box and filled it with  rubble, then a layer of concrete, then laid the slabs we have on top. We pushed cobbles into the concrete where there were gaps either side of the slabs. We also removed the cobbles from the spot the jasmine had been planted, dug some earth out and filled that with concrete too, then pushed cobbles into it. We put the rat cage over it to keep the girls from it.

By now my husband had to go off and do his deliveries and me and R finished up. R grouted between the slabs then we covered the whole area with bin bags weighed down with wood and cobbles to keep it dry and keep the girls away from the concrete. We have to leave it covered for twenty four hours to set. By now it was snowing hard and the girls made no attempt to leave the roofed patio area all day.

The concrete is covered and the snow is settling

I will photograph this again tomorrow when it’s uncovered.

The snow was coming down thick and fast and at eleven o’clock and again at three o’clock I went out and cleared the plastic roof over the run. It looked fine but I worried about the weight on it so stood on a step ladder and used a broom to push the snow off. By this time the snow had started to slow and by four o’clock it had stopped.

The snow covered garden with the chicken run at the top

The snow filled run from outside

The snow covered run from inside

I think this was quite a stressful day for the girls. It was the first day since they have started laying that we had no eggs. They confined themselves to the patio all day because of the snow and spent a lot of the day on top of the coop.

Bluebell and Dotty on the nest box of the coop

It had been a difficult day all round, my husband was stuck in traffic for hours because of the snow, but it wasn’t over yet. I went up to do my clean up and make sure the girls all went in the coop at bedtime. I could hear scratching or gnawing. I thought perhaps a rat had got trapped inside the patio area and was trying to get out. I shone my torch every where, behind the storage cabinet, behind the coop, inside and under the coop but nothing. I then thought it must be outside trying to get in.

I went indoors and asked my husband to come and listen to the noises and investigate with me. We decided to get the girls in the coop then investigate by torchlight. I said that it sounded like it was coming from the big shed which the patio area is joined to. My husband went into the shed to investigate. To our dismay, the end side of the shed that forms the border to next doors garden had a hole chewed through at floor level and rat droppings inside it. We are not sure if they chewed through here thinking they were getting into the chickens or if they would next try to go through the joining wall between the shed and chicken run. For now my husband has blocked this new hole with bits if wood. It’s a constant round of blocking each new entry point.

We are gutted! We have worked so hard and spent so much money making this rat proof and now feel if they will chew through the wooden fence then what do we do next. My husband said we need a concrete bunker to keep the rats out and will have to clad all the fenced areas. We are at our wits end with this. We thought this time we would keep them out and are feeling really depressed right now.