Chicken Trampoline

No, no. We're not letting our birds bounce in the backyard, although I did think about putting the trampoline in the backyard for the goats...

It's a chicken coop made from a trampoline! I saw it on pinterest and a friend had an old trampoline, so I thought, why not? 

G's middle brother happened to be in town one day, so he helped me get started. We set up the frame (harder than it looked) and hooked on the tarp. Then we wrapped chicken wire around the outside, tying it to the legs. The wire wasn't tall enough to go up to the tarp, so we did a second layer that folds down over the springs to really make it secure. 

The bugs were awful and our time was short, so it didn't get all the way secured. I had left space for a door to make it easy for us to get in and out. That will take a little more building. Yesterday, G wanted the girls to enjoy the nice weather, so he brought them out and blockaded the door. It worked great! 

We still need to add a rain and wind shelter (and a roost), but worked okay for day trips. Since there isn't much weather protection, when the skies grew cloudy I brought them back to the garage. I thought it would be hard to catch them, but the girls came right over to me when I walked up and only put up a mild fuss when I grabbed them. Success!

This past Sunday, we finished it by adding a gate to enter and putting in some items to let the chicks and ducks take shelter from wind/rain.

Tires for them to hide in, although they haven't discovered those yet.

The white box to the right in the pictures is open on one side, meant to be a wind/rain block. The chicks love to hang out in there. Or on top. The chicks are getting so big! They have their full-grown feathers now!

The ducks tend to congregate and follow each other around. This bottom picture is us releasing them into their new home. 

They're getting big too, almost the same size as the chicks! But they still have their down feathers for the time being.