New Fence

We made progress on Jip's new area/the chickens' new area. We're so close to finishing! Darkness falls so quickly these days...

Step one was to put up the fence between the corner of the shed and corner of garage. The trampoline is on the outside so the chickens can still use it. The goats are sad they can't lounge on top anymore.

Jaron hung out in the stroller so both G and I could have the use of both hands. He enjoyed watching all the animals doing their thing. 

Inside the shed got some revamping too. We turned the duck corner into Jip's corner using pieces of a giant dog kennel my aunt and uncle gave us. His area needs a bit more work, so I'll share pictures once that's finished. 

The chickens got new roosting branches.  I took literal branches from the wood pile outside and set them carefully on top of an old planter and a stump so they would be off the ground. The planter and stump are doing double duty as nesting boxes. 

G thought the roosts should be up higher. I wasn't opposed to that; the low branches could make collecting eggs tricky. He screwed them into each other and the wall.

 

When night fell, we collected all of our chickens and put them in the shed so they'd roost there. You could tell they were already out of their comfort zone from all the changes we made. 

The birds that roosted on top of the door weren't able to because we took away their milking stand step stool. The birds who roost on the trampoline tried to roost there, but with winter coming I wanted them to start a new habit of roosting in the shed, so we caught/herded them inside too. 

The tree branches were too slippery for most of the chickens to settle on. I wrapped twine around them in the hopes that it would make the branches less slippery. I might need to wrap the twine even closer together; I didn't see anyone try roosting on them post twine. We shut the lights off to force the birds to settle in. 

I thought about making the ducks hunker down in a new place since they won't be able to use their current space when Jip takes it over, but we decided to give them one more night in their favorite haunt.