Working on some Minor Coop changes.

       We've been BUSY the past week, we had the plumbers come over for what we thought was suppose to be an easy fix but ended up being a 4 day job, they found a bunch of cracked pipes under our house that needed to be replaced. I had to finish up some earrings for the collection I released this past Friday and I'm still way behind on my to-do list around the homestead. 

       Before all the stuff happened with the plumbers I was making a small change to the chicken run that wasn't difficult but it was time consuming and hopefully worth it.  When we changed out our old run that made out of wood and hardware cloth to this heavy duty run from tractor supply we knew it wouldn't be fully inclosed. We had connected 2 separate kennels together, one being a kennel that had a roof made with the same gauge fence used as the walls and the second one being a kennel with no roof that we bought for our large dogs but only needed 1 wall out of the 4 in the box. 

      Dogs are the predators we have had the most trouble with in the past but we have seen fox, stray cats and skunk around the coop so I knew we'd have to put some kind of fencing on top to keep our flock safe. At the time we had a lot of scrap hardware cloth from tearing down the old run so I zip- tied the hardware cloth to the top of the structure to fully inclose our chicken run. After not long of having it on I released that it was to heavy and hung down a little to low for my liking. This wasn't necessarily an issue but an inconvenience, I planned for a coop and run that I could walk into without ducking my head or squatting but because of the sunken roof I was having to bend over when I was in the coop and even then I would still get my hair caught in the hardware cloth. 

       2 weeks ago when I was in the run to refill water I finally had enough of getting my hair caught in the roof fencing. I decided right then and there that I was going to tear down the heavy hardware cloth and replace it with something that wouldn't sink so low. The only other thing i had to use was scrap bird netting, so I stretched the netting over the structure and I went around the perimeter tying it down tightly with some wire every 4 inches to make sure its secure. I still need to go back and reinforce it because I wanna make sure nothing can get through to get to our chickens. I will eventually add a real roof to the structure, I've been looking at sheet metal but I'm worried about the high summer temperatures making the run to hot if I use a metal roof. 

       This change wasn't major or even really necessary but when your in the run often and for long periods of time having to stay bent over isn't good for your back and getting your hair pulled randomly is definitely  not fun. I have a few more small projects for the run and coop that I will be sharing once I've finished them. I'll also be getting chicks soon so stay tuned for that! Like always don't forget to check back often for news, updates and additional blog posts because we have A TON planned this year. I'd love to hear your journey and your plans for the future! Thanks for always supporting us, until next time. 

                                                                                        -Shelby Ray

                                                                                      Let Her Roam

                                                                                   Red Dirt Ranchette