{"id":7832,"date":"2015-03-23T22:14:58","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T04:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/?p=7832"},"modified":"2015-03-24T21:19:09","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T03:19:09","slug":"the-farm-report-spring-project-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/2015\/03\/23\/the-farm-report-spring-project-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"The Farm Report: Spring Project Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chareva\u2019s spring project is a labor of love, but it\u2019s also quickly becoming a labor of necessity.\u00a0 When her flock of 26 (surviving) chicks arrived a few weeks ago, they were itty-bitty things — like these recently-arrived chicks Alana will be raising for a 4-H project:<\/p>\n

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Chareva\u2019s chicks have already grown to look like this:<\/p>\n

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It’s so crowded in that trough, they\u2019re probably wondering if they\u2019re on the New York City subway.\u00a0 I believe I saw one of them scrawling graffiti on the walls.\u00a0 They need to get outside, and soon.<\/p>\n

Trouble is, the raccoons and possums are already outside.\u00a0 We can\u2019t move the chicks out there until they have a secure place to live.\u00a0 So we\u2019ve been out there for long days, trying to get the first of the two chicken yards finished.<\/p>\n

We’re making good progress.\u00a0 At the end of last weekend, the chicken yard looked like this:<\/p>\n

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Now it looks like this:<\/p>\n

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Not done, but getting there.<\/p>\n

The biggest pain in constructing a chicken yard is stretching the wire fencing between the posts.\u00a0 The stuff arrives in big rolls, and when you unravel it, it desperately wants to roll itself up again.\u00a0 Add in the fact that our land is hilly, with the angle of the hill seeming to change every few feet or so, and stretching the fencing tight across the posts and close to the ground is a wee bit of a challenge.<\/p>\n

We made the job a bit easier by buying a fence stretcher.\u00a0 Fence stretcher<\/em> \u2026 sounds like a cool contraption, eh?\u00a0 Something with levers and gears?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 It\u2019s basically a 2 x 4 hunk of wood with two handles and a metal bar that clamps to the fencing.<\/p>\n

Tighten down the metal bar, grab the handles and pull for all you\u2019re worth.\u00a0 Then crouch there in that awkward position while your wife uses zip-ties to strap the sort-of-tight fence to the t-posts.\u00a0 Be patient.\u00a0 She’s going as fast as she can.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those aren’t the exact directions, but they should be.<\/p>\n

The zip-ties are a temporary measure.\u00a0 Once each section of fence is in place, we use metal clamps that hook to the fence, bend around the t-post, then wrap around the fence on the other side of the post.\u00a0 The chicken yards may become corrals for larger animals someday, so we attached four clamps to each pole.<\/p>\n

Even with a properly-stretched fence, we ended up with gaps at the bottom here and there because of the dips in our land.\u00a0 Chickens won\u2019t try to push under the gaps, but (as we learned the hard way with our chickens in the front pasture) a hungry raccoon or possum will.<\/p>\n

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If we don\u2019t fix the gaps, we may as well ring the raccoon dinner bell.\u00a0 So Chareva will attach heavy-gauge chicken wire all the way around, then bend it out along the ground and attach it with garden stakes.<\/p>\n

That protects against predators taking the low road.\u00a0 We also have to protect against predators that would climb over the fence and hawks that would swoop down for a chicken dinner to go.\u00a0 Last year we covered the front chicken yard with a big ol\u2019 net that\u2019s done the job quite nicely.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to cover both of the new chicken yards with the same size and brand of net.<\/p>\n

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The one thing neither of us likes about using nets is having to bend over to walk beneath them.\u00a0 We elevated the net in the front pasture by using the barn as a tent-pole, but we still have to do the deep-bend move to get under the gate.\u00a0 I wondered aloud if there was some way to construct a human-sized entryway to the new chicken yards.\u00a0 After we kicked around a couple of ideas, Chareva remembered we have this thing:<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s a dog kennel that\u2019s been sitting in our front yard for years, serving no purpose whatsoever.\u00a0 Notice the human-sized doors.\u00a0 Instead of just using those, I suggested we take the whole thing apart and use it as fencing on the uphill side of both chicken yards.\u00a0 That would raise the net nice and high on one side at least.<\/p>\n

Chareva agreed, but reminded me she helped a renovation crew-member move the dog kennel three years ago.\u00a0 Those panels are really heavy and will be difficult to carry up the steep hill, she warned me.<\/p>\n

Nope.\u00a0 Not light, but not all that heavy either.\u00a0 As we trudged them uphill, she kept saying she could swear they used to be heavier.\u00a0 It occurred to her that she\u2019s done three years\u2019 worth of farm work since moving them the first time.\u00a0 She\u2019s probably stronger now than she\u2019s ever been in her life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Anyway, re-purposing the dog kennel was the perfect solution.\u00a0 Each chicken yard now has a tall door on the high side of the hill, and with the panels all bolted together, they make for a sturdy fence.\u00a0 I had to pull up several t-posts I\u2019d pounded in last week and re-position them against the poles in the panels, but it was worth the effort.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, when I bolted together the last panel at the far end (the other chicken yard we\u2019ll finish later), I had a major brain-fart:\u00a0 I saw a four-foot gap between the end of the panel and the line of t-posts I\u2019d pounded in last week.\u00a0 Rats<\/em>, I said to myself, these don\u2019t line up. We must have measured something incorrectly<\/em>.\u00a0 So I pulled up several posts, tied a string from the panel downhill to the corner post, and pounded in the posts along the string.<\/p>\n

If you take a peek at Chareva’s plans, you’ll recognize my mistake.\u00a0 I added a red line where I re-positioned the posts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Whoops.\u00a0 Hours later, Chareva informed me\u00a0 the \u201cgap\u201d was intentional.\u00a0 That\u2019s the opening for the “Flock A” chicken moat that will extend around the future garden.\u00a0 So when we get around to that chicken yard, I get to pull the posts again and pound them in for the third time.\u00a0 I\u2019ve mentioned that pounding posts is a great workout for the triceps.\u00a0 If I keep goofing up like this, I\u2019ll have triceps bigger than my thighs.<\/p>\n

The hoop houses will be made from cattle panels bent into a U-shape and covered with vinyl.\u00a0 New\u00a0vinyl that\u2019s sufficiently thick is expensive, but Chareva found a deal on some that were previously used for highway billboards.\u00a0 (I was hoping one of them would have a BETTER CALL SAUL ad on it, but no luck.)\u00a0 She has the first hoop house almost ready to go.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We need to close off the chicken moats at night so predators don\u2019t climb the garden fences and sneak into the chicken yards through the moats.\u00a0 We also need the nets to be secured to the fence all the way around.<\/p>\n

Obviously, we can\u2019t attach the nets to the gates that open the chicken moats.\u00a0 So we attached a bit of fencing over the entryway to the moat.\u00a0 The gate will close against the bottom of the fencing, and the net will be attached to the top.<\/p>\n

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I may also string a little barbed wire in between to discourage raccoons from trying to push between the strip of fencing and the top the of the gate.\u00a0 Raccoons are determined little critters.<\/p>\n

When Chareva and I unrolled and positioned the giant net over the chicken yard in the front pasture last year, we had so much fun it nearly ended in divorce.\u00a0 Well, okay, it wasn\u2019t that bad, but it was frustrating.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t quite figure out how to unroll the thing at first, plus it kept getting snagged on the barn.<\/p>\n

We remembered the lessons from that experience.\u00a0 This time Chareva put a tarp over the metal snaggy bits on the hoop house, and we were able to unroll and position the net pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

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The net is where it needs to be now, but loose.\u00a0 Later this week we need to tie it down to the top of the fencing on all four sides.\u00a0 Then we\u2019ll sink some poles into the ground to provide elevation on the low side of the hill.\u00a0 Ideally, we\u2019ll be able to walk around most of the chicken yard without ducking under the net.<\/p>\n

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When all that\u2019s done and the hoop house is finished, we can finally get the chicks out of their subway car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chareva\u2019s spring project is a labor of love, but it\u2019s also quickly becoming a labor of necessity.\u00a0 When her flock of 26 (surviving) chicks arrived a few weeks ago, they… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-farm-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7832"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7847,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7832\/revisions\/7847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}