Greetings all,
Last week i drove past this cabinet on the side of the road (for extra degree of difficulty it was dumped at a round about) & on closer inspection it had a broken up marble top . . . i wonder if it was a homemade basin?? Thrilled to discover it's made from packing crates, incredibly sturdy, painted in the perfect 1950's vintage green one side, yellow the other & the chickens love their new day house.
My end goal was to take advantage of the height & create a full sun roof top garden.
Our chickens & ducks LOVE lettuce, so i planted a couple of dozen butter, iceberg & rocket lettuce varieties, to give them whole lettuces every day.
This small gauge chicken wire was perfect to protect the lettuce as they grow.
We've found the odd chicken up there having a look around, their weight lowers them down for a little peck & we can easily prop it up if they start to destroy the garden.
I used some old pumpkin fencing, stakes, plastic from my sewing stock & discarded MDF, purchased extra soil which we need for a new wine barrel Spring herb garden too. Another inexpensive project for the chickens & ducks to benefit from. Total cost, under $20.
None of our chickens have tried to fly away (we inherited the hens, they might have tried to leave or hop over the fence away from our German Shepherd, even though chickens are useless at flying they can panic flee.) The ducks have their adult feathers yet i'm uncomfortable clipping their wing feathers & they're staying too . . . for the lettuce??
The chicken day house is a huge hit, just ask raised-from-egg-chicks Viola, Flute, Piccolo & Cello. I knocked the top shelf out & put in a perch. For some reason, our chickens don't have a pecking order, they all hang out together or in gangs of different breeds, sizes, ages & mingle all day & night. One hen has gone broody (a Silky Star cross) she rolls everyone's eggs under her & is quite the proud Mama. For more Creative Spaces visit Village Voices. Love Posie
