As usual the weekly cycles have brought me back to getting another load of gravel for the chicken yard. I still have plenty of ground to cover in the chicken yard before I'm satisfied enough to move on to greener pastures. I still had patches of area that I had to fill in as well as area that I wanted to fill in so I can form the straight line that would divide the grassy ground from the gravel ground.
There was a small area at the back of the chicken yard where there were patches that remained uncovered, especially around an old tree stump and around the two old chicken coops. I filled in this area, up to and along the northern fence line to get full coverage over the rest of the area in the back of the chicken yard. Of course in the future when I do manage to find another car to turn into a chicken coop, I will eventually dismantle the old chicken coops that are at the back of the chicken yard. That is if the elements don't dismantle them first. Either way, I will then be able to further fill in this ground with more gravel. But that's a little ways off. With this area filled in I moved on to the very middle of the chicken yard, in front of the feed shed turned coop and the car coops. I started spreading a thin line of gravel along the imaginary line I plan on making the border dividing the graveled ground from the grassy area. Of course I do plan on laying landscape timbers along this line to further divide the two areas this way the weather won't cause mud and/or gravel won't be able to mix or spread into the grassy area. With that I exhausted my gravel supply for this session. The work wasn't done in the chicken yard however. The ole lady took it upon herself to do a little rearranging in the feed shed to make it a more viable chicken coop. The first thing was adding a small garbage can to combine the buckets of chicken feed that was stored within the shed. Of course the garbage can would sit outside the shed, so of course it had to be a can that would seal up from the elements. With the chicken feed in this can the only other feed to be concerned with was the baby chicken feed. This is stored in a cat litter bucket but because the baby chickens will eventually mature to where they can eat grown bird feed so its not really a big concern trying store this feed for the long term. With the feed buckets removed from the shed it made for a lot more room within so the birds can be better able to shelter themselves. The only thing that's inside the unit is the bulk feed bucket that was made a while back. This thing allows the chickens to feed for a prolonged period of time before needing to be refilled. More of these feeders will allow for us to be away for a longer period of time without having to worry about the chickens being able to eat. Also the bucket serves double duty as a roosting spot for chickens due to its lid having enough surface area to accommodate one chicken. Wood shavings were placed on the lid to make this area more comfortable. We did end up putting a regular feeder within the shed along with the bulk feeder since there are a lot of chickens coming and going. Even with this extra feeder there's still plenty of room within that the birds are able to spread out. The only other thing that we need to do with this shed now is add a couple of roosting posts to allow for more resting areas for the birds at night. More roosting areas inside of the coops will allow for the birds to be under the shelter of said coops, putting them at lesser risk of night time attacks by raptors compared to birds that roost outside. There won't be much more to do before I can fully sign off on the chicken yard and can finally move on to other projects without having to worry about this operation.
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May 2023
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