December at the Yardfarm

Building Chicken Florida

First of all, just as I had begun to indulge in cautious optimism regarding the hen yard rats (meaning, I hadn’t seen them in a few weeks), I notice THIS:

Clearly, a rat-sized opening, muscled into the chickenwire at the bottom of the coop. And it looks a bit generous as well - as if made to fit one (or more) plus-sized, grain-fed yardrats, now settling in for the winter underneath the chicken coop. From there, they will undoubtedly work away at the plywood flooring, with their clever scissor-like teeth: a nice hole right beneath the nesting area, to steal eggs, spread parasites and perhaps gnaw on a wattle or two - who knows what awful things these creatures get up to?

Maybe it’s a vole…

Regardless, winter is coming, and the hens must be kept happy if there is to be any chance of even a miserly ration of eggs over the next several months. We live in a classic type of old American neighborhood, with a postage-stamp yard big enough for a chicken coop and some garden beds, but not big enough to get silly with any big plans. Previously, we were in a rural town, with a yard large enough to contain goats and outbuildings. There were many opportunities for experimentation, one of which was a sort of Mad Max child’s climbing structure, composed of scavenged building materials. It was ignored by the children, but a favorite high perch for our cat on moonlit nights, and in the daytime it was Chicken Florida.

It provided three walls and a roof, and east/west windows for a bit of solar gain. Not much of a shelter, but on snowy and rainy days, the chickens would beat a path to it, and stay there much of the day preening and going about their Chicken business. So, guided by the wisdom of chickens-past, I decided to make a purpose-built Chicken Florida in our small yard, attached right to the coop.

To create the shelter, I re-used polycarbonate panels from an old greenhouse (EXCELLENT material - far superior to the wavy plastic roofing sheets I have used in other projects, and if you purchase any from the above link, I will receive a commission which will catapult me into the realm of paid professional writer), screwed onto a simple frame of 2x4s and a few 4x4 (sistered 2x4) posts.

That was the easy part, followed by three Shitty Jobs I’ve Been Avoiding.

The first: move the automatic chicken door to the back of the coop, giving the chickens direct access to Florida. This involved cutting an appropriate sized rectangle in the coop wall, with a jigsaw. To do this, you get your biggest drill bit, drill a hole, stick the jigsaw blade in the hole, and engage the trigger until the jigsaw has vibrated your neurons to the point that they feel “jangly”, which is not a nice feeling. You also have to bend the jigsaw once or twice, and re-straighten it. I recommend unplugging the jigsaw before handing the blade with your bare fingers, for reasons which should be obvious.

The next job: find a scrap of wood to cover the old opening, because you don’t want to use the jigsaw for at least another year (at least!!!), and screw it over the opening - this job turns out to be not as difficult as you anticipated.

BUT! Two weeks later the entire flock (5) decides that they are no longer going to lay their eggs in the area next to the hinged door at the Florida side of the coop, but rather right back in the corner next to the old entrance, which you have just screwed shut. After crawling through the coop for a few days, you realize that you will not fit through the 18-inch wide door in snow pants and a parka, and that you must create a hinged opening next to the new nesting area, and do it before snow and ice and winter temperatures make a Shitty job something closer to impossible.

Fortunately, the hinges were on hand, rejects from a previous job, and a scrap of wood sufficed for a latch.

What Chicken Florida does, is create a micro-climate - a bit of shelter from the wind, and a bit of solar gain, enough to make a difference. As you can see, in Maine in early December, here is the chicken yard directly outside of Chicken Florida:

And directly inside:

Notice where the chickens choose to congregate. Will the rats make use of it as well? Stay tuned!

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