The Don't-Fence-Me Inn

Proposed location of the new "inn"

My girls feel free though they now live in a double-gated community.  They are happy as can be about that new development.  You see, before, their hen pen was about half its new size. It's been expanded with a new fence to a larger gated community called the Don't-Fence-Me-Inn.

When Gwyneth was coyoted over the short fence and out of existence last fall,  the hen pen shrank in size and grew a higher fence.  During the winter and spring, the girls have had several afternoons a week to roam the whole yard while I keep an eye.  But now the peas are up.  The lettuces are up. Spinach is up.  Arugula (the chickens don't eat this!) is up.  From now on into summer is simply not a good time for eager, scratching-to-China, pecking hens to be loose in the yard.

So my heart and brain were eager to come up with an expanded area they could be turned out to that would feel like freedom without endangering the plant babies.  The new area includes a compost pile that needs their vigilant turning capabilities.  These chickie-babes have to earn their keep.

Lowering stepping stones for gate clearance

It's been pushing on the list of Things I get to do today for several weeks now, this chicken fence idea.  Thought of using some of the cedar fence boards left from the woodshed.  Thought of several not-so-clever plans for corralling the farm gals.  All the recycle-reuse ideas seemed to create an unattractive visual and had marginal success predictions on keeping the hens in. Today was the day to make fence. Simple solution: poultry netting--in plain terms--chicken wire.

Removing layer of old landscape fabric.
Post can't go through it.

Prep work:  1) Check stepping stones   2) Locate and sink posts

Unrolling this stuff is a two-person, large-
vocabulary task.  I wired the roll to this post
 (my second person) to help me out.

3) Talk sweetly to the squirrelly, chicken wire fence material  4) Get tough with the chicken wire 5) Secure the gate

Placed the gate hinges on the 1x3 and
zip-tied it to the T-post.

"FREE" at last and up to their elbows in
rich, bug-filled duff.

By now the hens are literally standing with their beaks pressed against their first gate wanting to expand their territory with a great rush of wings and churning legs.  Happier hens I have not seen in some time.*

The all-new Don't-Fence-Me Inn

*A commercial chicken-farmer once said there was no way to tell if a hen was happy.  Totally clueless he was since his hens had never, never had the delight of this experience.


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Gate Gal Struts Her Stuff

The girls prefer to live on the edge.  We want them to be safe rather than sorry.  They want to be free: and if being free means being meat for a coyote, well frankly, they haven't really thought that one through.  Hens don't know squat about the reason for a fence or a gate for that matter. So when I made the fence taller to keep out the predators, made six foot gates to match, but didn't get them installed right away, the girls had to spend their unsupervised time in the coop.  We call it being cooped up.  So do they.  I'm sure I heard them chatting under their breath about making a break, needing damp, wild earth under their toes, and longing for green grass and being able to take advantage of the latest seasonal special: cold blooded insects that can't move fast enough at this time of year to get away from even a slow chicken.

Since I was headed out of town for a few days, install the remaining gate on the coyote side of the yard went to the urgent area of Things I get to do today.   I'd been on a roll with this project since Gwyneth's being taken away early one morning.  But the flimsy height extension of the fence was  totally incongruous with the sturdiness needed for a gate and it's closure, as well as the support for termination of the wire fence and the tension required.  I had fiddled with it for a bit, played, plarked and worked with the posts, somehow pretending that the metal posts zip-tied together in order to reach to the top  would become solid and hold their own.  Amazing how delusion tweaks our sight.  It didn't work.  The more I plotted with the existing components, the worse it became.  It came to two choices:  remove the gate altogether and have a solid fence or put eight-foot wood poles into the ground two feet and do it right.

Right-hand post installed and plumbed and ready 

I've preached enough in this blog about doing things well, "hard way is the easy way in the end", and liking quality.  It was time for me to stop talking and pick up the post hole digger.  In my defense, I had been mostly concerned with the need for making  two-foot deep holes through the root structure of the Giant Sequoia that guards our whole back yard.  Blessedly, there were no roots in the path of my digging.  A relatively short time later, the hinge-side post was in.  The left post was no more difficult than the first.

Badly skewed left post

I should admit right here that this was my first experience ever in creating this sort of sturdy structure.  Chicken wire needs to be tight, and when I pulled it so and stapled it to the post, it pulled the post out of plumb.  After all that effort, plark, work--call it what you will, it made my stomach slightly sick to see the post listing off to the East.  Fortunately it was nearly dark.  I hinged the gate and fastened it to the right post, unable to see the screws and just aiming for the barely visible holes in the hinge.  As I gathered up the tools and headed to the house, I knew my construction consultant husband would be taking a look.  I had the cover of one night to come up with a solution.

After a trip to the bathroom at 2 AM, I was unable to fall immediately back to sleep and the night gave itself to me for the hunt  My mind made multiple circular trips through my current life situations and finally found itself standing at the gate.  What I saw next was amazing:  it was the cover of a recent issue of MaryJane's Farm magazine.  MaryJane was standing by her newly and smartly constructed fence.  The article inside told how to do it.  My gate and this chicken-wire-pulled post needed a strut to push back on the pull of the wire. Not a thing wrong with my work--it just hadn't yet been given all it's parts.

By morning the project was as good as done since the process was now clear. I bought the post, tested the position, cut the angle, set the nails, put it in place, pounded the nails in, upgraded to poultry net staples and installed the latch. And freed the chickens.

Gate Gal's triumph with a smart strut