A Change of Plans

The weather has been uncommonly windy this spring and yesterday was no exception.  We have been having such rough winds that I had to use rebar stakes to keep the chicken coop from scittering across the yard as it had in previous wind storms already this year.  Yesterday, not even the stakes were enough.  A thunderstorm blew in suddenly and the wind picked up.  A huge gust of wind tore through my yard, picked up the chicken house and flipped it over the fence and into the road.  I wasn't home when it happened, but I had guests that were and they said it sounded like a tornado came through the yard.  They did what they could to drag the heavy pen back into the yard so it wouldn't blow away again.

When the gust of wind flipped the large pen it also tipped the nesting box over onto it's side with a chicken still inside.  The poor chicken little trapped inside probably thought the sky really was falling.  Luckily none of the chickens were hurt and they didn't seem any worse for the wear after the event.  That night I didn't have time to set up a good shelter for them, but they all managed to squeeze themselves into the nest box by dusk.

I spent what daylight I had left dismantling the ruins of the coop with help from my guests.  The cattle panels that made up the sides and roof of the coop were still in good shape and I will reuse them when I rebuild the coop.  The weak point in this design was the old salvaged wood that we used to build the frame.  Had the chicken wire that wrapped the sides of the coop not been wired on so tightly I think the whole thing would have just collapsed when the frame broke.  There were quite a few things about this coop that needed to be improved and I think this is just supposed to be my incentive to do something about it.  My next coop will still be the same hoop house style, but I am brainstorming ideas about how I want to improve upon the design.

Since I don't want to leave my chickens without much shelter I decided to bring in the first small chicken tractor that I built to use as a temporary shelter for them.  It isn't very big and it's low to the ground, but it will give them a place to get out the elements and a dry place for their food and water.  It will also give them a small space to perch on when they go to roost for the evening.

It isn't ideal, but it is better than nothing and it buys me time to construct a better chicken coop for the future while still providing some shelter.  Thankfully chickens aren't too particular about their living quarters as long as it covers the basics.