Omlet cube and run

[Mrs_B]

Cotswold Wood Company is here and our 21x6x6 WIR is being built as I type this

 

Here's a photo!

 

 

The owner is on his own, but it isn't slowing him down, it's going up v quickly! He's a very nice guy too!

 

Whooop! I shall be posting a photo of the finished WIR later today when I've got over the shock of it actually being a reality

 

x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Wow, I want your garden .

 

That's going to be fabulous - what lucky chickens .

[mollyripkim]

That's brilliant, your girls are very lucky.

[Scottie]

What a huge garden. All very exciting!

[Deb Dav]

Looks fab!

 

We need a thread of WIRs to visit - to help with decisions on style, size, etc! All I do is enviously scroll through WIR topics to see everyone else's run

 

I have convinced other half, that was easy compared to which WIR!!

[Mrs_B]

Thank you so much, everyone!

 

We've only been in the house for about a year, so there's loads of work that still needs to be done to the garden, but it's such a relief to get the hens in the WIR finally after so much planning - now all we need to do is fix the grass where their previous two runs were but we are going to use some of the plot the girls were on to grow some veg

 

Photos below

 

 

 

The images aren't perfect as I resized them in PB!

 

The guy who came to build the run was fantastic and really friendly - I would highly recommend Cotswold Wood Company

 

I can't stop looking at it, I am still wondering if it's really in my garden or not - OH has next week off work so the decorating will commence this weekend - the girls will have loads of perches and we'll set everything up as two areas ready to partition off for new chickens

 

x

[Deb Dav]

Quick question, Mrs-B, what is your WIR on?

[Mrs_B]

Hmmm I find it quite complicated to explain - so I hope my explanation makes sense!

 

The first thing that went into the ground was wooden panels (or you can use sleepers) in the shape of where the WIR and coop would sit - these panels are a few inches deep and are fully in the ground (to try and stop anything digging and tunnelling). The ground was then covered in weed control sheets with turf protector on top (to stop the chickens shredding the sheeting to bits) right through over the top of the wooden panels and to the outside of the WIR (this makes sure the WIR area is 'sealed' and is mud-free. We followed the method based from Newland Poultry:

 

http://www.newlandgrange.com/CHICKEN-RUN-MUD-MANAGEMENT(1720020).htm

 

Over the area where the wooden panels were put in the ground (the shape of the WIR/attached coop) we used plastic foundation squares that we picked up cheaply last year. I don't know what these are officially called but they slot into each other like a puzzle and so keep everything level. As these plastic pieces have gaps and aren't solid we placed flat wooden panels over the top to stop any feed/poop getting inside and going mouldy. The panels are visible in the inside of the WIR and the WIR intself sits on the panels and were secured to them.

 

We are now planning on putting weldmesh sheets around the edge of the coop area for extra security and will be putting small pebbles all the way around to make everything neat and tidy.

 

Hope that makes sense

 

x

[mollyripkim]

You must be so happy and excited, your run is beautiful and lovely garden too.

[mimi5]

Ah, at last the wait is over and how lovely!!! How do you have grass???? Mine has been nibbled to within a millimeter of it's life!!! Actually need to post on advice about how to resurrect my lawn!!!

 

Enjoy!!

[good_egg]

Looks fabulous! So exciting! Hope the girls are chuffed with their new home. Enjoy. Xx

[Mrs_B]

Ahh thank you very much, all - I really appreciate your lovely comments It's made such a difference - especially as I struggle bending down, and all I need to do now is step into the WIR and no more bending down to the eglu on the floor! The girls love it too, they now have plenty of space to run around and are now achieving loads of exercise in their routine.

 

This is actually the chickens first night without us closing the coop door for the night...so they will be getting themselves up in the morning!

 

Mimi - We ended up having permanent areas for the chooks' coops/runs, and we kind of moved the 'FR area' netting around to try and help the grass recover a bit but as you know it's just a nightmare where ever the chickens are as it really doesn't last long at all! And of course this winter has meant a lot of wet and frosty ground so the chickens' patch of grass didn't have a chance Thank goodness for the mud-free method I used that was recommended from Newland Poultry (link in post above) in the chickens' runs/netted area because the mud was driving me crazy!

 

We've started putting in perches and such, so when it looks more exciting inside I shall post some more pics!

 

x