Poorly chicken

[CatsCube]

I have been making my 'to buy' list in prepatation of my chicken arrival and I have now turned my attention to landscaping. As I plan to have my birds free ranging round my garden I want to it be interesting for them to help prevent them from feather plucking, and given tham shelter and entertainment etc. Now the cube and run are going on hardstanding with woodchip base the door will be left open all day givening them access to the rest of the garden. The Cube run itself will be covered on the top and sides with clear tarp to provide shelter from wind and rain (as Im looking at a lot of feathered legged varieties who dont like getting to wet or muddy) But the garden itself is very much devoid of hedges or trees or anything else to provide cover and is all basically just flat with grass and decking. Im going to get a big plant pot with sandy dirt in for dust bathing, and some hanging mirrors as I read they like looking at themselves, and was thinking perhaps of trying to get hold of some driftwood just to provide some interest (if it doesnt cost a fortune) and wondered if anyone else had any other ideas of what could be good?

[The Dogmother]

Try hanging up some of those free CDs or a big bunch of cabbage leaves - they love that!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

My 3 girls very much enjoy sitting on my garden bench (and pooing all over it)! They look like a group of old women having a gossip .

[Aunty e]

I have plans to pop a wooden shoe rack into my run (when my extension arrives) to add a bit of three dimensional fun. They love perching on the branches, but the plumper ladies can't manage it sometimes, so hopefully they can all get onto a shoe rack, and hang out under it.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

That's a good idea - now I've got a reason to buy a nice new trendy shoe rack to replace my 2 old tatty wooden ones!

 

I've already got a skinny branch and a short fat log in the run which they do seem to like perching on.

[Aunty e]

Mine love their big branches, but they're at quite steep angles to minimise the floor space they take up, and some of the girls (particularly the silky and the lame maran) can't get up onto them. There's a two tier rack in Argos for £5, and I think I may buy two to throw in the run. Am going to Ikea on sunday, so might check out their shoe racks.

[Helen&Lee]

My 3 girls very much enjoy sitting on my garden bench (and pooing all over it)! They look like a group of old women having a gossip .

 

SNAP!

(Apart from I've got 7!)

 

I'm considering moving it into their run - I think the days of sitting on that bench are over

 

Helen

[urbanchick]

Just a warning about the CDs. I hung one up by some parcel string and obviously didn't tie it tightly enough. I discovered Mavis hopping about attached to the string, having swallowed it. The CD was on the floor. I had to gently pull the string out through her beak and she had swallowed quite a bit of it, so any more and I would have had to cut it and hope it passed through. Bit scary really.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Shoe rack perch is in place! Instead of buying a new one (which I didn't really need ) I've used half of one rack and made a new one out of the remaining one and a half.

 

If you break the outer bars in half, they can become new legs - they can swing round because they're attached by the dowling thingy.

 

Needless to say the girls haven't even noticed it yet, let alone worked out what it's for - I'll probably be removing it next w/e!

 

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[chickweed]

Try hanging up some of those free CDs or a big bunch of cabbage leaves - they love that!

 

I tried hanging up old CDs and they were completely ignored after about 5 minutes. The ohooks obviously didn't care for my choice of music. Their interest in the string I used to hang the CDs lasted another 5 minutes.

 

They have a home made perching thingy which they love. The shoe rack idea sounds a good one.

[Lesley]

We have made platforms about 18" high - we used to put the Eglu on top but now they just have them to perch on or to sit under. They make a dust bath under and it stays nice and dry.