Keeping Chickens

Fox Kills Chicken… The Morning After sees Toby say to Julia, ‘oh well never mind Mum, we can get another chicken’!

There’s feathers still blowing round the garden, but the survivors don’t seem any worse for wear. They’re a little ‘miffed’ that they’re being kept in their run and keep pecking at the door to be let out.

Even more surprising, is that this morning we’ve discovered more eggs, so the fox attack hasn’t put the chickens off their laying.

Our neighbour’s Fort Knox chicken run is made I think out of Heras Mesh Fencing type material and we’ve gone and got a quote for some today.

Our local Travis Perkins can get it in 3.6 metre lengths, it is 2 metres tall and costs about £28.00 + VAT, they’ve suggested we contact the local hire shops and see if we can get any second hand - which I thought was pretty decent of them.

The suggestion is that we use this fencing - which is usually seen being used around building sites, to build a nice sized chicken run for the chickens. The fencing comes with concrete blocks for stability, but leaves a bit of a gap at the bottom.

We plan to bury the concrete blocks and either put a ‘kick board’ round the bottom of the fence to stop the chickens getting out, or bury the fence itself to add extra protection against anything trying to ‘dig in’ - be it either a fox or our dog Pip.

We’ve also been told to bury a ’skirt’ of wire fencing laid out flat about a inch down to further deter any digging activity.

So there we are, the chickens will be staying close to the house for the time being in their purpose built chicken house and run. We’re going to only let them out under supervision and as soon as possible we’re going to build another more secure chicken run.