Well, we'll know in the morning if it worked or not.

So, hello!

On Sunday, Eric tackled Gunner to the ground, so that he would drop the chicken he had in his mouth. We've come to the decision that 4 ft. is not a high enough fence for these chickens.


Apparently, the easiest way to stop your chickens from 'flying' (it's more 'glorified hopping with some flapping') is to break one of their 'wrists' soon after they are born. I imagine it is similar to flicking off a puppy's dew claws. We did not do this, as we didn't know about it. :(

So, every morning, we chase anywhere from one to four chickens back into the coop. It's very frustrating, and half the time, now, they go right past it, have no trouble going around the ladder (on the left side of the coop in the first picture--it's there as a wedge, so that the chickens go into the coop. It's really funny, actually, how most of them that are smart enough to actually get out, don't realize they can 1) go over the ladder (2 go around the ladder (the other way!) 3) they actually fit in between the rungs. That got me to thinking...

My mom says that to be a good mom, you really only have to be half a step ahead of them. These chickens are not smarter than me!! So the first plan was to put a faux 'roof' using string. Um, no. Then we decided to just go get more chicken wire and put it above the existing fencing, and let the top hang in a bit. (there's only an extra foot or so of post above the existing fencing) Hmm. Well, as I loathe to part with our hard-earned money, Ben and I went down the lane in search of some chicken wire... we found some snow fencing. Well, it would be a possible alternative. Then we popped into the machine shed. I prowled around, using my 'common sense' and found nothing that would work. Then I saw the rolls of twine. Chickens aren't that smart... and the roof was too complicated, but if I combined: higher fencing with illusion of structure... and viola! I tried to get the picture to show the X with the line above it above the chicken wire. Either way, there are the chickens, and Ben, 'sprinkling' scratch for them. :)