this is our back porch. recently the chickens have decided that since we are the main source of food they should just wait at the door for it. herein is the problem. if you leave the house via the back door re-entry is impossible. why? chicken poo in the house sucks. if you look closely at the floor of the previous picture you might notice a greenish brown hue. chicken poo.
i decided that something must be done but i wasn't ready for a slaughter. we stopped by the semi-local home improvement store--the one that doesn't hire "those illegals." i usually prefer to support a compassionate immigration friendly store but exceeding a reasonable carbon footprint was looming.
thirty some odd dollars later we were on our way. i had remaining horse panel from a previous project. i integrated it into the design. other considerations were to make using the solar clothes drier easier and allow for a cat sanctuary.
so i built the rail and chicken barrier. then they came.
they wanted in. they were looking for chink in the armor. they really wanted in. circling like sharks. i hadn't made the gate yet. i propped my "show" saw horses at the entrance for the evening. somehow my measures only budded the curiosity. then they were in. congregating and still making little donations on the porch.
the next day i made the gate. it is a cute gate. it worked, they are successfully excommunicated from the porch. today, day three, i scrubbed the porch twice--hot soapy water then hot soapy bleach water. i usually don't like to use too much bleach but this is a case where extra was necessary.
there is a fine line in chicken behavior that we'd like to achieve. a chicken troupe that stays close enough to home as to not offend our neighbors but stays off all porches. culling this spring will include three of the roosters including the white monster. we hope to kill the wider ranging roosters leaving the two agoraphobics to keep the girls at home. we have had luck with this in the past.
i received a blog award but in respect of the striking writers and my unwillingness to cross any picket lines i'll shrink further into my bubble and just say thanks from here. thanks to my lovely wife and children, my muses. without them i would probably be sitting on some bar stool waiting for my turn at the pool table. thanks to pablo and danielle, my first two readers. they are probably the reason that this blog continued beyond a fizzling whim. mostly thanks to all of you supporters. the prayer and collective consciousness have helped us through many troubled times. isn't the blogosphere wonderful? it affords a community where never possible before.
10 comments:
For some reason our chickens have never been porch sitters... but the ducks certainly are. They like to watch their reflections in the glass door of my workshop!
Great way to keep the chicks at bay! Good job!
and congrats on the award! you definitely are a blog with integrity and it's awesome to have you in our little blog community!
It seems like the obvious solution to your chicken problem is simply to get your easily offended neighbor to move away. Then your chickens don't really have to stay close to the house.
Was I really one of your first visitors?
yes pablo you were one of my first visitors. i have always wondered how you found me so quickly? your encouraging comments were very helpful. perspective is everything and having the luxury of someone else's view is a breath of fresh air sometimes.
Chickens are so weird and funny! We had a similar problem with a duck, plus it was aggresive. Nice gate and fence. I was thinking of using similar wire panels for my garden. I think it looks nice. Congrats on your award too!
Congrats on the blog award!
Over on my Cooking Kids post you asked about the socialization question for homeschooling. We rarely get the question. What people do say is they notice how homeschooled children are so well behaved and gracious. It's true. I think that comes from paying attention and happens with public school children too where the parents pay attention to the kids at home. Perhaps the biggest problem our society faces is the industrialization of childcare and education which has led to an increasing alienation between generations. Much of society's other problems stem from that root.
I must agree with you about the negative aspects of school room dynamics. My childhood public schooling experiences convinced me when I was still an adolescent that I would do it differently and homeschool my kids. Consider, if you lock in any creature, from rats to chickens to pigs to people, ten to thirty or more in a box and force feed them you'll create little monsters. Confinement Education School Operations (CESOs) just don't compare to naturally pastured free-ranged kids. :)
Karl, after reading your question on my blog my wife Holly left a comment there for about the homeschooling issue. Here's the link directly to her comment.
Chickens sure are funny! Great solution.
Thats great, only because I am having the same problem right. (Misery likes company, right.) It has been raining for almost 4 days straight, I mean all day. Not hard rain, almost a thick fog, misty rain. I have some of my chickens behind our house in our garden area and they have never ventured to the porches. They happily pillage everything else around, flowerbeds, leaf piles, etc. But with this rain, they just want to sit on the porch. I mean they are relentless. I shoo them off and they look at me like I am crazy. All the time my cat and dog are just sitting there watching them. Your right, their is pooh getting everywhere and momma ain't happy about that. I'm hoping that in the next day or two it stops raining, then the true test will begin. Good looking porch though. I may be right there with you.
What is the deal with chickens?! When we'd let ours out they would almost run for the concrete to do their business.
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