Outdoor living, chicken style

With the bit of nice weather we've been (surprisingly) blessed with this beginning of the Memorial Day weekend, the husband finished up the chicken tractor ~ or as he has dubbed it, THE CHICKEN FORTRESS (said with all capitol letters and a certain amount of reverence).  It IS a fortress and as about as heavy as one too.  Thankfully he figured out how to hitch it up to the lawn tractor and with the use of an old skate board propped under the front and the installed wheels at the back, could drag it around the lawn without too much exertion. 

The Fortress is half enclosed with old roofing materials and half covered with hardware cloth.  We elected to use hardware cloth instead of chicken fencing because of the potential predators (raccoons, coyotes, neighbor's cats) in the area;  hardware cloth is more durable and harder to defeat.  The feeder hangs just past middle and under a hinged hatch door made of roofing.  Two old plastic gutters were transformed into waterers installed along either side.

The mob was ignominiously moved from the garage nursery out into The Fortress this afternoon and seems to be settling in nicely.  Honestly, I don't think they really care where they are as long as their food supply is readily available.  It's a good thing we got this done, too, as we had 2 escapees out of the nursery area today, and a third that almost solved the mystery of flying over the fence.

Here are few pics of The Fortress for your enjoyment.

Hanging feeder

The dog puzzling over the new addition to his domain

Drinking at the gutter waterer