Berry cage: roof wire

Over the weekend I did a bit more work on the berry cage project: installing the welded wire on the roof. That will keep birds from flying into that area of the veggie garden.

Some of the chickens couldn’t resist perching on a ladder:

Chicken on a ladder

Measuring out the wire on the ground:

Measuring wire

I rolled up the wire again to take it up to the roof:

Wire

Having it rolled up also enabled me to nail the right edge at the same time as the left edge of the previous row:

Wire

A partially-installed row from below:

Wire from below

Completed, from above:

Wire done from above

Completed, from below:

Wire done from below

And from the other side:

Wire done from below

Next up, removing the old wire from the fence walls, and replacing with the narrower gauge stuff.

Cat update for week ending January 26

Happy Caturday! Only 17 pictures this week.

Here’s Poppy by the heated water dish:

Poppy

Two cats inside:

Cats inside

Aww:

Cats inside

Not a cat: a raccoon dared to go inside the shelter:

Raccoon inside

Poppy is waiting for breakfast:

Poppy in the feeder

Me refilling the food dispenser. It sits on a drawer for easy filling:

Refilling food

I spilt a little food on the ground, so the cats were happy to help clean it up:

Cats eating spilt food

All five cats inside:

Cats inside

Another not-a-cat: a raccoon turned up during breakfast time. I let Rory out onto the deck, which scared it off:

Raccoon in feeder

Since I got a number of nice comments that people enjoyed different views of the cat house, here are a few more. Looking across the small pond:

Cat house

A close-up of the “Cat House Saloon” and “Mercantile” signs:

Closeup on cat house signs

A side view, with the white gazebo and pond deck just visible in the background:

Cat house

Straight on, from further away:

Cat house

Stretch:

Cat stretching

A disappointed possum in the feeder area:

Possum

All five cats outside:

Cats outside

All five inside:

Cats inside

That’s all for this week.

Chickens vs grass

Remember this?

Chicken on the grazing box grass

One week later, this is all that is left:

Not much grass left

And today, it’s almost all gone:

Grass almost gone

That’s why we don’t let the chickens free-range outside their run!

Go ducks!

No, not a sportsball reference. We’re making another addition to our homestead menagerie: ducks!

We recently ordered four ducks for delivery in late May, the same day we’ll get a few more chickens.

The breeds of ducklings we’ll be getting are the Buff and Cayuga, one male and one female of each. Click those links to learn more about them on the My Pet Chicken website.

Here’s what the Buff ones look like as adults:

And the Cayugas:

The ducks will be free-range on our large pond. Unlike chickens, the ducks shouldn’t destroy our landscaping… hopefully!

I will build a small 4×4 foot duck house for them, similar in construction to the cat house I built last year. That is the ideal size for four ducks. I currently plan to position it on the east side of our pond. In the following picture, looking south, it’ll be positioned in the center of the picture, at the edge of the pond in front of the rock:

I will re-contour the ground to be a little less sloped, just enough for drainage. Here’s a view of the spot looking north:

After doing a bunch of research into duck house designs, I wrote up a bunch of notes, then over the last few days, I sketched my plans. I drew them on my iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil, in the excellent Linea Sketch app.

Here are the external elevations:

Duck house elevations

It’s basically a 4×4 foot cube, with a gable roof.

The west side faces towards the pond, so can be considered the front, and features a door for the ducks to go in and out, that can be closed at night with a vertically sliding panel, like the chicken coop. It’ll also have a custom sign, and the controller for the door, that will be able to automatically close it at night, and open it in the morning.

The east (back) side will have a couple of large doors, enabling access to a small cupboard that will contain a jug of food, and storage of spare food and supplies. It’ll also enable access of the nesting boxes. Ducks can lay eggs pretty much anywhere, but I’ll provide ground-level nesting alcoves as cozy private places to lay, and hope they use them.

The north side will include another door, that will enable access to the interior for cleaning, and to reach eggs laid outside the boxes.

The south side will have a closable vent, that can be opened in summer to help cool down the interior.

Here’s a top-down plan view:

Duck house plan

Here you can see the food cupboard on the left, and the interior on the right. The circle is a plastic jug for food, that leads to a tube with holes for them to eat from, like in the chicken coop.

Finally, here’s a cross-section through the middle:

Duck house cross-section

You can see the food jug and tube, with a nesting box below, plus the ventilation, the duck door, and the ramp into the pond.

As usual, it’s quite likely I’ll refine the design over time, especially as I build it, but it’ll probably end up much like this, unless I have any radically different ideas before I start. If you have any suggestions or questions, let me know!

We’ll get the ducklings at the end of May, so I’ve got a few months to build this. It will take a while, working on it only on weekends (building it in the shop like the cat house), but I think there’s time. Should be fun!

Cat update for week ending January 19

It’s that time again, Caturday! And don’t duck out from reading the blog tomorrow; I’ll have some exciting news then. Stay tuned!

Lots of pics this week. I usually aim for about 20, but today we have 31. Including some new visitors.

But first, some cuteness:

This may be a little hard to see, but there’s a cat climbing a pole in the background (and one eating):

The gray alien cat:

Stretch!

A screenshot of my iPad, showing cats on all four cameras: Pansy in the shop, and some outdoor cats:

A non-cam photo of the cat house. You an see the outdoor cam housed in a stack of concrete blocks on the left (one day I want to make a nicer enclosure, but this works):

Another angle, looking from the path by the bird feeders to the cat house, with the white gazebo and pond deck in the background:

Closer to the cat house. I really wish the two signs were more readable from a distance; I’ve thought about painting the lettering. They say “Cat House Saloon” for the shelter side, and “Mercantile” for the feeder side:

Double-decker cats (Porcini on the awning, Poppy on the deck):

Pippin is fascinated by the cats on my iPad:

With the big and small ponds frozen, birds have been taking advantage of the heated water dish (when the cats are elsewhere):

Poppy:

More snuggles:

A daytime screenshot of my iPad, showing Pansy in the shop and others. I really gotta put her on a diet:

What’s this? More snuggles! How shocking:

All five cats inside:

Breakfast queue:

Me refilling the heated water dish. Since the garden taps are disabled for the winter, I bring out a bottle of water (a reused creamer bottle) to flush and refill the dish:

A couple of cats watch as a possum walks by:

Porcini looking at the camera inside:

And her outside:

The alien gray cat ventured into the shelter:

Here he’s coming out:

A bird having a bath in the heated water dish:

Doesn’t want to share:

A couple of smaller birds (sorry, I’m no good at recognizing species):

Porcini the burrito:

Rolling over on the edge… this isn’t going to end well:

Saw that coming; everybody freaked out:

The gray alien again; pretty sure he lives north of us somewhere:

Porcini again:

That’s it for this week! What do you think; too many photos? Would you prefer I limit it to around 20 as usual, or the more the merrier?

Gate between chicken run & veggie garden

This past weekend I built a doorway and gate to make it easier to go between the veggie garden and the chicken run. Something I do a lot, especially in summer, when giving the chickens treats of kale, tomatoes, etc grown in our garden.

Here’s the new doorway, built by adding the new left pole and top plate, cutting away the fencing, and cutting out the horizontal rails:

I also moved the grazing box in the chicken run, to clear a path by the door. The chickens love having direct access to the grass, which will probably be all scratched away in a matter of days. I’ll seed new grass in the new box position in spring:

Building the gate frame; the fourth and last one:

Door hardware installation:

The completed gate, closed:

And open:

I added a hook & eye to hold the gate open during winter:

I also permanently closed the small holes through the fence that the chickens were using to access the veggie garden, so now they go through this doorway.

That concludes building the gates for the veggie garden and berry cage. Next up: replacing the old fencing wire around the berry cage.

Cat update for week ending January 12

Enough with the chickens; it’s Caturday! (I will try to post pictures of the chickens more often than in the past, though.)

This week we have the usual assortment of awning antics, alien visitors, and cute snuggles. I couldn’t think of a title that summarizes the photos this week, so went with a generic one… maybe I should just stick with that?

One of the awning antics:

There have been fewer raccoon visits this past week; since getting back from my Xmas trip, there hasn’t been leftover food, so their visits have been decreasing:

Portabella:

She caught an insect of some kind:

Oh deer:

It’s the alien gray cat again:

The alien gray cat inside the feeder area:

Hey there, mind if I join you?

Snuggles:

Porcini looking rather relaxed:

Portabella again:

More awning antics:

A good vantage point for watching birds:

One of the twins:

Portabella on the awning, one of the twins in the doorway:

Drinking and watching:

Waiting for breakfast (there’s actually four in there; one is mostly obscured):

Yawn! Somebody needs their coffee:

Poppy watching (probably Rory on the deck), along with Portabella behind the cat house:

Lazy morning:

That’s it!

Chickens in the veggie garden: a week later

The last couple of posts have been about the chickens, but here’s one more! (Back to cats tomorrow, of course.)

Our chickens are really enjoying being in the veggie garden. It’s funny how they come running when I walk past each day, during my morning rounds:

Compare the veggie garden now with how it was just five days ago, to see what a flock of chickens can do to vegetation. That’s why we don’t free-range them around the property!