Yikes! Summer always goes so quickly and there are more things to do than there are hours in a day...and we get some pretty long days here in Wisconsin. So I'm playing catch-up while making dinner. Here goes:

Michael made one new duck hut while I was in New Mexico, and I got in on making the second chicken shack when I got back. We start by wiring together two cattle panels and attaching them to treated 2x4s.

We notch a second set of treated 2x4s, lift the cattle panels into an arch and attach the front and back boards. The notches keep the front and back boards off the ground, making the shack easier to move over rough ground.

Bracing the corners once the shack is squared keeps everything, well, square.

Once the base of the shack is done, then the back "wall" is put up and the front door constructed, and roosts strategically placed. Michael discovered that using metal perforated tape and screws to attach the front and back walls to the cattle panel works better than hammering in metal staples. Then fence is put over the front and back and chicken wire over that. We over build them with the idea that they are fortresses against any night time predators who may get over the fence.

The final steps are to rig ropes to pull the shack around (mobile shacks allow you to move your birds off their poo rather than moving the poo out of the shack) and then to cover the shack with a tarp (we repurposed the tarp that we put over the addition until we could get it shingled).

I fold. Michael attaches. Having two people to build these makes life so much easier.

And the young ones seem pretty happy with their new home!