Sunday Morning. Chook Chat.

It's going to be quite warm here today, around 30 and last night and this morning the Eastilies have hit with force.  Everything is being blown around.   When the wind drops though it will be hot.  I'm not very good with hot weather so should be out there doing me jobs now...but it's too windy for me.  Gosh I sound hard to please and really I'm not.  Hot coffee, good book, outside...it doesn't take much at all.  Just no big winds and hot weather please.

We haven't seen any sign of the fox since the killing but have been offered the use of a tried and true home made foxtrap and will get that next week and set it up out the back.   A big problem we have is that our chook pens are big and not all the chooksheds in the pens have a door so can't be shut up.  Because of their size not all the pens are netted over the top but they are high fences with wobbly wire that points outwards running along around  the top so the foxes can't climb up and over.

I have three pens in use at the moment.
*The one that we have just trenched and tinned, in use by my breeding chooks, not netted and wasn't trenched and tinned all around but hopefully safe now.  We are going to put a door on their shed so they can be locked up though.
*one with the HyLines in. The Hylines can be shutup but I don't always remember to do them
*and the 2 orchard pens that I have my AussieRocks in.  The orchard pens have a shared  shed that all the chooks get locked up in at night, but not all year round.  I start locking these ones up during early spring and hope I start before the foxes do.  I alternate the side of the orchard that the chooks can get to..
I also have 2 netted pens that I use for chickens, safe from crows and other things WHEN I shut the gates.

My problem is that by evening I am so sore and tired that I don't always think to shut the doors/gates.   The chooks don't *go to bed* until it's dark and by then I am usually finished for the day and ready for bed myself.   Really, because of my slackness in this area, we are lucky that we haven't lost more.  I did lose some a few years ago...We did a lot more work on the pens after that and seem to have been left alone since so I was lulled into what now has  proven to be a false sense of security.
If I only had a dozen or so chooks then a smaller totally prison-like pen would be easy to have.   I want lots of chooks so it means more work and some losses until we get it right.  Hopefully now we have.

It's still blowing a gale out there but I best be off...I need to make more coffee...