FENCE!!!!

It’s here!  The Fence is HERE!!!!!!

*Ahem*  Let me start again.

Since Fall, there’s been a lot of talk on this blog about the need for a means of keeping my free range chickens away from the road which runs through our property.  It’s a main road, though in a rural area, and people drive on it and they drive fast.  Since December, I’ve lost three hens to the road (and one to a predator) and it was heart-breaking.

Dad, DH and I began began tossing around ideas, which included chicken tractors, installing underground fencing and little ‘collars’ for the chickens (like invisible fencing for dogs) and … the fence I wanted the whole time but no one else thought the feasible until we lost three of our girls to the road.

Then it became feasible.  After it cost the lives of Ava, Madison and Dottie.

We started by discussing things like ‘how high’ and ‘how to build gates they can’t go through.’  Then DH started figuring up how much the materials would cost.  It would have to wait until 1) we got our income tax return and 2) the spring thaw came.

Both have come… and so has my long-awaited fence.  Would you care for a tour?

I’ll be honest, I will miss the free range.  It was nice to look out of the windows and see them all wandering about, but I refuse to lose any more of them to the road and their own disregard for it.  They might not know any better, but I do!  They will still have plenty of room to move around and a lot to explore, a water source, shelter (there is a bush, plus DH promised to make little lean-to’s so they can get shade and safety) and access to their run, coop and favorite dirt bathing areas.

They just won’t be able to cross the road.

The fence won’t protect them from most other predators.  Just the road, really, but I’m fine with that.  If I want them to wander and get the good bugs/grass/etc, then I have to make some exceptions.  I’m fine with that, too.

So are they, really.  This fence means no more being locked into the run ‘for their own good’ and a vast expanse of new green stuff to nibble.