New Chick Coop!

Well, due to an "incident" with our dog (argh!), we built a new chick coop for our six week old chicks on Sunday. We took a little less than half of one of our existing chicken coops and made it into a chick coop. We used existing panels we had on the property, added mesh (to make the holes smaller), mounted them to the walls, and added more mesh that drops from the ceiling to enclose the entire area. It is complete with a little gate for going in and out of. Since it incorporates the entire height of the stall, it is tall enough to stand up in and walk around. We left the roost from the chicken area so the chicks even have an area to roost on. The chicks have an area that is approximately 10' x 3' in size. Pretty slick! The pictures are horrible, but you get the idea.


Our next adventure for the day on Sunday was to swap the female alpacas with the male alpacas. To date, the male alpacas have had the prime grazing spot with the horses. The females, on the other hand, have been "stuck" in the front two paddocks. Please note, there are four males and ten females. The females really needed the bigger pasture to graze on. In order to do that, more panels had to be moved and things picked up more (what, you say? The females are more important than the males? You betcha!). Anyway, that all got done, too, and here is the result. Happy females grazing in the big pasture with the horses!


Here is a picture of the male alpacas all pushed up against the fenceline of one of the two paddocks they are now located in for grazing. You can almost see the looks on their faces like, "Hey! How 'cum they get the good stuff now??? NO FAIR!" :oP






Here is just a picture that I like to call, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." In this case, it literally IS greener on the other side! Our chickens have been eating all of the grass in their paddock. We are going to have to try some more 'options' for getting more grass in their area and/or relocating or getting them more area to 'peck'. Oh, life on the ranch! Believe it or not, I love this kind of stuff and I wouldn't have it any other way!