Hey! It's snowing on the Chicken Coop!

Since we were expecting snow sometime today, I got going on the detail work for the chicken coop early today. Good thing, too. As I was finishing up, the first snowflakes started falling.

I was able to complete covering the entire coop with bird/hawk netting (to keep those hungry hawks off of our chickens!). It was a little tricky around the apple tree because the netting stuck to everything and got all tangled up, and I didn't want to damage the apple tree either.

Some would say, "Why include the apple tree in the coop?" Well I thought it would be fun for our chickens to dig among the apple leaves for bugs, worms and fallen apples. Yum!

Well after the netting I did some covering of long sharp screws that had poked into the chicken house, and then I used fishing line to 'sew' around the layer of chicken wire that was loose. The layer above, and even most of the lower section, I had used 18" guage wire and left over wire that had been wrapped around the chicken wire to make a tight seam to keep out predators.

I ran out of wire, though, and dug through some craft supplies and found the fishing line. I think it will work well and be strong. If not I can get some more higher guage wire at a later time since the second section doesn't really affect keeping predators out, but rather keeping the chickens from getting their silly heads entangled in the chicken wire fencing.

After all that 'sewing" Jenna and I went around to one side and built up a very heavy, thick layer of large rocks on top of the buried wire. Of course, to keep out digging hungry critters. On the other sides, Jackson and I have already buried the wire and John will be bringing in the railroad ties from our other house to line the fencing, too.

As the first snow was falling, I packed up my tools and headed up to call in the llamas for the night (and probably for the next couple days, too.....poor llamas. They really do not like to be kept in the pens, except for food and night time) But with this hard falling snow, their wool would be covered and because they don't have the amount of guard hairs that wild llamas do (It's been bred out for the fiber), their coats would be soaked to the skin before long.


By the time I got back to the house, the snow was falling furiously fast and thick. I turned on the Christmas Lights (I love Christmas Lights while snow is falling!), curled up in front of the cozy fireplace with a cup of cocoa, and enjoyed the wintry scene from the windows all around. Aaaahh. The only thing that would make this perfect, is if hubby was home with us to enjoy and be safe, too.

I'll leave you with this shot of the snow falling on our chicken coop.