You may remember my earlier posts about the kitchen cabinet chicken tractor I built. The chickens seem to enjoy their mobile home, so I have tried to give it a few creature comforts as well. Here begins the take of making a vaguely effective roost for them.
At one of my local Habitats for Humanity, I found a single wooden post for the underside of a banister. It seemed to be about the same size as the 2×2 board/post/pole that we used as a roost for our chickens in the shed as I grew up in the country.
The plan was to mount the new roost on the left side of the interior, same side as the tiny retaining wall I had mounted to prevent poo from falling into the containers for their food and water. Next to, but not touching, the heat lamp.
The post did not reach all the way across the cabinet, nor did I want it to, for ease of access to the cage through the doors. It seemed best to lop off a few inches from either end of the post & use those pieces as braces to keep the bar above the floor.
After taking a few rough measurements, I pulled out my trusty saw & got to work. (Using the circular saw seemed a bit excessive…)
After lopping off one side, I held it against the other end & used the saw to mark the proper length on all 4 corners. This helped keep me from drifting off an even plane.
After sawing off the second leg, I toe-nailed the ends at right angles to the ends from which they were cut.
You may ask what it means when “toe-nail” is an action & not a thing… well, the only metal nails I have in house are really short wire nails that won’t reach ask the way through the post, much less far enough through it to catch the second piece with any depth.
To get around this, I hammer the nails diagonally through the leg & into the bar. It’s a handy work-around, but can be defeated by a twisting motion.
I hope you like my super-awesome image mod above. I recently figured out how to do that on this phone (after owning it for almost 2 years). That being said, if there’s a text option, I haven’t figured it out yet. ^_^
Anyway, once the legs were attached to the new roost, I needed to affix it to the interior of the chicken tractor itself. The plan: screw into the long axis of the post from the outside of the enclosure. Being who I am, I used rough measurements & eyeballing to figure out where to place the screw.
First attempt: not entirely successful. ;D But it ensured that the second attempt would be right on track.
My exotic chicken, the Tolbant Polish Top Hat, absolutely loves it. Because of her fantastic Big Bird-style bouffant, she can only see directly underneath her beak. Even then, I’m not really sure she sees that well. It seems like she uses her hair feathers like antennae sometimes…
Anyway, my other two (normally feathered) chickens took a while before they tried out the new roost, but have come to accept it. Most chickens prefer to be up a bit more, having to either climb our fly up to their night perch. This “6 inches off the floor” thing doesn’t really fit, but you get what you get.
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