Wishful Wednesday - There's gotta be a better way of doing this...

I love my Goddesses (chickens) - I do. Sometimes, however, it's like having another pet around. Even when they range about most of the day like ours do, there's still maintenance that needs to be done.  

It's kind of like having cats - LOVE having them . . . dealing with all the husbandry that goes with? Not so much.  Cleaning the chicken coop/run is rather like cleaning the catbox: It needs to be done regularly and completely sanitized every so often. 

Cleaning the run and coop with the little scoop and pail I was using was taking it's toll on my back, not to mention using precious time. This is where my Wishful Wednesday comes in. The other morning I was trolling my favorite chicken pages, doing research on the care and keeping of the little creatures (I'm a new chicken mama!) when I read about how someone made basically and extra large cat scoop out of wire and a rake. I thought I'd give it a try.




I used some of the extra hardware cloth from building our run to create the mesh and wired it to a hay fork -- I don't know what it's called, found it in the barn :)  

Here it is all finished. It took me the better part of an hour but I had a great view while I worked (I parked myself on the deck, listened to the river go by). It turned out exactly as I wanted.  

I wire fit it to make it really tight using 15 gauge wire (made my own twist ties). Then fastened the cloth to the pitchfork.  It works GREAT! 


 Here's our coop and run. It is fully enclosed for their protection. We used hardware cloth instead of chicken wire for it's durability and to protect against predators (like coyote, bobcat, weasel, hawk, eagle, bear - yes, I said bear 'cause that's where I live).

Hen Haven: Our coop and run houses 14 birds. 

They've gotten SO big in just the few weeks we've had them. The Goddesses are about 14 weeks old. The little bits (in their separate "look but don't touch area" while I'm trying to integrate flocks) are about 10 weeks.

Look how nice and clean the run is - and my back isn't sore in the least.
Love it when incentive and ingenuity work together to make wishes come true!