The Old Chook Tunnels

My first chookhouse consisted of a tall fence built around the old dunny. The fenceposts were old hardwood framing timbers out of the cottage I was pulling down, 700mm in the ground, 2m above ground. I bought some cheap 1.8m / 6ft netting that I attached to the posts, leaving a "skirt" of about 300mm / 1ft extending onto the ground outside the yard, as a deterrent for digging predators (i.e. foxes and/or dogs). On the recommendation of the friends who were helping with the construction, who had extensive experience with chooks and foxes, we left the top of the wire loose and a bit floppy to reduce the confidence of climbing predators.

It worked well, but had to go eventually because it turned out the chooks were taking up the best spot to build a house.

Pic #1: CH1 (left) and CH2 (right) in the frost.

Second chookhouses were the original polypipe tunnels. I had seen similar constructions: one was made of about 1" polypipe, 1.5m/5ft wide, and was an aviary for small birds; the second was made of 2" polypipe, 6m/20ft wide and totally covered in wire as a vegie garden that was designed to keep the parrots (and other large birds) out.

Pic #2: CH1 and CH2 in the summer.

CH1, on the left, was my first wonderful polypipe creation. I whacked pairs star pickets into the ground 3m apart and threaded a 7m length of 2" polypipe over them. I made 6 polyarches* in a row and completely covered them in chicken wire. I used new, galvanised, thick, good quality chicken wire for the first round at ground level. I left a 300mm/1ft skirt of wire on the ground outside the CH on one long side, dug bricks into the ground before I started attaching recycled roofing iron on the tinned-in end, and plonked big rocks around the other edges. I used the recycled, cheaper, lighter netting to fill the gap over the top. The predator prevention project succeeded. I saw several foxes in the 5 years I lived there, twice I saw digging efforts that were thwarted by the digger finding the buried chicken wire, and the chookies were safe and happy.

*My own definition of a polyarch: an arch made of polypipe, in this case the ends of the polypipe are threaded over 2 star pickets.

Pic #3: CH2 in the early spring.

The second chookhouse I built was, by necessity, shorter, so I made it a little wider in an attempt to maintain a similar area. As you can see in Pic#3 there were only 5 polyarches, but the pairs of star pickets were 4m/10ft apart. From memory CH1 was just over 11m long, CH2 was around 8m long. This puts the polyarches at around 2m apart.

Because in both chookhouses the polypipe tended to sag, possibly due to the weight of the chicken wire, possibly because that's the nature of polypipe, I used lengths of wood as temporary props under some of the polyarches. Also, when I was attaching the chicken wire to the tops of the polyarches, the combined effect of the weight of the wire plus me tugging on it meant that the end arches pulled in towards the middle of the tunnel. I discovered this phenomenon during the construction of CH1 and used lengths of metal (strapping or RHS? ... can't remember) attached to the apex of the polyarches along the length of the tunnel. When I was making CH2 I attached the bracing prior to doing the top runs of chicken wire, which made the process a lot easier.

Pic #4 CH1 in snow - showing apex bracing and wooden props

CH2 was finished, except for the door end, for a long time. I couldn't "tin it in" like I did with CH1 because the polyarches were wider, and I couldn't reach the middle top to attach the tin. I only just managed it with CH1 being as small as it was. I ended up reusing an old metal door horizontally (that had been left by a previous owner of the block), and other recycled materials including odd bits of chicken wire. I made a wee little housie inside CH2 from an old cast iron kids' bed frame, with recycled hardwood bolted on for perches, old doors for sides and roof wired onto the frame, a daggy sixties sideboard upside down with its legs and doors removed (nailed to a railway sleeper base) for nesting boxes, and a stray bit of roofing iron over the nesting boxes for weather protection.

Pic #5 Asparagus Alley between the CHs - asparagus is the fuzzy green above/behind the grey-green foliage of the brussels sprouts on the left; whitecurrant bush at bottom right.

Then, of course, there was the wonderful space created between the boundary fence and CH1, which became Rhubarb Alley (see previous post in this blog), and the space between the two tunnels, which was a brilliant spot for asparagus. Asparagus plants love lots of fertiliser, so being slightly downhill from CH2 meant that when it rained the goodies washed straight onto the asparagus. I regularly gave the chooks weeds, kitchen scraps and lawnmower clippings, so after it had been scratched over and manured by the chooks it was the best fertiliser. I'm planning to do something similar in the new chook runs - but that's another story!