Thursday, August 9, 2012

Near Disaster!

My poor hens!  I stayed at work late on Monday and when I got home I didn't go check on the chicks like I normally do, I instead went and fixed dinner for the inside crowd.  After dinner and relaxing in front of the telly for a bit, Little Black Brindle and I went outside to check the girls.  We came upon this sad picture:
Yes, that is their coop blown over!  I've had the roof blow open before but never had the entire coop blow over.  This is the bottom and as you can see the floor of both the coop and the next box collapsed.  The wailing and keening of the hens was too much, "Our poor house!"  "Where are we going to sleep tonight?"  "What shall we do?"  "Who will help us?"  The poor dears were traumatized.  I don't know if they were inside when it blew over but they seemed to be all right physically.

I went straight to work pulling out the pieces of flooring and perches.  Emptying the used shavings, righting the structure.  All looked salvageable.  The worst damage was the roof itself.  The hinges were all torn and unusable but the roof was in one piece and sat on the building fine.  Some of the siding had broken towards the roof where the hinges attached but for now it's called ventilation. 

As I worked the hens perched on the walls surveying the damage.  The keening and wailing continued.  I finally got everything back in place and put some fresh shavings inside.  The poor dears had cried themselves to sleep perched on the walls so I gently lifted them into the coop.  They were confused and disoriented at first put finally crawled into the nest box with some whimpers.  I put the roof back on top and then put some concrete bricks on top of the roof to keep this from happening again. 

The next day, they were still whimpering and in shock but seemed to have spent a good night in their damaged coop.  Today when I checked on them they were back to their old friendly selves.


Thank goodness they were not hurt!  And thank goodness I was able to salvage their home.  This just reminds me that this was only meant for a temporary home for the girls.  In this coop, there is no way they will be able to withstand the rigors of the winter on our part of the Prairie and summer will soon be over.  Looks to me like it's time to do something about their permanent home.  Stay tuned for construction updates.  

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