Seconds away, round two!

What on earth am I talking about, good question, the likes of which deserves an answer, so here it is.

One of our latest 'Workaway' volunteers is something of a 'Boxer" so when I was thinking of a title for this post I came across the idea of using a term I had heard being used in the boxing ring to denote yet another round of work we have been doing.

As you guys may or may not know we bought 4 chicks in June to place beneath Bonnie our resident adult chicken as she had been fruitlessly sitting on what turned out to be infertile eggs for nearly 6 weeks.  We had hoped she would accept them as being her babies, but true to her human alter ego "Bonnie Elizabeth Parker" a thoroughly unpleasant and antisocial person (I am being somewhat kind in my description of the renowned gangster) our Bonnie rejected the little darlings as did Clyde (named after Clyde Chestnut Barrow, her cohort in crime) both of whom tried to harm them instead.

This led us to the conclusion that we needed to provide the latest additions to the flock with somewhere to live, somewhere that is other than with Bonnie and Clyde.

So we got to work..

First thing we had to do was to carefully mark then dig out the shape of the foundations.

Chris and Clay turned their hand to cutting up H blocks so that we would have enough pieces to form the sides of the foundations so that when we poured concrete in it would stay in place.

 
(The H blocks had been left over from a previous project so it made sense to use these rather than buy new.)

After digging out the foundations a little more we were ready to put the cut up H blocks into place.

We then filled the foundations in a little with rubble as it would have been far too costly to simply do it with just concrete. Now you're probably wondering why we dug it so deep only to fill the base with rubble. Well, during the winter we have water running off the land and sometimes it can wash away foundations that aren't seated down deep enough. Now I for one don't want my chickens new home to start floating off down the mountainside or collapsing on top of them thanks to weak foundations. So we dug them deep enough to provide the hut with what some call a solid footing but saved money by adding stone to the base so that we didn't have to use as much concrete to fill it.

We then set about making up the concrete mixes..

Using the boards we were going to use for the walls as extra shuttering (what it is called when you hold back concrete with something you usually remove afterwards)



































Putting the uprights of the Chicken shed/hut into place as we worked.
























We then added the roof supports.

We popped boards on the top to see how it was for height, we thought it was good prior and were not disappointed. We can safely walk in to clean it out without fear of hitting our head on the roof which is exactly what we wanted.

We then started to clad the walls using recycled scaffold boards. (some of which as I have said we used as shuttering for the concrete)



Chris who is hoping to go to University to study Architecture was particularly good at paying attention to detail.


Is Chris thinking here or scratching his nose? You decide.













Whilst Clay (the Boxer) used his brains when it came to holding things steady, (LOL!)



We then laid tiles (most of which were offcuts or left overs from a previous project) on the floor of the hut.
 







Both of the guys lent their hand to making sure the panels fitted just right.

We then made windows that we can open for ventilation on hot days.

 
Topped off as it were by our fitting of the roof panels.


But it didn't end there, because we built a door totally from scratch.

Wise decision Chris, Clays butt is way too close for comfort there. lol!

 

 

 

Chris then left us to return home to England but not before he had a little cuddle with the chickens who were quite smitten with him.  They must have recognised a chicken lover and certainly made the most of him being around.  

 

Which meant Clay was left behind to finish off the Chicken shed/hut.

  

Of course we could have left it as it was, unpainted, but I have big plans for it and so we painted it twice with a base coat of white exterior paint.

 

 

Finishing it off with a top coat of minty fresh coloured paint.

Job done, well almost. Because before we signed off on the Chicken hut/shed we went on to fit a solar light so that on dark evenings we can see what is going on inside the shed/hut when we go in.




I guess this means even our Chickens are eco, lol!

 

Job done. Well done guys.