With the
Light Sussex at my brother’s house, I was able to let the rest
of the flock out to free range in the floodplain again.  Imagine
my chagrin to find chickens inside random pastures and in the garden in
short order.  Drat!



I soon found the problem
— our dog had build doggie doors in various fences to expedite her
patrols.  Lucy’s boltholes turned into chicken doors, allowing the
flock to go wherever they wanted rather than just where I wanted.



We’ve used
a short span of electric fence to train Lucy away from these problem
areas in the past,
but she always finds a new spot to burrow through.  After fixing
about a dozen dog holes in the past year, I decided it was time to try
a new strategy — making real doggie doors in the fences so that Lucy
could pass through but the chickens couldn’t.  After all, it is a
bit much to ask of our sentry that she run in huge loops around our chicken moats every time she wants to get
from point A to point B.



Mark threw together a
doggie door quite easily out of a bit of lumber (treated since it’ll be
in contact with the earth) and an old carpet.  He doubled up the
carpet and put a small piece of wood at the bottom to increase the
weight, making it less likely that a critter smaller than our hefty dog
could push through.



Training Lucy to go
through the door was pretty simple.  Mark stood on one side and I
stood on the other, both with treats in hand.  “Come on Lucy, good
girl!” called the master on the far side of the fence while flicking up
the edge of the carpet so Lucy could see through.  I’ll admit that
Lucy accidentally ran all the way around the barn once during the
training episode, but she soon caught on and went through the door
without any help from us.



Only time will tell
whether this dog door prevents Lucy from tearing apart the pasture
fences.  If no new holes show up in the next week or two, I’ll
have Mark install a couple more to make Lucy’s rounds even easier, and
then we may be able to sit back and relax as pasturing season rolls
around.

Chicks are cute and fluffy
for the first day or two, but they wear out their welcome inside pretty
fast.  They also outgrow their brooder and start trying to fly out
in search of pasture by week three…which is problematic when their
brooder is in the living room.  So this year, I’ve decided to
experiment with outdoor brooders.



The idea is to give the
chicks somewhere predator-proof, dry, and not too cold so they won’t
get sick before they are fully feathered.  But, at the same time,
to give the youngsters access to pasture as soon as weather permits —
hopefully by the time they’re one week old.



A search of the internet
doesn’t turn up very many outdoor brooders, especially if you want to
go beyond the rabbit hutch option (which doesn’t let your chicks on
pasture).  I snagged the images in this post from various websites
— click on each to find the source and read more about the design.



It sounds like the design
requirements for an outdoor brooder include:

• 0.5 square feet of room per
  bird (assuming they move from the brooder to a coop by the time they’re
  a month old).
• Raised off the ground (so they won’t get damp during torrential
  rains.  This is why a plain old chicken tractor won’t work.)
• A window to give them sunlight (not essential, but highly
  recommended) and a source of ventilation that doesn’t produce a draft
  at chick level.
• Located close to the house to keep predators at bay.

I’ll post about the
design we came up with soon — stay tuned!