In this informal, on‑site conversation Victor (Speaker A) and Rebecca discuss a recurring problem on their backyard farm: chickens repeatedly perch on top of the rabbit enclosure, leaving manure and creating a mess. They brainstorm and prototype several low‑cost, DIY solutions, including installing poultry wire barriers, constructing a fence from pig‑panel sheets, and considering wing‑clipping to limit chicken flight. The dialogue also covers feeding placement to keep chickens away from pigs, a light‑hearted bet on whether the chickens will stay off the rabbits, and the logistics of assembling the barrier with help from family members. Throughout, they balance practical concerns (ease of cleaning, animal safety) with personal preferences (dislike of handling manure) and collaborative decision‑making, ultimately deciding to build a pig‑panel cage and test its effectiveness.
Chapters
Almost there. One dozen. We need 12 dozen eggs. We're those crazy people. When we go on vacation, we're taking our own eggs. Where are you gonna be able to get to?
Right here.
This?
Yeah, right there.
You dweeb.
It's so cold.
The question is, are our chickens staying out of our pigs?
There's only one.
Largely, yeah, there is only one. It seems a lot more peaceful already, less chaotic. Look at them, I feel a lot more— all wanting to go in there. Next problem. That's what we do, right? We're firefighters. Yep, putting out fires. We got chickens perching on top of the rabbits. This worked to temporarily keep it out of there, but it's not gonna, um— who wants to come scrape? That's a pet peeve of mine, handling manure. I don't like to do it. Joe has single cages, they're back there.
He puts up a poultry wire, we shift it this way, put it up against here. Yeah, and then we basically just get the poultry wire attached to all of this, and we just kind of, you know, when you're wrapping a gift Yeah. That's kind of weirdly shaped like a bottle. You just kind of go like that. That's what we do, and then we just attach it to that. I think that's a great idea.
I think we push it back, run it from this— why am I holding this? She got this for me. It's not for me.
I serve you your coffee on the weekends in this.
We do a poultry wire from here to that.
No, that's not what I said.
I know, but that's what I'm saying.
To take it and go across to there and hook it all to there. Yeah, all the poultry wire.
I'm afraid if you do that, it's going to be kind of like going on top of this and then over, and I'm afraid they'll still jump up on it and they'll be on our poultry wire.
The dog pooped on it last night.
They poop right here, and then it'll be neat looking, won't it? Because we'll have one that goes straight up. You could even put a board so you could have a nice angle.
Complicated.
I know, probably too complicated. Well, that's an idea. You want to clip wings? You can't fly that high if we clip wings. They need to get up onto their— to their perches. But if we keep it near the shot, it would be all right. But how are we gonna catch them to clip their wings? Yeah, there's not a coop that they go into at night.
If we connect the poultry wire up to that— yeah, purlin— you're gonna poke the plastic with the poultry wire.
All right, let's try this too. I was gonna see if we have more pig panels, if we couldn't just put 4 pig panels together. Yesterday a chicken flew up on top of the greenhouse. Oh wow, that's the first There is a chicken on the greenhouse. They're trying to herd it back in. Somehow it got out. Look at that, that's crazy. Yeah, we're gonna have to put something over that or clip through. I mean, we have to go back to clipping their wings. We don't want to do that because we don't want to have to always put the shawl by the nest box, right, Rebecca? Yeah, we don't have to always move those around. You know, this is kind of Lily's project. It's not really one that we really want to have, but It's kind of, kind of our chickens. Part of them are rabbits, so it's kind of our responsibility too. Yeah, we have plenty of pig panels if you want to try it. So we just cut that, we go measure, and we basically make a cube. Okay, basically make a fence of pig panels that sits on top of it. Look, there they are. Oh, he's asleep. There's my zip ties. Absent-mindedly set them down. How do I train myself not to do that? Now these are chicken— covered in chicken doo-doo. Just purposely put them right here so the chickens can't get on them. To be fair, the chicken did jump on top of the greenhouse, but it was an emergency. It was being chased. I don't think they'll jump that high. For a leisure perch. See, this is the problem. This could be maybe the worst case scenario we could have had. So 5 feet isn't going to be right here, a nice cut. It's actually going to be right in the middle. This fence will set a little in. We got our 4 panels. Try this bad boy out. Got the panels in the greenhouse, so ready to start assembling. Jonah just called me to get the milk, so let's do that, and then maybe we can wrangle somebody to help me put these up. Rebecca had to go inside for a second. Listen, you're probably here. We got cold. We've got the proofs of James's innocence in this basket. She's not mad at me, although if this does not work See, I didn't take her idea. You know, I don't know if that's 100% true. This wasn't my original idea. Hopefully we went back and forth enough and we actually came to a better idea than her idea, than my idea. Let's see, we'll have to ask her. Hey. Hi. Will you be mad at me if this cage doesn't work? No.
Did it work?
Promise?
I promise.
Cross your heart?
I do.
Swear to die?
I don't care, I'm gonna sit in here.
Whose idea was it?
The cage? Yeah, yours.
Okay, I was thinking it was kind of a compromise because that wasn't my original idea.
Yeah, I know.
I guess, um, we might have came up with the best idea because we went back and forth.
So what happened? You're gonna leave me hanging?
I need somebody to help me assemble it.
Oh, okay, I'll probably help you.
Chickens keep loitering down there by the pigs. They do have bird brain. Mom's had idea is to maybe put their food closer to the pigs. 5 are in there, none are in there, so that's better than 27 in there. I just— I give them a couple scoops this afternoon of feed. You guys gonna mate? All right, Nelly, you watch them a little bit. We'll start putting this other cage up. Enjoy it while you can, beautiful lady. Should have clipped her wings right then. This is what it looks like. We got a little bit of a ledge here, not so much here. We could adjust, we could pull this down a little bit, Jenna, so there's not so much of a ledge right here.
See?
Move that pallet. Mom, we're making a bet. She thinks they're gonna get up there and down in there, and I'm gonna hope they don't. So if I lose the bet, I have to put that up by myself tomorrow with Jonah because he thinks he can— he doesn't think they'll get in there either. I'm gonna bet, not with confidence but with hope, They won't do that because I don't want them— I hate messing with poultry wire. I put this poultry wire up all along this greenhouse, and I'm over it. So I'll bet with Hope, and if I lose Becky, I'll be out here scraping poop out and putting up the poultry wire tomorrow. Let's get her out. They didn't mate. I don't know if she's not in heat. Look at this synergy here. Rabbits maneuvering into the deep bedding and the chickens underneath scratching it in. I think just being more conscious of it, having the desire. Got a rubber band, wrap it around these zip ties, put in the tool cabinet. Well, that's a wrap. We're gonna take it easy with these colds. Tomorrow is another day. You're gonna have to tune in. We're gonna have to see if those chickens stay off those rabbits. I think they will.
