Finally a Chicken Run NO ONE Can ESCAPE

Oh, nighttime chore. Easiest time to collect chickens. The start of getting animals out. You got our crates?

Yeah.

Wait, slow down. You don't want to scare them all off. Hold on. Hey, you guys want to get those ornerys? The ones that aren't laying where they're supposed to? Okay, there's 4 perched. Okay, okay, as soon as you get it, pull it away so it doesn't make the other one jump off. Gideon, you getting that one? It's so easy. Hey, do you guys want to catch the rooster since he's always getting out? He's not even in here. Don't let them flap or they're gonna knock people off. Get away, get away! Once you get it, catch it, back away. Good. Done?

Yeah.

I told you, Josiah's the hero. Don't just throw them in, we got to put them in the coop on the perches. They'll wake up in a daze and think they were just having a dream. Does that mean he's been roosting in here, or does that mean he jumped off the chicken tractor into here? I hope it doesn't mean he's been roosting in here because that means he can get out, and we just had these fences extended to like 52 inches. Poultry wire, the whole fence.

He's actually getting out of here.

You don't think? You think he got in and can't get out?

Yeah, there ain't no door on this thing.

I know, but Winnie— well, theoretically nothing should get in or out. How are you guys sitting in there? I think you got plenty of room in the pretty shop. We do need to replace our door. This run should be bulletproof though, plus we have Winnie. I don't think any predators are coming after these chickens. I don't see any breaches, but tomorrow will tell. Let me just show you This is maybe the lowest spot. If he's jumping this, we got problems. We got problems.

I'm trying to fix my pedal tractor straight.

Are we really gonna fix this at night?

Uh, yeah, in the dark.

Why do we gotta be doing this right now?

Gideon, we need to go. Because it's taking forever. Here, I'll put it in Sally for Gideon tomorrow.

All right, he's gonna put it in Sally. We can't fix it right now. Listen. Here, that was faint. Remember that dead mama pig we had? Yeah, we found her too late. We didn't know what was wrong with her, so we're not gonna eat her. Unlike when we found the little lamb that had gotten gored, we knew what got it. We knew it wasn't toxic. It was still warm. We ate it. Oh, there's, there's Sabina!

Shine the light for me! Here, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it!

Sabina's gone wild ever since we moved. Our cat Sabina gone wild, and we just found a milk cat for her. Lily wants to raise some kittens. So the mama pig we fed to the forest for keeping the predator happy. We put her on the outskirts. There she is right there, Bird, right in front of you.

There she is!

Is that not her?

Sabina, baby, want some fishy fishy fishy?

Okay, so what are we gonna do if we catch her? Well, you guys are scaring her to death chasing her like this. There she is. If only it's me, then she'll actually be a good barn cat. What are we gonna do if we catch her though? You're gonna have to get a cage.

We're gonna carry her up there and give her food.

You don't think she'll just run off?

Well, she'll know that that's home if we put her food there.

There she is! She can get out on the loft. Just go slow, just go slow. Wow, she got out on the roof. That's enough, we're not chasing her onto the roof. Lily, maybe put feed out for Sabina where we had been on, on the holler house. Okay, or do you want to just keep feeding food at the cabin and maybe she'll— she will figure it out? Hear that? That's the only problem. Winnie goes up there, runs them off all the time. So I just guess the flies are gonna get on— get it all. Winnie too. I don't think we've had to feed Winnie for— since then. Hey, nobody's out yet. The rooster's still in. Did we leave that open and that's how you got in here? Because this fence is supposed to be bulletproof now. Is there anybody in there? See how they're just kind of moseying around a little bit near the coop? They're still kind of like Were we dreaming? Were we in The Matrix? Is this reality now? What just happened? Everybody's out though. But because we put them in at night also, they'll come back to this coop tonight. So that's training them to the new coop as well. You got to come find them. They would wonder. Oh, we need to get them nest box. Shoot, there's only one and it has no hay. He says they're in the brooder stall. We'll see. Maybe he has a pulse on things. Where?

Right there.

No, not the— not the poultry crates for catching them. Nest boxes. Have I been saying crate? I meant to say nest boxes, which are also crates. Are there any in there? Nest boxes? Who in the world's boots are those? I don't know. Somebody's gonna be looking for their boots. Hope they're not Lily's.

They're not Lily's either.

Hope they're not Mom's. She'll tear them up. We're gonna be in big trouble.

They aren't.

I think I see a crate now. Is it a nesting box? 2 or 3 crates. Wait, that might be one over there.

It's empty.

No, that one's too long, I think. It's a full crate too. I got an idea. Get one out of the chickshaw for now. There are probably some in the container, but I just don't want to go in the container right now. Let's just use this. Take that. Let's put hay in it. Bring it over here, please. Let's fill it up.

Hey, that's good. The bottom of the water is missing.

Where have you looked?

In the chick stall area and over there.

Did you look at the container? All right, I guess it's in the other one. We have our stuff in storage containers because we're remodeling our house and everything had to get out. Ah, better not move that. I've injured myself and I cannot lift, so you're gonna have to go around this freezer. Okay, I see our water or stuff. Heck yeah! I wonder why the movers didn't just scoot that shelf down a little bit and put this in sideways. My recent injury, it's hard to carry this big camera and this thing as light as this is. Come here and carry this, please. Help me.

That's good.

Is it? There you go, ladies. Just milk crates, guys. Open bottom so dust can fall through. We just put hay in it. It fits so snugly in there. We got a nice trim. You don't need a door, but it just adds ventilation, and nothing's gonna crawl up that. It's what we call the pretty shop. I first wanted to call it the Shee Shaw. Sounds kind of funny. I think the Pretty Shaw is a little classier. This was the first time that we figured out we could just take the legs straight out with the Chick Shaw. And why that was special is because we put it down a little bit lower. It's riding on a little slant like that. When the chickens pile up right here like that, it doesn't cause this to give a wheelie. On my original Chick Shaw's design, you had to do a kickstand there, which would fall off and stuff like that. Pretty Shaw's special in that it just has an arched roof, black trim, white paint. The door's black when we have it. Rebecca laughed at me last night when I mentioned there was no doors. She said, There's no door on the Pretty Shaw. We opted for the chrome wheels instead of the plastic for the Pretty Shaw. A little more expensive. You guys want to see inside? I'll take you inside in just one second. Step-by-step plans for that coming soon in my Homestead Builds book. Kickstarting that June 1st. I'm so proud of you. You like to take care of your chickens, don't you? Is that a strong word? You like to take care of the chickens? She's got two posses now, one in the yard, one in the greenhouse. The greenhouse chickens are gonna go out to the field. She was working on the chicken tractor chickens. You're gonna do that now? Get in, because she doesn't need 3 chicken chores. You got a minute to show them this, Lily? Can you get the handle? Show how the handle comes off. Multi-purpose as much as you can in permaculture. It's got a pin, you can't get it out because of the— here, here, you just move it over a little bit. You can move my tripod if you need to. Some greens were growing back, called the compost corner. Look, look how I'm getting around the— if you're gonna have your chickens in one spot, put them by the garden, put them on deep bedding. Here we use wood chips because look what happens. Look what's under this deep bedding— develops into compost. We got a pile of wood chips right there. Need to freshen it up every year, which we will do in this episode. That's the trick. That's the trick. And no stinky chicken run. Inside we have a chicken about to start laying her eggs. 2-inch perches on the floor.

Why is that plastic thing?

He's talking about this. We've installed a little plastic ramp there in this arched roof. Chickens were perching on top of the nest boxes and pooping in them. We do have a little bit of poop caught there. Y'all know that's a pet peeve of mine. I don't like cleaning coops. The reason— look, we do 1-inch mesh and we do a coop on wheels. Poop falls through and we just move the coop. We are gonna have to clean that out. That's because we had a female goose. She likes to pull the nest material out to make a nest, and then it catches the manure. Male goose—

geese from now on, lift up, lift up.

We have never released these plans in any form or fashion. I like to prototype them for a while before I do, but we've got it dialed in. It's been a good one. A lot of people have requested this one because they live in a neighborhood maybe where chickens aren't allowed, and so you don't want to be that person, or you want to put in the front yard like us. You have a beautiful one that wants the coop to look pretty. Can you get us some wood chips? Oh no, Josiah! Do you see what I see? No, that cotton-picking rooster is out. You think he jumped off the chick shack? So he is able to get in there somehow. Let's herd him in. Can you go open the door? You open the door and then we'll herd him in. Shoot, we really need to clip his wings. And Gideon and I never fed these chickens tractor. Look at this cover crop jamming. I heard him now. Homeboy can jump. Now let's see if then we clip his wings that he won't be able to do that. He's just gonna get back out, but let's clip their wings tonight. We got another job. His partner stayed in here. That's good. As you can see, it is hard to keep chickens in. Is there a breach below the fence over there? I think his jump is right there. That's probably the shortest spot.

You just should have made that one a little higher.

Yeah, we stepped these down to go along— well, the landscape goes down much taller right here than it is down there. That's like taller than you right here.

How'd they get out?

Rooster has escaped again. Look there, second time they got out today. I think he's flying over. Clip his wings tonight. Go! By the end of this video, it's the half of that being a no-escape chicken run. We have this so you can open this gate. I'll have to show you guys that in a little bit. And that's so you could get a dump truck load of wood chips. We used to have to do that, like, like if you don't have a machine. What have you been doing?

I've gone back to my bad ways of containers.

Oh no, Darcy, look away.

I had to because things were falling through the shelves. And I know she said—

what do you need? What would she say?

She said you gotta get that plastic, it's like clear plastic to put on every shelf, but I don't have that.

Like, how's that to go to— how's that gonna hold in all these?

I know, right?

Well, she might say, would you really need all—

I do.

Watch this. Oh, you can actually get back there to it.

It's exciting to have access to the area and like things actually, because that shelf was so deep that you couldn't actually like get in and see what you're doing. But even— and that's another, that's another plus for the containers is that like I can be like, okay, I know I need out of this container and I can just take that container out.

Lots of wood chips in here. People already in there this morning laying eggs. Gideon, mucho huevos! You gotta collect them today. The kids' trap worked. Nobody's out. They just rigged up a poultry wire, set some sticks across it. I don't hear the rooster in there though.

Oh, he's in there!

He's jumping out with that much wind. How are you doing that, bro? Stay. You want to have to cut one side, but— so I'm going down. It doesn't hurt them. I'm going down to this pattern change right here. You don't want to go any further, then you start getting into blood. That's the fuck out. Really tucking back in there, not letting me get them. Making life difficult for me. Bad rooster though to go down. I've been never breeding. This ain't bulletproof unless you stay in. What am I gonna do if he doesn't stay in? The whole premise, setting out to make this movie is a chicken run. No one can escape. What happens if he escapes? It's gonna be reality TV, y'all. Reality TV. You're gonna see it either way. All right, let me explain the concept and then how to build this chicken run if you wanted to do this yourself. The concept is we have a kitchen garden right here in our front yard. When you have a permanent garden, put in a little permanent chicken run. It actually doesn't have to be this cedar 2x4, really nice cattle panel-lined, beautiful chicken run. In fact, we didn't have this for years. For years we did this with just an electric poultry net. And the reason you would want gardens next to your chickens, because they complement each other. You take a couple of chickens out, you put them in your chicken tractor, they're tilling down your cover crop from your raised beds. You also pick your weed picking has never been more pleasurable. These aren't weeds actually, these are cover crops. But hey, let's say you didn't want to put chickens on this. This is fun. Here, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick, chick. But anyway, you feed the chickens from the garden— extra produce, weeds, all that grow-them stuff. Not only is this fence impenetrable by the orneryest, naughtiest of roosters when their wings are clipped, it doesn't stink. Well, we dumped this mulch in here, and that's like a carbonaceous diaper as Joel calls it, and it absorbs their manure. This was wood chips last year. It just breaks down into rich compost. Not an ounce of chicken squat in there. They'll level this out, this will absorb their manure, and underneath will develop compost. So once a year we harvest compost, we put it on our beds. That's been the chickens feeding in the garden, so they complement each other. It's a permaculture concept, guys. Proximity. Put these two elements together. Say you want to build a chicken run, and well start with a poultry net. Now pull it out of the garage and just put it up next to your chickens. Put some mulch in there. Every once in a while with a poultry net, they spread the wood chips, so you do have to go around and like pick up the net and restake it because otherwise they start burying the net with the wood chips. A lot of you guys already might have a run, add wood chips. Now the only other thing I would do is I will eventually have some sort of shelter. It could be a medium for something to grow on. I'm trying to think if that shelter would just be like a shade cloth and rain— no, it would be a solid shelter and not over the whole thing. Give them the option to come out and sunbathe, but they could get out of the heat, they could get in the shade, they could get out of the rain, and it would make some of these wood chips last even longer. So say you want to do this and build this thing, I'll show you how I've built this. We are coming out with plans for this in my new book. We're kickstarting it June 1st. It's called Homestead Builds. You can get more information on that at homesteadbuilds.com. If you don't want to wait till then and just want to gird up your loins do it yourself and get the concept. Here's what we did. It's a 52-inch cattle panel lined in poultry wire the whole way through. We made the mistake of only putting it up about yay high, and the chickens got to where they would jump up and then go through one of these quarters. So do your poultry wire all the way through. We also made it— the first mistake of making this about pig panel size, which, which you can see, this is our first original build. So you can see we've made it a foot and a half bigger in some places. It looks like we added about 18 inches. So at the bottom we have 1-inch— it's probably a 1x12. It's cedar, so it's rot resistant and not toxic. And that, that keeps the mulch from going out. We also theoretically— well, yeah, no, we did right here. We did. It should be buried. That's not buried. We need to get a moment. You can see we've put poultry wire at the bottom too, really to keep chicks, chicks in, or to keep digging predators out. We don't have to worry too much because it's our front yard. And we have a guard dog and she sleeps right— well, I don't know if she sleeps at night, but that's her base right there. And so she keeps them away. Winnie, to secure this in and make it look beautiful, we have some ripped 2x4s pinning that. Well, what'd we do this with? We did this with zip ties, little tiny zip ties. It needs it right there. You could do it with metal wire. Same thing here, that's a 2x4 strip for a pin, then 2x4 on top, a 4x4 post. I'd really like to show you this really cool feature. So say you don't have a front-end loader like we didn't have for many, many years, uh, it might be more convenient if you're ordering this stuff or don't want to go back and forth. So we have a gate on the side and you could open both, but if you have a dump truck coming You gonna be mowing? Can you give me— are you gonna be mowing? I'm gonna be string trimming. Okay, cool. Dang, I should have waited and then the yard would look less redneck. Uh, oh well. Hey, we'll have to show them after and you won't judge me. Okay, we, um, so now you're gonna bring a dump truck in How you gonna get rid of that middle pole? The middle pole has to hold the gates up or they're just gonna sag.

Oh, I'm so—

I'm so proud of this. I thought— I thought of this myself. I'm sure I didn't invent it. I'm sure somebody else has done this.

You want to see how—

you want to see it? It just so happens that one of those plastic fences is just— I don't know, a 4x4 fits down into it. And that keeps the ground at bay and away. And we have a hole there, our latches are on our boards, and we can just take this in and out. All right, you want to shut the door? Shut both the doors. Yeah, we won't have time to show you the before and after he string trims, but look. That's, that's how our yard's supposed to look, right? Not like that. But I've been injured, we've been demoing, it's spring, we're trying to get animals out. It's just not high on the priority list. Sometimes when you focus on things that are most important, other areas of your life can look chaotic. Case in point, we are not on a flat slope, so we won't be able to account for this in the plans that we give you. We'll just have to give you plans for if you have a flat area, and you'll just have to make adjustments. But we stepped this down as we went down the hill. You can see what we went down, 3 inches there. Randolph helped build this, 6 inches there. So, and then we step back up And then this one went straight, so that's more textbook. That's more textbook. We dialed this in, guys. We've tried it for a number of years and finally we've dyed it in. We're gonna put it in the book, Homestead Builds. I'm excited about it. I think many people are going to benefit from it. These plans will be a minute. We're kickstarting this book. The chicken— the chicken tractor plans, man, I'm finalizing the the deets on that now. Uh, the Chick Shaw is coming along. Is it? Which one's easy?

That one's easy.

Chicken tractor? Yeah, yeah, it's easy to build. The Pretty Shaw will come along in it. It'll probably be further along in the plans. What? But, uh, we're doing all my— we're doing 12, 13, uh, the garden chicken builds, and then later down the road we're gonna have book too, with pigs and cows and sheep. There he goes, he's string trimming. Look, Mom, guess who stays in? We have finally bulletproofed our chicken run. Now I have said that before, granted, and now I've made it what, 18 inches taller? Caterpillar's 52 inches. So Henry, shall we throw him some veggies? Yeah, spread that mulch, guys, spread that mulch. See what they went for first. They went for the chicken carcass. You cannibals. Crazy.

Hey, are you getting up there?

Let me tell you my heart on this homestead build and my thought process on it. We've been working on this project a year. Uh, well, I mean, I've been working on these designs for 10 years, and we've gotten to the point where we've perfected them, and we've put out a lot of plans and people, people are getting by with those plans, but I figured they could be so much better. I mean, those plans were free. It was just me. I'm no car— I'm no engineer and I'm no graphic designer, so I've partnered with an engineer slash carpenter slash author, the guy who helped Joel build Polyface Designs, Chris Flattery. And then I partnered with a graphic artist, and we're putting together a legit, legit book. And I thought, well, our first strategy was let's get it done, then sell it and make it available. But then I'm like, you're gonna— what, people, people are gonna wait a while. These plans are taking up at least 8 weeks per plan, at least. And we're in the— like, many of them are nearly done. We have maybe 4 or 5 plans nearly done, but then they got to go to the graphic artist. But then anyway, we're gonna have these available and they're just gonna be sitting there. So then I thought we could go to the crowd, we could make this a Kickstarter. Let's not go to a publisher, let's go to a Kickstarter. Let's pre-sell this thing, let's do it at a discount, and then customers can get the plans as they drop out and you can start building these things this summer. June 1st, we're doing the Kickstarter. We're gonna have all kinds of bonuses. The price is going to be lower. And you're gonna have the chance to get in on the pre-order so that you can get these plans before the book is actually printing. So stay tuned. You want to actually join our waiting list for this thing? There's plenty of bonuses in that as well. We're going to give away some free plans. Sign up for that, homesteadbuilds.com.

It's out of gas.

No, it isn't. That's a guess.

It isn't?

No, you got plenty of gas.