Ground Gutter for the Chooks

When building the chicken run back in Spring, we didn’t take in to consideration that the rain would find a path into the run. I mean we built the damn thing in the rain but, once the roof was on and the sand/gravel was in, we didn’t see any problems. Well, over the past six months we’ve noticed that when it rains for a couple of days or more (which happens A LOT), the water seems to head straight for the chicken run. So, we’ve been going out in the rain (fortunately in warm rain) and digging a trench to divert the water somewhere else. This has worked great but, I’m not doing that all Winter long in 4°C weather and cold rain.

We had looked into a plastic piping to go in the ground but it was way too expensive and after all, they are only chickens, right? So, while in Wellington, we went to the Bird Sanctuary and happened to notice they had these wood gutters/trenches built in the ground. What a great idea! I wish we had come up with this idea ourselves but we didn’t.

First we had to dig a much bigger trench than we had originally dug. I quickly got to digging while Holming started to build.



So that you all can appreciate how much work this entailed, I have to tell you that we have clay soil and that some idiot before us, thought it would be nice to bury a bunch of stepping stones and bricks.... Nice!

After pick-axing and shovelling the trench, my muscle man came down with his creation.



And it fit like a glove! Now we need some rain to test it out....take your time, no hurry!

The chooks got to benefit from all the new loose dirt. I filled their scratching area with the leftover dirt which had a few hidden treats.... worms.



In the end it cost us $12 to make the gutter. Never mind the cost of the chiropractor visit I will be needing on Monday morning......