Long have i dreamt about having chickens but it was always a mystery how we were going to protect them from the various animals which see them as a tasty snack, or even a tasty drink (some animals will kill them just to suck their blood), so when all the chicken owners in our village told me i would need to buy a metal cage, i believed them.
But even this convenient cage won't protect from foxes digging under the ground and let's face it, the design is reminiscent of a prison cell.
I was in fact very close to going the easy route and buying a cage when a friend sent me a video featuring a basic wooden design and i immediately felt excited to create something in my own way.
The Chicken House
Here we are one month ago in the area which was previously inaccessible and covered in brambles.
This lot would have produced blackberries if i had left the where they were, but i could justify their death in the knowledge that blackberries grow everywhere around here.
Here is my chosen design, weaving garden waste (mostly ivy) between bamboo poles.
It was a laborious job filling up the wall, taking around ten days to trim every tree and hedge before weaving it in with the excessive amount of ground ivy we have growing under the surface of this land.
Sabrina's step-dad offered to help out for the door and central column by making deep straight holes with his machine.
A job which would have taken hours was done perfectly in minutes.
The overall stability of the wall was strengthened by these supporting poles which also hold everything in.
The nylon net has been stretched across both sides of the wall.
In line with the wisdom of Anastasia (from the Ringing Cedars book series) i saved all the ash trees which were growing where i wanted the wall.
Ideally one would plant trees and shrubs to create a living wall, but in the interest of time i just used the trees which were already there, interweaving them with the wall.
We covered the base of the door frame poles (which were found in the forest) with used car oil to stop the wood from rotting in the ground and sunk them into their holes with stones & soil, cramming it all down with a heavy tool.
Sabrina & i felt quite proud when it was done.
It's not 100% straight but the frame fits the door perfectly, which by the way was found on the side of the road during the winter.
This little house was bought flat packed for €80 and was our main expense. In the interest of time it felt like the best route.
Underneath it i will place a magnetised electroculture cable which will help the chickens rest more deeply and produce better quality eggs.
A central column is essential for holding up the roof net and i needed something circular which wouldn't tear through the net over time, so used an old bicycle wheel which has been hanging on the wall in my stone house for the last three years.
The wheel was easily attached to the wooden beam and here it is about to have its base painted with the car oil.
There was talk of it being too high but this felt good to me, giving it a circus tent vibe.
Around the perimeter of the wall i dug into the ground this metal grate which will prevent foxes from digging under.
My idea was to overlap it with the nylon net and attach them both to the beams of the wall.
Once fully attached i filled the soil back in and planted Morning Glory seeds in a few selected places, looking forward to the beautiful white flowers which will grow up the net and create extra shade (and chicken food!) in the heat of the summer.
Here we are with a finished chicken house.
Luna & Esteban have agreed to decorate the door.
On the inside we attached this bamboo wind-chime to the wheel and also created two swings.
Yes you heard that right. We made two chicken swings. I understand they like this because it replicates the movement of a tree branch swaying in the wind.
Not sure how high above the ground they need to be but let's see if this height works for them.
We also tied these two little ash trees together just to see what happens.
Hopefully it will create a bridge of shade for them to walk under once the trees produce some more leaves.
I dug a stream for drinking water which flows from the village canal through the chicken enclosure and out into the bamboo forest, at the bottom of which there is a little river, so the water may continue its journey to the sea.
Finally we attached this xylophone to the wall for them to peck at.
Or for the children to play with!
I understand it is important to keep them entertained in there so swings & music should help with that.
Am super happy with the overall vibe of the enclosure.
The children too seemed to feel good there, running around for hours like i've never seen before.
Needless to say they took turns to lock each other inside the "prison".
Yes, this could be a useful place to lock them up when they are naughty ;)
Here's Luna mixing up a few bowls of prison food for Esteban.
They were particularly excited to investigate newly accessible areas, like this 'balcony' which has been claimed as the kid's zone.
Will need to make some shade for them and put up a safety barrier, but this could work.
Behind the chicken house is a steep drop down to an incredibly lush bamboo forest which Esteban had a lot of fun playing in.
I may trim the ivy back some more to reveal the view, which currently includes snow covered mountains above the bamboo forest, an unusual landscape mix.
The seating area is my next focus of attention.
We discovered this lovely collection of hyacinths right at the back, so boarded them off with stones to prevent little feet running on them.
They will be quite amazing in a few weeks i think, with all that glorious scent & colour.
These stones are from a collapsed wall and i have something very special in mind for them which will make this seating area fit perfectly in line with the name of this land, The Spiral Garden.
More about that in a future post!
Have prepared a bed under this small oak tree on the right for pumpkins.
Here it is viewed from the recently created "Empowerment Bed" in which potatoes & sweetcorn are popping up everywhere.
My Steiner based biodynamic calendar says we shouldn't plant sweetcorn directly in the soil till May, yet here we are in April with perfectly happy corn in the first Empowerment circle.
Being that we are in the warmest part of the 11 year solar cycle (the solar maximum) we should not be surprised by the unusually warm Spring. Certainly it has nothing to do with carbon emissions.
All that's left now is to get some chickens. Oh and also some hay and a little chicken food. I say a little because having researched what chickens eat i am very confident now that i can in fact produce most of it from this garden. Worm farm coming soon...
Yes, i was thinking to use my sunken greenhouse as a water storage area in the summer but someone gave us a 300L container recently so am more interested now to convert it to a worm farm.
Not much to do in fact as the deep layer of compost underneath those plants is already full of worms. Just need to keep feeding them the right stuff and not disturb them for six months, before turning it a little and letting the chickens peck around in there each week for some extra protein.
They will actually have a dedicated bed in the garden, where only chicken food will grow, which by the way isn't all that different to human food.
Like us these birds should eat seasonally and i look forward to providing what they need.
Final thoughts
This was an exercise in Co-Creation not only because my family helped out but because the Universe was so evidently involved too.
From my friend in Romania who sent the perfect videos at the perfect moments to a seven year old girl who lives in our village who happened upon my construction last week and informed me that these ivy berries are poisonous for chickens.
I was pondering this problem the following day (having confirmed online that she was in fact 100% correct) when i met an English man who started talking about the old wattle & daub method of house building. Not much different to what i have done here, except that an outer layer of mud is added.
And so, rather than spend an eternity picking all these berries i believe i will cover the inside walls with mud, ultimately making them even more secure.
It was Nicola Tesla who once told us to "Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born" and i resonate deeply with this simple idea. Nature communes with us when our calm & focused vibration permits it and any vibrational distractions which includes the presence of another person, no matter how calm they are, will cut us off from the simplest way to get our answers.
So what i want to say here is that the design came to me during moments of silence. I would just look at the empty space and then let my eyes move around the land, searching for answers. When i felt like i had them i would build the construction in my mind and mentally walk around it, checking integrity. Once i felt happy with the outcome of this mental journey i knew it was ready to build.
Can't tell you how many doubting voices i endured once it had been announced how i was going to do it, but such voices only encourage me in fact, so this was perfect.
And as far as budget is concern i saved a ton of money by using nature and scrap pieces from the forest.
All in all it has been such a pleasure to build this. An obsession even! I could think of nothing else but getting it done as fast as possible so that my children may enjoy a very different kind of Summer to the one we had last year. They don't know this yet but i will also be getting two female rabbits which will live in the enclosure with the chickens. It's a surprise for Esteban's 9th birthday in a week!
Back home life is so rich with colour and activity at the moment i almost feel as if i need another post to describe it all but i leave you now with a few final images, just to give you an idea.
Luna made a lego chicken.
All of us made a bigger home for the double mother kitten situation.
The seven cats seem happy here.
Our courtyard is looking like a plant nursery, bursting with energy.
The jasmine next to our door is in flower, providing one of the most wonderful smells i know of in nature.
The pyramid garden is beyond words at the moment, almost all of this self seeded.
Providing my daily bowl of salad which connects me inside and out to this Great Playground on which we live.
Plus, pea season has begun! Eaten raw these are hands down my favourite fruit/vegetable/seed.
What else can i say really?
Life is so very good 🙏
Love & Light everyone 🌱
This is amazing! Lots of work into making perfect home for the chickens! It’s nice to set in natural surrounding if the garden.
So many things are progressing in your garden.
I hope I would be able to learn from your experiences and examples. I did think about a worm farm long time ago. Hopefully, when I got settled down properly, I could experiment with this idea too.
The children are very exciting with new features in your garden.
Yup, I was thinking the ivy was poisonous too. Mud wall wound do nicely!
You always have solutions coming out of thin air!
Well done for spotting the poisonous ivy. Deep down i think i could feel it but was so busy with everything else i needed the little girl to point it out. The most amazing thing about this story is that the little girl never comes to this garden! She belongs to a Catalan family who don't tend to mix with the English or even the French. So this was the fist time i saw her there. And it would seem she came exclusively to tell me about the berries.
There was more talk of a new piece of land yesterday which is much bigger than the ones i have been showing in my posts. Could this be the place to plant our food forest? Time will tell...
Wow! Another piece of land. People should be planting food for the near future.
I think a big war is coming next year.
I agree.
Amazing work and truly inspiring what you can do when you out your mind to it. Looking forward to your next report.
Thanks for being here with us buddy. Yes, the mind-set is of course the key factor. Good old "Uncle Seb" taught us that one. We are enjoying his latest adventure in NZ.
Greetings @samstonehill ,
This is a book...Smiles...what a lovely record of the process...and is that wheel up in the air....amazing.
I am certain the chickens will love it!
Lovely post...kind regards to your family.
Cheers!
If i were a chicken i think i would love it ;)
I didn't mention in this post but i will also let them wander around the whole garden. Just need to seal off the bamboo jungle area so they don't get lost!
Yes, that is a bicycle wheel supporting the net. I found it in the forest over three years ago and knew it would be useful for something. Just didn't know what till now ;)
All the best!
Thank you for your kind reply.
It is said that geese and or ducks will not tear up the Garden....but chickens will...that being said...once you turn the Vegetable Garden over after production cycle...the chickens will do the rest quite happily...not sure about tomatoes whether they can have those or not...please check.
You also mentioned...
'It was Nicola Tesla who once told us to "Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born" and i resonate deeply with this simple idea.'
Here's one from Einstein...
'The monotny and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.' -Albert Einstein
Also enjoyed seeing the new abode of the cats...and all the pictures of the little ones....thank you.
Cheers!
Here's what my guide has to say about tomatoes.
There is so much to learn suddenly!
Beautiful Einstein quote. Will have to remember that one.
Thank you for sharing 🙏
Can't wait to see some chickens moving into their new home, I hope they'll love it there and lay you loads of eggs.
Are those peas harvested this year already? That's very early 😃
You and me both! Turns out it is not so easy to get an unvaccinated chicken within the EU. New regulations apparently. Trouble is, we want our chickens to be 100% natural, without any pharmaceutical products in their blood! So we are seeking suppliers who are willing to break the rules for us...
They are. We plant them in Oct/Nov and harvest now, through to the end of May. They don't mind freezing temperatures while they grow but they do mind snow, which must be shaken off their leaves. Dwarf peas (which don't need supports) are a different story and should be planted in March/April.
Plus, ours also have electroculture, which helps them start flowering early :)
Wow there is so much happening in your homestead and I love that the whole family is involved and intertwined in every aspect. Amazing and good luck with the seasons of abundance to come!
Just finished building the rabbit house yesterday and we are pretty much all set to go. The forecast says ten days of rain now so i must figure out a way to catch a bunch of it! We have a 300L container but still need to set it up so the rain water flows in...
Many thanks for the good luck wishes. Here's to the seasons of abundance 🙏
That's a great looking enclosure! I would warn you, if the chickens get bored enough, they will learn to peck right through that black mesh and escape.
Appreciate the warning. I will do my best to make sure they don't get bored and observe them to see if they are starting to do this. They will be let out into the main garden every day to run around while we are there so hopefully this will be sufficient.
Interesting, for digging protection you laid chicken wire flat on the ground. Usually i am digging chain link down three feet. Let us know how that works out. Most diggers will probably stop. But one might get lucky to start digging far enough out.
I wish to create chicken paddocks. Areas were you grow things that chickens will eat. You have about 4, and so you rotate your chickens through them so they have enough time to recover.
Always great to see your words under my posts! Many thanks for lending your wisdom & experience to this project.
I was told that foxes can dig to a depth of 50cm and didn't fancy the task of putting the metal grate in vertically, so the horizontal idea is basically down to my laziness. However, i let it go because i find it hard to believe that a fox would be able to dig under from a distance in a single night. And even if it did, then what? The chickens will be safely locked up in their house. As long as i check integrity every morning there will be no easy access for foxes during the periods of the day when we are not there.
Rotating chicken paddocks sounds like an excellent idea. We have three pieces of land on which we could do this but how on earth does one lead chickens from one piece of land to another? A distance of around 100m. I suppose we could carry them if they will let us?
You can build a chicken wire / netting hoop house like tunnel for the chickens.
Also, once you train the chickens, basically, you open the door to the good food, and they will run to it.
You will get your chickens following you around in the morning.
I understand now. A portable enclosure basically. This makes sense. Can't wait to see them following me around in the morning!
Finding unvaccinated chickens is turning out to be quite a test however. Ridiculous world we live in now. Do you have any thoughts on buying vaccinated chickens? (against the flu!)
Swine-Chicken-Flu?
This thing is a "catch-all" word used by the Feds to kill off chickens.
It mostly happens because you raise chickens too tightly together with too many chickens.
And then they PCR test them, and announce, these chickens should all die.
You look for sick chickens in your flock and then isolate them. Being slow/sluggish. Or being picked on by the other birds. Put them in their own cage for a while till better, try to reintroduce to the flock.
wow sam. your process amazes and inspires me so much. i've been away but it's just so good to see you guys are still building with so much heart in everything.
blessings to france!
Welcome back and many thanks for your blessings 🙏
Am pretty sure we will never stop building now we know how much fun it is! The momentum only continues to increase in pace...
i can definitely tell.
well, whenever i look upon all your valuable resources and instructions i shall refer people to where i got it from <3
i never forgot you invited us. i really hope we can invite you guys one day to southern albania.
blessings sam
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