IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE CRUD but I really don't care

Tubby's Coop - ugly but keeping them dry and happy.  Better put that ladder away.

Well, they say necessity is the mother of invention.  Didn't invent anything but - every winter it's the same thing - I cannot get the coop areas weather "proofed" until there's a massive rain storm with snow on the way - LOL!  Today it was NECESSARY.  Hey, it might look like crud but I really don't care - just as long as my chicken kids have a dry safe place out of the elements!  Technically, I would have worked on this yesterday with the 50 degree dry weather, but what fun would that be??  Seriously though, I've been sick for a couple days and didn't have the energy.

The rain over night and this morning was a lot.  I never notice how sloped our property is till there's all that water - at least our house is at the top - it just all runs down back.  If I'd quit changing things in the chicken yards I would have a system in place for weather; however, I can't sit still - therefore, nothing ever gets completely done.  The big house in Crockett's yard is fine they have a permanent shelter off their house.  I'm still working on the big house in Tubby's yard - they need a little more of a partial enclosure.  I have a small, no longer being used, coop under that porch that I needed to move before now.  That would make it easier to tarp the whole porch.  I'll do that on another day.  Also, in Crockett's yard, this year I have two bachelor roosters in their own little coop - it's next to the small green house that's now used as shelter for chickens.  I thought that would be enough but it needed a little more weather diversion as well.  The boys are good though, they only sleep in there, then during the day they hang out by the big house.

No matter how much area you give the chickens they still just decimate the areas surrounding the main coops.  Crockett's crew are fenced on about an 1/8 of an acre, and Tubby's crew is free to roam the entire 3 acres, if they choose.  It's just the coop areas that are a muddy nightmare.

So today, in the blowing rain and, sometimes sleet, I was tarping and making bridges and diverting water with dams.  I'm always happy with the snow, much easier to deal with.  Someone on a chicken FB group, looking for ideas for their run, said that not only is the ground in their run now complete mud, the chicken poop makes it its own "special kind of mud" - blech!  LOL - I truly understand that, but I'm glad that my kids are not confined to "special mud" - it's just outside their doors.  Slowly but surely I've been taking bags of gravel back to the houses.  I did that with the original coop and the ground isn't soupy there any more.  Over the years, the gravel mixed in with the dirt, making things more solid.

Crockett's Yard with the Bachelor Coop and tarped greenhouse

Anyway....the yard and coops look like crap again but the weather is being diverted.  Tarps, old window panes, and bungee cords are my friends.  Pretty Spring days will be here before we know it.

Ahhh...there's the snow now...