Avian flu

[Chasingsquirrels]

I've now got a permanent enclosed set up and have today closed the greenhouse doors to the outside.

2 x greenhouses, glass roof, glass front & back - against the garage anyway, and wire mesh sides.
Greenhouses were both free off a local selling page, and DP had the wire mesh already so the set up didn't cost me anything.

Hens are fine in there, plenty of light & fresh air, but dry and no exposure to wild birds. They still all just stood there clucking at me in disapproval when I shut the doors though.

Great set up! We haven’t had the order yet in Scotland but going to sort it out this weekend as only a matter of time.

I'm in Cambridgeshire just outside an area that already had measures, so I'd been thinking about shutting them in anyway, and with the announcement of housing measures from Monday I decided to do it now.

So much better than the temporary shelter I had a couple of years ago, which involved a big tarp and some trellis. Tarp blew off in bad weather and the whole area was just horrible. DP has been bringing over bags of chippings from some bushes he's been cutting down so the ground covering has a bit of interest going on for them as well.

Thankfully we bought a giant enclosure for ours earlier in the year in anticipation of our extension work starting this winter, and put it all up so the girls were sin binned when we were on holiday. Today we fitted the cover over the roof, so apart from them being incredibly indignant about not free ranging as normal, all is good. My neighbour has promised deliveries of slugs from her garden to keep them going

Sounds good CMOTDibbler, mine were very indignant too - despite them spending most of their time in the greenhouses anyway because of the rain!

I am just wandering how enclosed is enclosed?
news keeps reporting about being indoors, but we don;t have an indoors option.

We have an enclosure, about the size of your 2 green houses.
They have fox proof mesh on all sides plus roof. We have plastic sheeting over the roof.
That is the best I can do.
They have actually been in here since last Christmas, we had to stop free ranging as the foxes got so bad.

It isn't great. It makes me sad as I loved them pottering roudn the bushes in their corner of the garden.
And it gets really muddy.
I have put down a load of wood chip underfoot, but it got muddy surprisingly quickly given that it is pretty much not getting any rain in.

Nice setup OP!

@steppemum I think as long as there's a roof it counts as enclosed. We have a run with a roof that's half tarpaulin and half mesh and that's ok I think. No wild birds could get in because the mesh is too small. My girls haven't stopped shouting at me every time I go into the garden though, because they want me to come and let them out to rustle and roam . They don't shout at any of the rest of the family though which is typical!

I think that sounds fine steppemum