We are so excited to be back in Florida on our two acres and getting ready for my daughter, Bonnie to bring me 26 chickens from her flock.

We spent hours and  hours yesterday tearing down our rotting chicken houses after being away for 27 months caring for my mom in NC.  We hauled five loads to the dump which was over 1000 pounds.

We now need to rebuild chicken fencing and houses.  But, we are excited to get our chickens and feel a need to get it all done.

We use landscape timbers as fence posts.  Yes, they will rot away eventually but on sale they are about 2 bucks and I like the way they fade into the background instead of sticking out like the green metal posts.  As our timbers start to rot at the base, we actually have put the metal posts in between the landscape timbers to hold them up until the timbers go on sale.

We saved all our fencing when we took it down so that will save us money.  When putting the posts up, we use a string or rope to make sure the fence goes up straight.  We put one post up in a corner and then figure out how far out we want the fence to go and put a post in there.  Then we attach a string from one post to the other.  I can eye it pretty good but the string makes it perfect.  We usually put the posts in 8-10 ft apart.

We decided to salvage one of our homemade chicken houses for the bigger chickens but needed another 4×8 sheet of plywood to replace the rotted roof.   Then for the other chicken houses, we have two chain link cages that are 4×8 and one is 4 ft tall and one is 6 ft tall.  Just needed to add a 4×8 sheet of plywood on the top of each.   The cages have a door that can be closed and we can even lock them up at night.   Additionally, we are putting fencing on the ground and sitting the house on top of it so animals cannot dig in while the chickens sleep.

Back to work!