No more chickens ranging free, and no more eggs

I am still struggling with finding a way to fence in the chickens without fencing in their groundhog neighbors, and more importantly, fencing out the fox. 

Before the fence can even be installed or repaired, I need to cut down a whole lot of prickly blackberries—of course at the time when they are just flowering and fruiting and the bees are having a party.

For now, I have secured the fence enough that the rooster and hen seem to have accepted their prison and are not jumping any more. The bottom of the fence and the groundhogs still need to be sorted out before Foxy finds her way back in.

I tried a live trap outside the groundhog escape route, and caught me a nice little skunk instead.

At a loss as to how I can make this all work, I decided to tackle a more solvable problem—getting the young chickens out of the dog crate in the garage. I connected 2 dog crates to give them a little more space, and purchased a small coop connected to a hopefully secure 13-ft fenced enclosure. If I ever do solve the problems with the bigger fence, I can use it later as a grow out pen for youngsters.

And we have some of those too. Broody Hen in the big coop is up to 3 chicks. That may be all she gets, or there could still be a few more. When I get the new baby coop for the teenagers, the new babies and mama can move into the dog crates in the garage.

The saga continues. There is still a really good chance I will give up the fight and sell all my chickens.