Ratproofing and beyond

Here we see the fruits of Sunday Morning.

The ladies examine the fortifications assembled on their side of the fence.

The other side of the fence was a maze of tunnels under the black matting, so I dug them over , replaced the matting and blocked the probable entrance holes with lumps of concrete off the floor.

It looked like the rats HQ was under our neighbours shed at the back of the orchard area,  so i repeated the digging and concrete exercise.

I hope that these few fortifications will prevent further attempts at ingress from the fox / rats...

On a more pleasant tone, I also turned over part of the ground where the pile of tree bits was..

Thus exposing worms to the sky ( and the chickens !)

The new ladies seemed perplexed at these strange things and declined the morsels on offer.. no such problem for the established  members:)

despite the worm "falling" in front of them, they didn't know what to do and wandered off  to enjoy a leisurely dust bath and discuss the actions of the mad man with the spade !

perhaps we need to offer a practical course in worm hunting for beginners

Close Encounters of the Foxy kind

T'was a (very) cold and frosty morning when your intrepid reporter set out to release the Ladies into the snow..

There was a lot of noise coming from the coop as I approached - they were obviously keen to continue their synchronous skating routines ready to perform for us later...

However, As I went to open the inner barrier, I noticed evidence of an attempt to tunnel under it

The photo shows the line of the fence and the attempt to dig under neath.
A closer inspection of the perimeter identified the incursion entry point- the same site as previous attempts.

Here you can see that the wooden stakes that we drove in to block a previous attack had been pushed aside and there was a nice fox 9or chicken) sized hole in the fence.
The ground was frozen solid except here, so it seems to have been an early morning raid..
I replaced the stakes and bolstered the defenses with a paving slab too, which should hold out until the ground thaws enough to enable us to dig in a section of tin fencing to prevent further incursions.

Thanks to whoever locked up last night for ensuring that all the ladies were double protected with that inner barrier!
On  a more practical matter, all water containers were completely frozen solid!
Due to time restrictions ( ie having to go back and act as Dad's Taxi!) I was only able to use a flask of hot water I had brought with me to defrost the water in the drinking receptacles of the new waterers, but the ladies seemed happy with that!
Does anyone have unfroze water containers that could be used to ferry a supply up for the weekend?