The Great Coop War

Last week Troy send me an article from The Babylon Bee which he found hilarious and which I found embarrassing. It felt....a little too close to home to be free of guilt on my end. I absolutely love having chickens. And man have those chickens cost us some time and effort and funds. But I swear I help out as much as I can! Troy laughed and laughed at this article. I just giggled and felt sheepish.

In that vein, the coop required some extra attention this spring. When we first built, we were so excited to find a way to make it rodent-proof. We really buried our foundation bricks deep and made sure nothing above ground had a space big enough for a teeny rodent to squeeze through. I guess it took the varmint community about six years to figure out how to dig below the cinder blocks. It was so frustrating to see the holes dug inside and outside of the coop, and catch sight of the big nasty rats darting in and out, gorging themselves on chicken food. We got pretty good at setting traps just so and baiting them just right, but they started to avoid those after we caught a fair number. Ick. It was so gross! 

It got so bad that one corner of the coop actually started to sink into the ground and the door wouldn't close properly. That was enough. Troy made a plan and I helped all I could to carry it out. We dug under the sinking corner and figured out a way to jack it up and re-support it. The door was magically fixed! We dug all around the exposed sides of the coop and attached hardware cloth to the foundation and sloped it into the ground for 2 ft and re-buried it. We noticed spots where the rats were trying to dig back in and it was just heartwarming to see that they couldn't. HAHAHA we win.

Since then the coop has been rodent-free again. Take that, you gross little beasts. We're keeping our eye out though for signs of additional attempts which will probably happen at some point. Piles of chicken food are just too tempting I guess. My brain keep picturing the rats having a committee meeting, planning the tactics of then next raid. Not if we can help it!