As dedicated DIYers my husband and I have accumulated a collection of random concrete blocks in different sizes, concrete pavers, and bricks that I used both for my in-town flock and my new, country property chickens.
First thing in their life-cycle, concrete papers under the chicks’ feeder and waterer. This gave me a solid, stable surface to set them on that would absorb drips, rise with the increasing height of the deep bedding, and limit the chicks’ ability to kick shavings into their food and water.
As they grew, I used bricks on top of the pavers to raise the feeder and waterer to the appropriate height with the pavers providing a solid, level surface to keep the structure stable.
Though I have shifted to a hanging feeder, the waterers are still sitting on stacks of blocks and bricks to keep up with the chicks’ rapid growth. Also, because the 10-week-old Wyandottes are so much smaller than their Brahma and Australorp sisters, I had a brick next to the waterer for them to stand on for a while.
A block or paver skirt around the coop and run is not as good as a wire skirt for preventing predators from digging, but it does provide a useful, hard edge for weed-whacking or mowing (depending on how high you set them), and can help retain bedding inside the wire.
They’re also useful for blocking potential escape holes where fencing, permanent or mobile, doesn’t adequately conform to the surface of the ground and/or where the chickens themselves have been digging against the fence from the inside.
Likewise, a block or paver can be set at the end of the ramp, just inside the human-door, or anywhere else that daily wear has created a low spot and thus a potential mudhole. It’s not a substitute for adequate thickness of an appropriate bedding, but an adjunct to it in those places where, no matter how often you put bedding down, you still have a hole.
Finally, they’re extremely useful for creating mobile run furniture. By making my in-run structures from blocks, bricks, and pavers along with pallets and random boards I can easily put them into my garden cart and rebuild after I move the electric netting instead of needing multiple people to move larger structures that don’t break down.
Here are a few of those structures:
Hawk Shelter/Shade Structure (with Pallet):
You can’t get any simpler than setting a pallet up on blocks, but it provides shade, a place to hide from aerial predators, and a structure to stand on when so inclined.
Adjustable-Height Perch (with branch or board):
Because they outgrew their “training perch” after a month or so. To make it higher when they're full grown I'll set the blocks up on more blocks.
I added on to this and made a playgym, because preventing boredom and providing line-of-sight obstacles improves flock dynamics. (Mrs. K’s Cluttered Run Thread here.)
Safety Wall (to keep young chicks from going where I couldn’t get to them before they learned to go into the coop at night):
I could take it down now, but since the understructure of this coop is in poor condition I left it there.
You can see that a dozen or two pieces of random masonry are almost infinitely useful in the coop and run.
First thing in their life-cycle, concrete papers under the chicks’ feeder and waterer. This gave me a solid, stable surface to set them on that would absorb drips, rise with the increasing height of the deep bedding, and limit the chicks’ ability to kick shavings into their food and water.
As they grew, I used bricks on top of the pavers to raise the feeder and waterer to the appropriate height with the pavers providing a solid, level surface to keep the structure stable.
Though I have shifted to a hanging feeder, the waterers are still sitting on stacks of blocks and bricks to keep up with the chicks’ rapid growth. Also, because the 10-week-old Wyandottes are so much smaller than their Brahma and Australorp sisters, I had a brick next to the waterer for them to stand on for a while.
A block or paver skirt around the coop and run is not as good as a wire skirt for preventing predators from digging, but it does provide a useful, hard edge for weed-whacking or mowing (depending on how high you set them), and can help retain bedding inside the wire.
They’re also useful for blocking potential escape holes where fencing, permanent or mobile, doesn’t adequately conform to the surface of the ground and/or where the chickens themselves have been digging against the fence from the inside.
Likewise, a block or paver can be set at the end of the ramp, just inside the human-door, or anywhere else that daily wear has created a low spot and thus a potential mudhole. It’s not a substitute for adequate thickness of an appropriate bedding, but an adjunct to it in those places where, no matter how often you put bedding down, you still have a hole.
Finally, they’re extremely useful for creating mobile run furniture. By making my in-run structures from blocks, bricks, and pavers along with pallets and random boards I can easily put them into my garden cart and rebuild after I move the electric netting instead of needing multiple people to move larger structures that don’t break down.
Here are a few of those structures:
Hawk Shelter/Shade Structure (with Pallet):
You can’t get any simpler than setting a pallet up on blocks, but it provides shade, a place to hide from aerial predators, and a structure to stand on when so inclined.
Adjustable-Height Perch (with branch or board):
Because they outgrew their “training perch” after a month or so. To make it higher when they're full grown I'll set the blocks up on more blocks.
I added on to this and made a playgym, because preventing boredom and providing line-of-sight obstacles improves flock dynamics. (Mrs. K’s Cluttered Run Thread here.)
Safety Wall (to keep young chicks from going where I couldn’t get to them before they learned to go into the coop at night):
I could take it down now, but since the understructure of this coop is in poor condition I left it there.
You can see that a dozen or two pieces of random masonry are almost infinitely useful in the coop and run.
