The chicken pen that we have referred to as the “berry patch” pen was originally constructed as an enclosure to protect strawberries and other delicate plants from birds.
When our efforts to grow strawberries proved futile, we repurposed the enclosure as a chicken pen. It served that purpose quite well for many years, but almost all of the posts rotted away at ground level. Figuring that it would be more difficult to repair than replace, we have salvaged all the useful material from the pen and are building a new one.
I began by pulling out the remaining posts and the wire fence that surrounded the enclosure. The remaining lengths are too short to use as walls for the new pen and the fence material is too distorted for easy use as pen walls. However, the posts and used fence will be quite adequate for use as a perimeter fence around the new pen. I have enough scrap fence left over from other projects to replace the worst sections and make up the difference in perimeter length.
One of my friends gave me miscellaneous parts from some damaged carports a tenant left on his property. The pieces that form the corners are the most valuable pieces to have, because any type of pipe with the proper diameter can be joined to make a new structure.
Many of the straight pieces were bent too much to re-use and some original pieces had been replaced with galvanized water pipe. However, there was enough useful material to build half of a new pen.
To protect the pieces from the elements and to make the structure less visible to the neighbors, I sprayed on a base coat of flat green and flat brown. Each time I sprayed from a different direction I switched colors. The top coat was flat black, applied without much care for uniformity. The final result is that the pieces are a mottled black which does not reflect much sunlight and blends well with the trees in the background.
I think the chickens will appreciate the subtle, unobtrusive style of the pen.
