The Turkey Ark

 I wanted to show you the shelter my amazing husband built for the turkeys.

He mostly used materials he had on hand, because we’re really tired of spending more on animal housing than we do on maintaining our own, so “cheap” was the operative word. He screened the sides with 1″ poultry wire, built roosts for the turkeys, put in two doors – one for the turkeys to get in and out and one for us to access their food and water. It’s gorgeous! When he finished building it, we thought it looked ark-like, hence the name – the Turkey Ark.  We The Builder and the middles dragged it out to the field, came back for the turkeys and put them in their new home, safe and secure. That was Saturday.

Perhaps we should have called it the Turkey Titanic. Because sometime between Monday night and Tuesday morning a weasel found our Ark. Unfortunately, the weasel also found our turkeys. When I went to check on them Tuesday morning we were down by two. So The Builder stopped by the hardware store for reinforcements. (So much for keeping it cheap!) He picked up hardware cloth to reinforce the sides and the bottom of the Ark and ended up spending the whole evening working on it with Josh’s assistance. He basically ended up re-framing the whole thing, placing the hardware cloth (which is supposed to be weasel proof) over top of the poultry wire, then lifting the whole thing and covering the bottom as well. The hardware cloth wasn’t large enough to reach all the way around the bottom, so he overlapped it and anchored it in place with some pretty large rocks until he can “stitch” the opening closed. 

I think the remodel was successful, because this morning all 9 turkeys were still there, alive and well. While I did some work in the garden I let them out to free-range. They were hesitant at first (do you blame them?), but they seemed to enjoy the freedom.