Ladders

The two spiteful bullies, Milly and Custard,  are put away in the green Cube at night;  Roobarb and Florence, and the two youngsters Lotti and Poppy have the orange Cube.   I watch on the camera every so often, and I can see that Florence and Roobarb make it as awkwards as possible for Lotti and Poppy to get into the Cube in the evening.  I had hoped that the youngsters would get more pushy as they got older, but not so.

When I was deep cleaning the cubes the other day, I realised that part of the problem - only part - is that Lotti has a deformed foot. Her deformed foot doesn't grip or anything.   This makes it difficult for her to make that last jump from the ladder into the inside of the Cube. Not a problem if the entrance is clear, but an extra problem if there is a big fat smug chook in the way.

What she needed was a tiny bit of extra ladder to help. Just at the top.

For the green cube, which we use for chicks as soon as they can go outside,  last year DH made a wooden ladder which goes from the floor to the top rung, with the rungs having a smaller spacing than is standard for the Cube.  This makes it easier for chicky legs to run up and down it. 

LottiLadder - rungs to entrance

Today DH built me a Lotti Ladder.  It goes right to the top, way above the original ladder. It also extends below it, but that's not necessary because the Girls tend to fly part way up anyway. We tested it with Lotti and the spacing makes it easy for her to hop from rung to rung.

Chicks - floor to top rung-close spaced

Here's DH's chick ladder for comparison. We didn't bother taking it off when we parked the Cube for the Autumn, because at that point we didn't know that (a) Tilda was going to need her own run and (b) that we would be separating out the bullies at night.

One of the ladies on the Omlet forum posted a pic of a mezzanine they had built for their ladies,  and we're going to do that too.  However, I want to wait for a week.  If we put the mezzanine in too soon, then the youngsters will probably sleep out there because it's easier than battling to get in.

Click on photos for larger version.

Fingers crossed for this evening's performance.