If you read my first blog you might remember I’ve not had any livestock on Smithy Brook since the end of 2018. A lack of time to properly care for them during a very busy year downsizing my business being the reason we decided to have a year off. It is also the case that most of the fencing around the poultry pens – necessary to keep Mr Fox at bay – was in need of replacement and much of the housing was in need of repair. A few weeks ago I dismantled all of the old fencing from the pens, put aside the mesh panels and we are now ready to start rebuilding. The new pens will be in different locations further down the field and will be built later in the summer.
I have however very much missed having the birds around. This week with the weather improving and a little time on my hands I decided to repair the roof on our smallest hut with the intention of getting started with a few Welsummer’s as soon as possible.
Our smallest hut was also the first one we ever bought. It’s a lovely little unit with housing for around 12 birds with a built in enclosure. We’ve always had it further enclosed within a fenced run area so birds had loads of extra outside space during the day but it is perfectly adequate without this and my plan is to get it sorted out and start again with a dozen birds.
The main problem was the Onduline roofing sheets were holed letting in water. These sheets are used a lot in poultry housing and are good but with limitations. A tar based product they do have a tendency to get very pliable and soft when hot in the summer. We had unfortunately let leaf fall from overhead trees build up on the roof last spring. When the roof panels got hot in the summer they then bowed under the weight of the debris on the roof. Those bows then collect water making the debris even heavier and during the next hot spell the bowing gets much worse until the roof panel starts to give way creating holes. I’ve experienced this on several buildings over the years and should have learned by now to get the leaves off quickly but it always seems to be one of those jobs that doesn’t get done when we’ve been under massive pressure at work. Hopefully our downsized business will prevent us getting to this stage again in the future.
Having done a little shopping around to see if there was a readily available alternative to Onduline I drew a blank locally and so went ahead and bought three fresh sheets from our nearest Wickes in Dewsbury. The sheets were on special offer at £13.00 per sheet reduced from £17.00. I was hoping they would sell some kind of matching Onduline ridge tile but couldn’t find anything suitable. I would have to just hope I could re-use the existing ones. A bag of special Onduline roof nails was £16.00 per bag which I thought was a bit excessive so I decided to try and re-use the existing nails too.
Stripping the old roof wasn’t too much of a job as it had deteriorated quite badly and tore off quite easily. I managed to recover the majority of the old Onduline nails with a claw hammer only snapping one or two.
Fitting the new sheets is quite an easy task. The sheets were cut with an old panel saw. The tar does tend to block up the teeth on the saw so if you’re using a good one be prepared to spend some time cleaning it afterwards. Mine was old and rusty so it was dismantled and recycle binned after the job was complete. The sheets are simply laid in place, overlapping by at least one corrugation and nailed in place with the rubber capped nails. The nails are put through the top of the corrugations rather than the valley (as the water runs down the valley) to minimise leaks.
I was hoping to re-use the Onduline ridge sheets I had removed from the old roof but these had deteriorated far too much and fell to pieces on removal. I was left scratching my head for a while until I spotted some old guttering I had removed from a clients site the previous week (fly tipping) that was waiting to go to the tip. There were two short lengths but upturned and overlapped they made a very tidy ridge tile. I had to add some extra timber to the underside of the ridge to screw into but after this they were quickly secured with half a dozen long screws.
All in all a very tidy job for a couple of hours work and a total of £39.00 spent.
My Welsummer’s however are going to have to wait. I had located some point of lay pullets in York and was all set to go collect them when Boris announced the travel ban. Damn. Just when having my own supply of eggs would have been a Godsend….
