The Chicken Carport

Talk of keeping chickens had been in the air for a while. So, after witnessing the apparent ease a fellow gardener had with  keeping three hens, we turned our attention to the purpose in earnest. The chief problem was where to house the birds; we have a large section with plenty of unoccupied space, but due to its slope there are few areas suitable for building a such a structure at reasonable cost. An *apparently* simple solution eventually occurred to me.

Among the various infrastructural elements we inherited upon moving into our Waiheke home was a dilapidated, rat infested carport.  Until recently this entire corner of the property has been neglected  due to over commitment. And also to feelings of dread associated with having to clear away a pile of smashed glass, asbestos sheeting and assorted rusted-out, household detritus mounded up outside the carport's rear. All this wrapped up in an infestation of honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). However, the carport was currently unused/unusable and out the front was a large, flat area suitable for a run. The lower orchard area is also adjacent to the carport so in the long term, with a bit more fencing, the then-hypothetical chickens had a potential empire that encompassed the entire front of the property.

Displaced rubbish. Picture doesn't do the size of the pile justice.
And what the fuck is with the massive, half-buried coil of high
voltage cable (hidden under the black plastic and apples)?

Well, it was time to tackle this mess... a quick clean out, an extra wall and the addition of nest boxes, no worries - we'd have chickens on site within the week. The only issue i could see then that would cause problems was the roofing. Most of the roofing iron (actually mild steel) was rotten, but due to dubious repair efforts conducted by some previous tenant there was plenty of it so i reasoned i could make do with what i had if supplemented with a sheet of corrugated PVC and fibreglass-based ingenuity. That this task remain simple was essential - I'm  a poor builder and almost all of the construction I've been involved in has been temporary and frequently makeshift.

Phase one, the clear-out, went well. I then proceeded to re-do some of the carpentry and re-clad/re-roof an annex-like part of the carport i thought would be an ideal site for the nest boxes.  It was only then that i realised exactly what i had let myself in for. To simply explain the problems i now faced i will  resort to a list.

The person who built the monstrosity (hereafter referred as "The Creator") had:

1. ...NOT constructed a single 45 degree angle throughout the entire carport.
2. ...Frequently failed to drive in nails due to bending. Did The Creator pull the nail and try anew? No, additional failed nails were successively added until the joins resembled misshapen, metallic hedgehogs.
3. Many of the said nails were too long and hence when fully driven protruded dangerously or were hammered over making the process of dismantling extra difficult.
4. ...Fixed beams BETWEEN the studs, not on top of them resulting in inadequate downward transference of the load from the roof  .
5. ...When constructing the roof, reversed the laying of the roofing iron on the slope so that when water ran down the corrugations it went UNDER not onto the following sheet.
6. As a result of 5. water running beneath the roofing had soaked the beams causing them to rot and warp.

Additionally:

1. Timber I had expected to reuse was rotten or so filled borer it was useless.
2. All the studs had rotted through at the base. The entire structure was being supported by a single 45 x 45 cm upright that had both tilted and warped under the weight causing the whole shed to sag to the side.
3. The Creator had neglected to install ANY type of beam above the back wall. With almost every piece of timber in the back wall rotten through the only thing holding it vertical (and the back half of the roof up) was a combination of the cladding and some nails hammered through the roofing iron into a couple of ledgers masquerading as a beam.

Eventually i succeed in rendering the carport functional, and chicken-worthy. I rebuilt the whole structure bit by bit and was forced to shift (=displace) the rubbish pile at the rear in order to re-clad the back wall. This was all achieved thanks some fortuitous, free timber from a construction site, my massive collection of screws garnered from dismantling sets at Circa theatre, and being too stupid/stubborn to admit defeat. Constrained by a minuscule budget for new material (spent mostly on rapid set concrete), i could only work with what ihad. It ain't pretty - but everything is more solid and square than when i started, so i feel that's progress.

It ain't pretty... but its home. The speckled bantam (not sure if it's a small cross-bred
chook or true bantam) in the bottom right corner had a rocky start to life in the flock:
small, old and comparatively different genes - Shaver Browns (the other five hens)
are a notoriously racist breed of chicken.

The carport is now home to six chickens: five Shaver Browns and a smaller bantam-like individual from an unknown lineage. They are a delight, even with their hierarchical, territorial, racist ways. Probably sometimes because of them.

Flies and Pollination

Among the plants i have here at home are several "stapeliads" (scare quotes indicates this is not considered a natural grouping).   *WARNING taxonomy follows* Stapeliads are stem succulents from the Dogbane family (Apocyanaceae) in the Milkweed subfamily (Asclepioideae). The term stapeliad used to refer to species in the former tribe Stapeliae a group that has now been lumped into the tribe Ceropegieae to address the paraphyly of its type genus, Ceropegia. To confuse things even further, this resulted in the creation of the Stapeliinae, a subtribe within the Ceropegieae which includes not only most (all?) former members of Stapeliae, but also Ceropegia. At least this is a brief, ill-informed version, the taxonomy of Ceropegia has been a complicated affair. *taxonomy ends* Stapeliads have highly derived floral morphologies that rival those of orchids. While some Orchid flowers may attract potential pollinators by sexual mimicry (Ophrys species, for example), many stapeliads are sapromyophilous (from Greek sapros rotten + muia fly + philos loving) - using chemical and visual cues the flowers mimic the brood and food sites of carrion/dung flies to attract them as pollinators. This reproductive strategy has also evolved independently in members of another, deeply divergent plant family - the Araceae. Corona of Stapelia schinzii.  The composition of scents produced by sapromyophilous stapeliads is highly diverse. A recent study by Jürgens et al (2006) has classified them broadly into four types: herbivore faeces mimicry, two types of carnivore/omnivore faeces or carcass mimicry and urine mimicry. Furthermore, given that the scent compositions of Araceae pollinated by carrion flies are fitted well by the same model, they argue for a universality to these distinct forms of the syndrome. Stapelia schinzii hails from Namibia and southern Angola. The individual  in my care flowered again just before Easter and i was able to observe interactions between the bloom and visiting flies. When attempting to reach a flower's nectaries or ovideposit on the flower a fly will often catch their proboscis or leg in a groove that has evolved to facilitate such ensnarement. In freeing themselves they dislodge the pollen. This is a common strategy for stapeliads A (possibly) green blowfly (Lucilla sericata) investigating the corona. The hairs are a form of mimetic sculpturing imitating an animal carcass. Sure enough, eggs were deposited... ...and they hatch! Note maggot by outer corona lobe at about 10  O'clock. Reference. Jürgens, A., Dötterl, S. and Meve, U. 2006. The Chemical nature of fetid floral odours in stapeliads (Apocyanaceae-Asclepiadoideae-Ceropegieae). New Phytologist 172: 452–468. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2006.01845.x/full