Cut it, better bonding
So I pulled the access panel in the garage where I had run a long section of cat 5 cable to the office when the house was built. In the back of my mind I sort of recalled that I redeployed that cable awhile ago. When I saw the cut wire in there it refreshed my memory. Quite a few years ago I needed to get a second hard line ethernet connection into the bedroom for whatever AV arrangement I had at the time. In order to do it I cannibalized that line and rerouted it to the bedroom.
Well I no longer require two hard lines in the bedroom thanks to the advent of much faster wi-fi technology over the years. My idea is to utilize the wire that runs next to our bed and connect it to a 200 foot bury rated ethernet cable. It will go through the attic, into the garage, out the access hole used for phone, satellite and cable wires. From there it will get routed around the perimeter of the house, through the yard, and into the coop through the hole I cut for power. If I am successful getting a live hard line into the coop it allows for many options with chicken surveillance in the future.
Of course this plan is all speculative. It is going to require traversing the very hot and unfriendly attic space. Cindy has already volunteered her services for this part of the project but since I know the layout I expect I will be the one crawling around up there. Getting the cable into the ground won’t be much fun either although I plan to just lay the cable under the weed block around the pool for a good portion of the run. The rest will be pushed into a small slice I put in the ground with my hand edging tool.
Last night the chickens did a better job of putting themselves to bed, well all of them but one, Jaina, the HUGE cornish hen. The other 10 babies were all content inside the coop perching while Jaina, who is literally double the size of the other chicks, was wondering around under the coop deck making a noise that sounded much more like a goose than a chicken. Jaina gets very upset when she is alone.
After some patient waiting she eventually came out from under the deck which allowed Cindy to grab her and put her in the chicken door. Once she was inside she was still carrying on. The first night they were in the coop Kristen stayed down on the ground with Jaina. Last night Kristen was up top perching with the others and Jaina was upset about that too. She was walking circles looking up at the other chickens, acting like she either wanted to be up there or she wanted them to come down to her.
I suggested we try putting Jaina on the middle perch which is bigger. Because of her size and weight Jaina doesn’t really like to perch. We tried it anyway. Jaina stayed there for a minute or two until she fell down. Cindy put one of the nesting boxes down on the ground for Jaina to use as a bed. She eventually took the hint and settled down in there. The 13 chicks seemed to do fine through the night. Things were less crazy because Lucy decided she wasn’t going to use the perch last night.