My grandpa swore by this type of fence. He said money was hard to come by during the depression and metal was rationed during the war and on the farm there were lots of scrub trees to use...and they were free

So if that's just a really big chicken basket, does that mean when the chickens lay eggs, all your eggs will be in one basket?

I know of a fellow who built a wattle fence and used green willow for the uprights. They rooted and grew. Amazing.

Coppicing is a long lost art and was vital for thousands of years for building and making so many things. Great to see it in use.

Chickens? Chickens! They are great to have on a farm. Chickens eat pretty much everything, and besides meat and eggs they produce valuable fertilizer that you can use in vegetable garden. However, Jon! Since you are adding livestock, you should think about ways to preserve the produce. With winter coming, building an ice house to store meat, dairy and eggs would be a good idea. If you manage to finish it before winter, you can make a stockpile of ice for next summer. Building the ice house, filling it with ice from the lake, then showing how to preserve food inside would make for an excellent, informative mini-arc for Homestead videos. Also, with ice house on hand you can make homemade ice cream! 😍

As an southeast Asian, I'm pretty jealous that they can do this, every tree in my country is full with fly and ant that fight back, it's not pleasant thing when you try taking down the bush, good video 😂

A few years back, I build a fence just like this around my fire pit - it really helps keep the heat in on cold nights, and is still in good condition. I used alder that grows back. When the fence needs work, I will use what grew back from the original root system. If you have hawks active in the area, you may want to string up some rope or twine across the top of the enclosure to make it harder for them to get the the chickens. The addition of a rooster will also provide some extra defense if a hawk does come visiting.

Who does this music? It is outstanding! Here in Virginia (and many places in the South) a willow branch will root and grow if inserted into the soil and kept wet enough (summer rain is often enough) and the wattle fence willow "posts" will grow and eventually have to be thinned, which can be used to replace older horizontal wattle stands.

I like how the chicken at the end matched Jon's shirt.

Reminds me of the Tudor Monastery series when Tom and Peter had to build fencing for their pigs.

So much cozier feeling than chicken wire. Looks like home! Great job.

I was out walking today and noticed a bumper crop of hickory nuts around. It brought to mind a possibility for a subject for your channel. Pawcohiccora is a porridge made from hickory nuts by the Algonquin Indians.

There's a house near my son's old school that has a lovely wattle fence sectioning off the part of the front yard closest to the house from the rest. It has an archway with a gate all made from more wattling. I will sometimes go out of my way to go past it. And that was a very nice little Barred Rock pullet sitting on your lap at the end, Jon. I love the gentle chirps the younglings make.

An interesting thing is oaks will do what ash would. In Japan, they have a practice of harvesting oak, where they leave an oak stump handy for a few years, then cut down what sprouts from it.

This might be a bit anecdotal, but from where my farming family came from in Southern England, the woven mobile panels used for livestock pens were called "Waddles". When they came to Australia in the late eighteenth century, they constructed them from the local trees that we know call Wattyls (Acacia). Might be a coincidence, but a Waddle and a Wattyl sound pretty similar.

Our kids just finished their second year raising chickens for 4-h.

In Northern VA we have this “devil” of a tree called the locust. When young it has great thorns and it’s flexible. Somewhat. Good for fencing if you want but mostly it’s annoying. Once grown and matured it virtually indestructible. Black locust for fence posts will outlast a generation I think.

I got backyard chickens during the first Covid lockdown and now I'm obsessed. I was recently telling someone my fantasy job would be a chicken history interpreter at someplace like Colonial Williamsburg. And then Iearned that's actually a real job. I need to move to VA.

You are giving us a blueprint for going off grid and surviving what is to come , thank uou.

If I may make a suggestion. When making the point, try holding the post at an angle, and swinging the axe straight up and down. I think you will have fewer glancing blows that way.

Oh My Gosh, John looks SO CUTE with that little gray bird sitting on his knee! Just so adorable!

Making a really really big chicken basket. The only time I've heard of chickens and baskets is when they're cooked and served in a basket with chips (French fries for the American viewers).

Love how your homestead is coming together. Life was much harder back then but I believe it was much simpler. After all the crazy hub bub of life now your programs always make me homesick for a simpler life, even if the work was harder. Thank you for the peace your programs bring. God Bless you and all your help.❤🇺🇸❤🇺🇸❤

You guys are really blessed with a great property. So fun to watch you add on capability to your homestead. I can't imagine the behind the scenes issues you had to deal with -- building permits? Safety inspections? Another superbly made, entertaining and educational video. THANK YOU!!!

Seems like you have additional hands on the homestead that are appearing more regularly. I hope for more character development in the future :)

I'm not so sure this is great for chickens. Maybe pigs or something of that nature. My chickens flew 8 feet straight up into the rafters of their coop to sleep at night, certainly would have no trouble hopping a fence. Plus, they reliably return to a coop to sleep if left free to wander. Predators are going to be a problem also. I had to bury chicken wire 12" underground to stop raccoons from digging in. They would kill a dozen chickens in a night when they had the chance. Wouldn't even eat them, just kill as many as they could. Looks like you have a box there to lock them in at night which is good. I don't know how you would protect them at night in a period accurate way except to have a guard dog. I'd be interested if they used other techniques.

Would be nice to see it taken next level with some mulberry trees planted around to give the chickens free forage.

I made my deer blind last year by building it as a wattle type fence, but I put the branches closer together to make it harder to see through and then I used pine boughs to fill in for concealment so you couldn't see into it at all. It worked very well and didn't cost me a dime because I had to cut the brush down anyway to see where I wanted to hunt on the property.

Wood for bows back in England was farmed by coppicing trees so they create huge thickets of straight branches. There was a tremendous amount of forest management that took place during the Middle Ages because of how valuable the resources in them was to life back then.

Something I love about wattle and other sorts of similar material is how universal it is in places where the local flora support it. The site of a chicken coop with a wattle fence could be just as familiar to say a Norse settler in Yorkshire as a British settler in the new world, or even an iron age farmer in their hillfort.

So soothing to watch. So much knowledge of nature

Coppicing is a very ancient practice, and one that we should all look into bringing back where we can. As shown here, the wood produced is a great resource. In Europe before "the war", woodsmen tended the wild places not because they were "environmentalists" but because the woods provided gobs of materials that were used to make things for the homes around the woods. Bodgers were men who'd go out, cut wood, and turn it into bowls, troughs, buckets, chairs, cabinets, fences, hurdles, etc. In short, it was local craftsmen providing goods and services for local customers. And that's what built great communities that had a culture specific to their location. People drove the Bodgers out, basically, because they didn't think about the 2nd Order Effects of decisions they made - like supporting a new tax or regulation. Folks didn't think about how those things impact the small businesses, always adding up and driving up the costs of doing business. Today, coppicing and pollarding is still done, but not on the scale it used to be. The result is that our wild lands are in worse health and prone to disease. Using the wood for more than fires in the winter is critical to bringing back the healthy status of the property, and often that means we have to go the "harder" way of doing something. Putting up some mass-produced wire fencing might seem cheaper and easier, but the 2nd Order Effects are costly, indeed! Plus, the woven fence adds character and a rugged elegance to the property. I'd encourage folks to look up "bodger" on instagram or here on youtube to get a sense of just what beauty can be brought to the world with simple tools and a bit of generational knowledge.

I've seen these built in Europe, as well as living walls\property boundaries built using young trees. Really interesting how well it works.

So much work went into this, it’s amazing to see the passion you have.

Petition for chicken Livestream! Love your content Townsends your whole team is top notch!

I love your outfit! You could wear that today and be stylish as heck.

Why did the chicken cross the Townsends' homestead? To get to the nutmeg side.

I've heard of wattle and daub but not just wattle lol, I made a wind block in same design at my lean to at 1812

Chickens are a daily activity. You gotta periodically remove waste from the pen, collect eggs, feed and water (more in winter bc the water will freeze over), protect them from predators, and let them out to pick for bugs (they’ll go nuts if they see an earthworm), and herd them back up into the pen to roost. They’re a lot of fun.

That's a mighty fine chicken basket y'all have there.

Good afternoon from Syracuse NY everyone thank you for sharing living history

That's an awesome looking giant chicken basket. Simply Gorgeous. ❤❤❤❤❤

A very satisfying fence built. Looks great, too...

Livestock you say!? What about bees!? Fun fact we bought some knives from you for our kitchen and our sharpening guy loves them!! Fabulous fence. The chickens have a beautiful home. Nice woof too!

Watching all these videos for my eventual homestead in the remote wilderness. Very insightful, even able to recreate smaller versions in my living room.

Guinea fowl help keep the ticks away. Ducks for the garden bugs. A chicken can lay an egg a day. Very handy animals.

I bet a ton of preppers have joined this channel in the last 2 years, a lot of skills ppl may need in future.

My daughter keeps chickens. She finds they need protection from above because of predators. The hen house is not enough. It does need to be the whole area, but enough to make things easier for them to hide.

How many man hours went in to that shelter? Willow and mulberry coppices with the leaves being fed as fodder.

Really like this one. I love chickens and miss keeping some. The last coop I built had a small "chicken" gate that could be opened into the garden. Great for having the birds keep the insect pests down. You've never seen violence, I hope, like that of several hens going after tomato hornworms. Wow. But you do have to keep an eye on them. After they have exhausted the bug population they go after your veggies and you have to push them out of the garden. Back to egg laying!

I have made some amazing things with weaping willow branches. They are the trees that never stop giving.

Thank you for sharing. Love learning about how people lived in the past. Would you consider doing a video on how people fed their livestock in the 18th century?

Add mud, and a roof, and you have an even older Mud and wattle hut, from way earlier in man's history. Nice enclosure. Likely just as good as a chicken wire fence, with a lower cost. And if you need to stop (Or at least slow down) a North wind, or something, adding some mud mixed with straw, or cow manure (Or, both) to the walls on the side that stops the wind, you could do so easily. You could also add a lean to shade if needed, to block the heat of the afternoon sun, using the same materials. Farming, like soldiering, means "always upgrading what you have, to improve your position".

As a life-long chicken keeper, this really intrigues me! I have to do this sometime! The chicken house is just about the same proportions as the one I built in my back yard, 6' wide x 8' long, 8' high on one side and 4' high on the other. I would close in around the bottom of the coop though. Knowing chickens, they'll figure out a way to go under there... and then you'll wonder why they aren't laying as many eggs as they used to. And you can't get under there to get the eggs!

If you had poplar in your area, I would imagine that that would work out well for fencing material for the chickens. This was another awesome video. Cheers! ✌️

Black locust wood posts are what my grandfather used. They resist rotting and last forever, are a hard wood that grows quickly. Great for erosion control. And permaculture for revitalizing land. The black willow can be cut to grow dense coppices for the wattle the bark has the same base as used in aspirin and makes excellent charcoal for black powder for your flintlocks.

I still remember seeing these wattle fences here in the Ozarks when I was a kid..

That's a nice fence. My wife and I built garden beds out of broadleaf maple chutes the same way. Never occurred to me it could be scaled up to make a fence.

That is amazing. Well done, sir.

Loved the opening shot panning around all the projects, looked great.

I love how many useful prepping projects come from your channel ❤️ This is definitely something worth taking note of!!

this channel is my happy place singled to have found it

So much hard work! I appreciate your dedication to sharing this time of life.

Was great to see overall view of the homestead and know how various episodes fit into the big picture. Love the 'behind the scenes' videos. Thank you!

In case anyone is wondering, Chicken Wire was invented in the early 1840s. Using "wattle" for structures dates back since the beginning of recorded human history. By the 18th century there were dozens of different chicken coop designs, including ones suspended from the ground (which look weird). But nothing really replaced the wattle fence concept until chicken wire, once the stuff started being mass produced in England. Wattle was used for building homes (walls), as well as erosion control and even ground leveling (including for early radar systems in WWII). Not bad for some little sticks.

I have been waiting to learn about this area. Thank you. I look forward to more.

Here is a video idea. You should talk about the prosthetics that the people used during that time and maybe make some of your own with your tools.

Looks fantastic! Love watching the homestead come together. Those chickens 🐓 are pretty lucky 🍀

Love the videos from the homestead. Need more!

It looks like you are holding a Dominique Chicken, in the thumbnail. Great breed of chicken. Oldest breed in America, very docile, great forager, dual purpose. I have 7 of them.👍😁

Living the dream, brother! May God keep blessing you and your family for your hard work.

Experience has taught me that water moccasin's love willow, to climb up into and hang over water...ugh!!

Thanks for the video, always enjoy watching!

I've been wanting to do wattle fencing for our garden and around our trees. Thank you for showing what type of trees are good to use. The homestead is shaping up nicely. I can't wait to see what you guys do next.

As always another great video always happy to see what’s happening on the homestead

Absolutely love your channel. Definitely watching more videos

My property is being taken over by cedar trees and I'm glad I found a use besides firewood

That is something I'd like to make for my garden! Love the chickens too

When we were working on the attic of a log cabin from the 1800's (they slid it up a hill for the main part of the house and built onto it from there), We started taking off the interior 'stucco' on the walls to find they'd crisscrossed willows (lattice) and just applied the stucco material over that and painted and wallpapered over it. It was a dusty mess to take out, but we got it done. You build with what you have. It took a lot of work to rid the ditch-banks of the willows, in order to get the irrigation water flowing freely again.

That chicken in your knee at the end felt so at home and comfy with you she just decided that was a good place to be for a few minutes

Great video, great channel. Love the old ways. Keep it coming.

I build a small - knee high fence to keep ducks out of the vege patch last summer. Used oak of all things for posts and nearby roadside thicket had long straight thin oak. Then whatever I could find for the weaving. Fortunately some hazels at my place could be thinned, but also used water shoots from plums, quinces and other fruit trees, and collected a bunch of alder wood from a nearby river verge. It is intuitive and highly enjoyable. Love how it curves and makes natural shapes easily.

That is so cool. I have wanted to do a wattle fence as screen for years on part of our backyard... now i just might!

YES I WAS SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SOMETHING LIKE THIS

This is still done in parts of the uk, we use living hazel and lay it over and get a living hedge, it’s all done with willow and hawthorn.

I can't wait to see what you do with this homestead. I have seen this type of fence years ago

ive always wanted to put a fence like this up before, but i was always kind of intimidated by the idea...but seeing you do it, made me realize its actually a fairly simple process. thank you

the chicken at the end was a very nice touch.

Great job Jon and crew. I sure the chickens will be very happy. 🐓🐔🐥🐤

I grew up on a small holding poultry farm, about 50 laying hens at the best of times. What a fantastic episode to watch and reminiscence over dinner with. Thanks

It's so wonderful to see young folks helping and learning. Great fence! I run cord across the top of my run and weave it into a pattern that is close enough to keep hawks out. The openings are about 2 foot square.

Here in the Philippines the farmers usually use Madre de cacao/Kakawate for fencing because the branches readily grow roots and then you have a live wall, with the bonus of the leaves being great livestock feed (for goats usually)

Great video. Its good to see that Ash trees are growing despite all their current set backs.

Very nice - the chickens look happy. Basswood also thrive in their ability to coppice.

I recently discovered this channel and I love it.

Love the technique and look, thank you for another quality video

Those chickens are going to churn that little pen into a muck pit so fast lol. It's a lot more work and materials, but if you're capable of it a series of pens that size wrapping around the coop that you can rotate the chickens to once a week or so is a lot better for them. Saves on feed too since they are able to forage without scorching the earth in their enclosure lol

Don't the chickens need some bushes to shelter under for shade or when a hawk or other raptor comes hunting? They need access to both sun and shade, water and food, and a sandy spot to dust-bathe, though they might scratch out the latter for themselves. I'm sure you're providing the other stuff, but the enclosure looked very open, a bit bare of sheltering bushes.

I love the idea of using what you have available.

Really like this idea. Your homestead is great and your chickens are very cute! 🌞