Birdcatraz

Every bird hatched or bought this spring eventually stopped being small. The brooder on the desk, the nesting box, the heat lamps — all of it was built for palm-sized fluffballs, and by midsummer the fluffballs were adolescent chickens testing roost bars and turkeys the size of beach balls. They needed a yard.

Birdcatraz is the answer: a fenced outdoor compound holding the chicken coop, the turkey pen, and the big communal water bowl. Maximum security in the sense that hawks stay out; luxury in the sense that the inmates get watermelon rinds, sunflower sprouts, and a picnic table. Nobody has filed for parole.

The move started in late June — the turkeys took the pen first, and the rest of the flock followed as the coop side came together. Roost order got sorted the way it always does: the bold birds took the high rail, the rest negotiated. By July the whole class of 2026 was sleeping outdoors.

The cameras came along. The Samsung S7 that once stared into the brooder now stands watch over the water bowl — the social center of the compound — and every frame it captures runs through the same VLM pipeline that feeds the gem gallery and the farm's Instagram. Drinking scenes, dust baths, turkey stare-downs: if it happens at the bowl, it gets scored.

This project supersedes the under-deck enclosure design that was drawn up in March and shelved. That one proved AI could design bird housing; this one is where the birds actually live.