I went to Aldi today to buy a Mountain Ash and came back with a flowering cherry. The tree I wanted was sold out. You have to be quick and early to get what you want. I intend to start it off in a large pot for the first two years and then put it into the chicken run. Although the tree is on a dwarf root stock, Colt, it will eventually grow to a good size and provide shade, keep the scratching area dry and hopefully avoid the waterlogging we get in there at times.

(Prunus Royal Burgundy is a small tree with stunning, reddish-purple leaves and beautiful, double rose-pink flowers in spring. These bowl-shaped blooms present in groups of two to four just as the leaves are starting to emerge.  Having a rounded to spreading growth habit with beautiful, coppery-red, peeling bark. The foliage takes on brilliant shades of bronze in the autumn and the flowers are followed by attractive, cherry-like fruit)