I have a piece of clear tablecloth plastic with painter's tape around the perimeter. I lay this sheet over an area of my quilt and draw my idea with a draw erase marker on the plastic. This allows me to see if I like it and to erase it off the plastic and try again until I find a design I like.
I would start by SITD along the yellow sashing in the center of the quilt to stabilize it. I would then try different designs for the blocks. I wonder if you could quilt chicken wire over the chicken blocks? If that sounds too hard, maybe a simple cross hatch in the blocks would look like chicken wire and you could do it with a regular foot on your machine.