Homesteading Chicken Coop Build, Chickens, Pond, Garden & Projects

What are you going to do with that?

 

With the stump? Fill.

 

Burn it in a firepit. Will last forever.

 

A little progress on the coop last night. Framed the coops peak walls and cut off the excess metal hanging on the run end. The wife paints while i work which means less painting for me

 

Making good progress!

 

I haven't counted lately, but I sold 5, so we have about 60 chickens, my coop is not pretty in an aesthetic sense, but it is a very low maintenance setup. Pretty big, sand floor, automatic door opens to large electric netting run. Water and feed in brute trash cans with horizontal nipples and 4" flanges and elbows respectively. Poop board under roosting bars lined with feed bags and pdz for way cleanup and ammonia and odor reduction. I use a plastic safe stock tank deicer in winter to keep the water from freezing and they have so much ventilation they don't get frostbite.

 

That is a Taj Maj hall (sp?) of chicken coops!! Great job.

 

Sound like a great setup! Got any pics? I may swipe some of those ideas.

 

Made a little progress over the weekend. I was hoping to get the doors and windows done but apparently 4" black hinges are as rare as pressure treated lumber in hardware stores these days. Who'da thunk it

Anyway some pics...

 

We bottlefed 2 baby goats this spring since my wife was working from home cause of the virus. They like to squeeze through the fence and join us while we work. Miles keeps them under control though...

 

Might try harbor freight. They have them in my area.

 

Didn't think of them. Amazon will provide the hinges for the coop.

 

It's really embarrassingly ugly. We had a concrete pad we built it out of scraps of wood and hardware cloth and so far only one predator has gotten in. A small hawk (Sharp shinned or Cooper's ) flew into the coop through the uncovered run and couldn'tget out until I shooed it toward the door with k old chaps. It killed one of my Dominiques. It'sbare plywood and a corrugated metal roof main section is 10'x12' with an additional section that's dark where the nesting boxes are made from an old home built play house/she'd/ shelter about 5x6 we got from someone who wanted it out of their yard. I can stand up in the big section and almost in the nesting section. Roof slopes down north to south so the sun comes in on winter and not as much in summer when the angle is higher. I trained the chickens as chicks with a laser pointer to Peck the horizontal nipples to get the water. Once one does it they all learn. We've got ages from 3 years to 15 weeks now. There used to be grass in the run. The run is long and about 20 ft wide. Maybe 80 ft long , which makes sense since it's 200' of permanet 48" poultry netting energized with an intellishock that under low weed load puts out at least 8kv pulses. If the weeds get high and then it Rina it can go down to 2.5-4kv at the worst. We have our firar coop which was a premade coop we got from friends hooked up to a run of arched cattle panels and hardware cloth. We used that for the chicks when they were too little to go in the main coop.

 

Fair enough I respect that. Just be aware you would get no judgment from me. I'm a function over form kinda guy. My dear wife on the other hand...

 

I appreciate that. I'm the same way.

For example, it will irk me when someone has bald tires on a fancy vehicle and them adds a chip or a new exhaust for "performance" They literally have neglected where the rubber meets the road.

The coop is still messy from the darn ducks. It is , however, maximally functional for us and has been adjusted over several years. It was built as inexpensively initially as possible and there are things I would do differently structurally, but it has been good to us and we're not financially at a place where aesthetics play a part in most decisions.

The biggest advice I can give with chickens that most people miss is to pay attention to ventilation and moisture management as equal to temperature if you have either extreme heat or cold. A draft is not as bad as being sealed so tight that respiration condenses on the ceiling and walls making them damp. Damp feels cold and makes the bedding moldy and causes other resperatory issues.

Waste management is also very important and is a constant struggle no matter where you are. I like zeolite type products like sweet PDZ Horse stall refresher because they adsorb ammonia and release nitrogen slowly in my compost pile. We have feed bags by he score so we line the board under the roosts with them so we can remove waste without scraping as much.

The feeder is scalable to any size container. We used a 55 gallon brute trash can, 4" PVC street elbows with half the larger "female" side cut off so feed can flow under, the elbows go inside the PVC closet flanges go from the outside in and connect to the smaller end of the Street elbow and I did not glue it so I could clean under the elbows. The flanges are held to the can by machine screws and tee nuts so that I could build it myself and not have to reach inside and out.


Nipple waterers all leak a little, horizontal leak less than the under bucket ones . I put it over a kiddie pool in case they leak a bit the sand and floor stays dry. Chickens can't drink from below themselves, the water has to fall down their throats, so put the nipples about head height. Otherwise they spill some from their beak when they tilt up to drink it.

Cup waterers freeze in cold climates and get dirty inside.

 

I should add the ducks were not in the coop, but attached to the outside was a small temporary shelter and welded wore enclosure for the ducks . Drakes can kill a hen by penetration, even though ours never made it to maturity.

 

Got the chicken wire up around the outside this evening. I was just starting to put some trim up when we started getting some much needed rain. I called it quits after that. All of the hardware for the windows and doors arrived today. I'm starting to see the finish line now. I still have to bury some wire around the outside but hopefully it will be ready for chickens by the time we get through the weekend.

 

Looking good! Not trying to be critical but am wondering why you went with chicken wire as opposed to hardware cloth? I was under the impression that most predators can get through or tear up chicken wire fairly easily.