post your chicken coop pictures here!

[gpeters3]

Ok, Lowe's got another $30 out of me for the sight gauge materials but here it is. I managed to catch a few drinking from the finished layout in the coop. Waiting on EBay for the horizontal nipples and then it's finished. Below is a shot of the fill tube with sight gauge. If you blow up the pic you can see an air hole in the cap. It's completely full so you can't see the water in the sight gauge but it works as expected. BTW, who would have thought you need pipe dope on slippery plastic pipe (4" is different from 3/4", way different) ? Been using it for 40 years, you'd think I know better........






Now all I have to do is figure out how to get water to it in winter without the pipes freezing. I can run PEC pretty cheap but not sure how to keep 48' of tubing from feezing in an unheated barn. If my guess is close, I won't have to put much in every day so I can use a pitcher to fill it if I do it every day. I can reach it from the floor with a pitcher but had to use a ladder to fill it up with a pail. By my reconing, it does hold a little over 3.5 gallons which is more than 3 drinkers which lasted 2-3 days typically so I think I'm going to be happy with it.

 

[NanaNeen]

Ok, Lowe's got another $30 out of me for the sight gauge materials but here it is. I managed to catch a few drinking from the finished layout in the coop. Waiting on EBay for the horizontal nipples and then it's finished. Below is a shot of the fill tube with sight gauge. If you blow up the pic you can see an air hole in the cap. It's completely full so you can't see the water in the sight gauge but it works as expected. BTW, who would have thought you need pipe dope on slippery plastic pipe (4" is different from 3/4", way different) ? Been using it for 40 years, you'd think I know better........ Now all I have to do is figure out how to get water to it in winter without the pipes freezing. I can run PEC pretty cheap but not sure how to keep 48' of tubing from feezing in an unheated barn. If my guess is close, I won't have to put much in every day so I can use a pitcher to fill it if I do it every day. I can reach it from the floor with a pitcher but had to use a ladder to fill it up with a pail. By my reconing, it does hold a little over 3.5 gallons which is more than 3 drinkers which lasted 2-3 days typically so I think I'm going to be happy with it.

Heat tape.

 

[twinsmom6]

here's our homemade one.. dog kennel and dog house repurposed. we live in Arizona so put up a mister for those really hot days for the girls.

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

U have everything dont u have scorpions down there will they eat those things

 

[mimsy]

Ours is a slow process. It's mostly all reclaimed materials. We've spend under a 100 bucks so far on it. We need to get the rest of the roof up this summer. We probably will side it eventually, but we had a TON of this ugly paint so for now we painted it so it will weather better till we can do more.

 

[Teila]

This has been playing on my mind since we built the new coop so I am going to share.

For the three years I have had chickens and they have had a kit coop onto which another kit coop was added, multiple renovations and extensions etc over time, providing enough room for nesting and roosting without being cramped, I have been telling people that because of our sub tropical climate “the gals do not spend any time in the coop except to lay an egg or roost and the rest of the time they are out and about in the run” or supervised free ranging.

I honestly thought that this was what they preferred to do and they could have hung around in the coop if they chose to.

Now they have had their new beaut, super sized, high coop I have to admit I was wrong and apparently it was not the climate that was the reason for them not spending time in the coop.

Every morning they wander down the ramp and wait for me to deliver breakfast, then they all wander back up again and have what I call their mothers’ meeting and many times throughout the day I can look out the window and no chickens in the run .. they are hanging around in the coop, having a roost, having a natter, nanna nap etc.

I love the fact that they love their new coop but feel bad that I had it wrong for three years.

I remember reading in here, someone said something along the lines of just because the chickens tolerate it, does not mean that it is the best thing for them or what they actually want … so True!

 

[Melschen]

We just finished ours up a few weeks ago. So far I'm pretty happy with it. The coop itself was purchased from a company in GA who delivered and placed it for us. We built the run ourselves. Now we jusy have to figure out/design some permanent outside roosts and finish putting up the automatic feeders. I have hibiscus and herbs planted around the run.

 

[gpeters3]

Heat tape.

Used to use it when living in a trailer park but that was on metal pipe. (The black plastic pipe was heavily insulated but cant remember if we used heat tape on it) Not sure what heat tape will do to PEC. Now they stress no wrapping but then it had to be wrapped. I suppose if i go to enough expense and work i could use styrofoam insulation over the heat tape. Ill see how the summer goes and decide in the fall

 

[Latestarter]

What some do is use a reservoir with a heater in it to warm the water then use a small diameter tube (slid down through the existing PVC) and an aquarium pump to pump the heated water all the way to the end of the PVC pipe with the nipples and pump the warm water in. This will cause the water already in there to rise and want to come out the top... Just pipe the outflow back into the reservoir. You'll form a circulation system with the warm water to the base of the waterer since heat rises, it will want to move up and it will cool as it moves back toward the reservoir. Just make sure the return to the reservoir is lower than the pump line going out.

 

[NanaNeen]

Used to use it when living in a trailer park but that was on metal pipe. (The black plastic pipe was heavily insulated but cant remember if we used heat tape on it) Not sure what heat tape will do to PEC. Now they stress no wrapping but then it had to be wrapped. I suppose if i go to enough expense and work i could use styrofoam insulation over the heat tape. Ill see how the summer goes and decide in the fall

I'd say more research before more $