Guys I have been busy this Christmas/NYE break building the ultimate chicken house..I have about 12 smaller houses that I have built over the years, improving each along the way, but I've always wanted a large house, and one that requires minimum maintenance and one that is designed for maximum chicken comfort. My wife thinks I am crazy, since this chicken house is going to be larger than OUR house...It is 1536 sq feet in dimension (24ftx64ftx15ft high) and has tiered levels...I am thinking it will have about 4000 sq ft of area that chickens can roam around in when I am done with it. The tiered floors will fold up against the outer walls for easy cleaning, and on one end it has a door that's 12 feet wide so I can get my front end loader inside to scoop the poop. (man I hate doing that job with a pitchfork!) The sides of the house have small mesh chicken wire stapled completely to the roof, and I have designed removable plywood panels that can be removed or replaced over the wire depending on the weather..this summer it was 105 degrees on avg...the nestboxes have a hinged rear panel, so I can blow out the nestboxes with my leaf blower when cleaning. I have plumbed it for automatic watering nipples, and have a 500 lb feeder/feed bin that has an automatic auger that dispenses a predetermined amount of feed. It has full lighting, permanently mounted heat lamp strips, and a thermostatically controlled fan exhaust system. It will open up to about 3-4 acres of fenced rangeland...Sorry for the rambling, but everyone around me thinks I've lost my mind, and I'm just so excited about it I had to share it with people that would appreciate it. Maybe with all this automation I can take a vacation that will last more than a day...
