Recent content by JanetSmithery

Go Ducks indeed! I'm almost dreading teaching tomorrow...I know my students won't have a single brain cell focused on 'how to write logical thesis statements.' The game will be totally epic, though.

Well, it took until December 18th, but we finally "finished" the coop. We'd had the rafters up for ages, just waiting to be roofed. And let me tell you what, tarps are not fun to constantly place and replace. It took us so long to roof the coop because we couldn't find a vehicle large enough...

Not to entirely derail the thread...but how did you install the traffic light window? I got three to put in my coop, but no matter how I cut and sanded, I couldn't get the light lenses (with gasket) into the holes.

Are you using the eggs yourself or are you selling them? If you're selling them, then definitely get a refrigerator. I second the Craigslist recommendation. I have much better luck finding what I need through that rather than Freecycle. If you're just using them yourself...you might not need...

Amazon has a listing for 100 feet of 48" hardware cloth . $121.80 + $38.38 shipping. I don't know that a fox could jump through welded wire. That stuff looks more durable than hardware cloth to me, actually, and it's significantly cheaper. A 100 foot roll of 48 inch wide 2 inch by 4 inch...

You've got to submit a coop designs page when you're done! Your coop is unlike any of the other ones up there, and it sure looks like you know what you're doing. I think it would be a definite asset to BYC.

I'm not sure what you mean by covering the run entirely in the corrugated panels...did you mean the roof or the walls? As far as run goes, you can probably reduce your costs by running hardware cloth around the run as an apron and up the run walls for only about 2 feet or so. Hardware cloth is...

Actually, I kinda think it would be easy to use a fencing system kinda like this for a moat. If I had land, I'd probably put something like this around my vegetable plot to help with the rabbits and occasional deer, and then probably run some chicken wire on the inside to make a moat for a year...

I think the chickens will be fine if there's at least a 4 foot height, but there's other things to account for including your typical garden predators, your chicken predators, how often you'll be in the moat, how permanent of a fence you want it to be, and what your budget is. Where my...

I've currently got 3 birds, and my coop is right next to my house and in between my porch and my deck. Their coop/run is on sand. When I let them on the lawn as we were building the coop, it did get pretty stinky in those areas. Every day I hosed down the place they'd been in their tractor to...

For my three chickens, I have 2 nipples in the bottom of a 1 gallon "Vegannaise" jar. It's suspended from the lid, where I drilled a hole to insert a hook bolt. The area around the hole is supported by the biggest diameter washers that I could find that still fit the bolt. It's hanging under...

Long time, no update. Mostly because the pictures weren't very interesting. We mostly just added hardware cloth to the run panels, which took FOREVER. We also rehung the door and finished that all up. Then this weekend we painted the inside, laid down the linoleum floor, and installed the...

Definitely not just primer. Primer is sort of like a super flat paint. If you so much as brush up against it, it will leave a mark. Chicken scat will practically never wipe off of a primed surface. Honestly, leaving it bare wood would probably make for an easier cleaning job than if you only...

I think they might be targeting the gate as their exit point because they can see where that ends--it has a very clear upper edge. It's harder for them to see the edge of the wire. As you've noted, they fly, perch, and jump instead of fly over. The quickest fix I can think of would be to tack...