Anyad31
In the Brooder
Hello!
Starting this out by saying that I have just a bit of knowledge of building and power tools from growing up with my dad who built everything on our property, but he passed away before I was really old enough to actually learn from him and I don't really have anyone else in my life who can help me out or teach me about this stuff. So here I am asking for internet folks to look over my building plans cause I'm just figuring things out as I go with a lot of googling!
So, I recently bought my first home which came with a shed already on the grounds. My plan is to renovate it into a small hobby chicken coop- for just a few birds- and would love to place an attached outdoor enclosure for them to safely graze and spend time outside. The space is limited since it's in town and not rural and has an uneven landscape next to some trees whose roots I would like to avoid damaging. The land in the back has a pretty steep hill and I have some concerns about water runoff affecting the base of any additions I make.
I've taken pictures of the area and drawn up some mock up plans that I would love to get some opinions on.
Fig 1: In some areas there is around a 12"-13" difference in height between where the shed ends and where the ground is located. The red box indicates where the roots of the tree are close to the surface and I am hesitant to even that area out for fear of damaging the tree.
Fig 2: My plan is to get a 4'x8' dog run that I can then modify (with hardware cloth along the sides and underneath to prevent predators) and attach to the side of the shed. This would prevent the additional task of establishing poles and digging into the ground. Red drawings: I have some large, treated lengths of wood on the property that I am thinking of using as a makeshift retaining wall (secured with rebar into the ground) that could hold soil that gets backfilled into the space and tamped down for the dog run to sit on (any recommendations about substrate/drainage would be wonderful). I was also thinking about potentially putting a corrugated drainage pipe in a channel around the back of the kennel to reroute excess water from the back hill.
Fig 3: Additional scope of the topography of the area since it's hard to see in pictures.
Fig 4: Additional view of the prospective kennel with the wood retaining wall.
I've been looking into substrate and have been leaning towards coarse river sand, since I don't have enough property to have a big compost pile for when organic substrate eventually starts to decompose.
Any and all advice would be really helpful! I've tried reaching out to a few local farming organizations for advice but they keep passing me off to other groups so I'm hoping this works!
Thank you!
Starting this out by saying that I have just a bit of knowledge of building and power tools from growing up with my dad who built everything on our property, but he passed away before I was really old enough to actually learn from him and I don't really have anyone else in my life who can help me out or teach me about this stuff. So here I am asking for internet folks to look over my building plans cause I'm just figuring things out as I go with a lot of googling!
So, I recently bought my first home which came with a shed already on the grounds. My plan is to renovate it into a small hobby chicken coop- for just a few birds- and would love to place an attached outdoor enclosure for them to safely graze and spend time outside. The space is limited since it's in town and not rural and has an uneven landscape next to some trees whose roots I would like to avoid damaging. The land in the back has a pretty steep hill and I have some concerns about water runoff affecting the base of any additions I make.
I've taken pictures of the area and drawn up some mock up plans that I would love to get some opinions on.
Fig 1: In some areas there is around a 12"-13" difference in height between where the shed ends and where the ground is located. The red box indicates where the roots of the tree are close to the surface and I am hesitant to even that area out for fear of damaging the tree.
Fig 2: My plan is to get a 4'x8' dog run that I can then modify (with hardware cloth along the sides and underneath to prevent predators) and attach to the side of the shed. This would prevent the additional task of establishing poles and digging into the ground. Red drawings: I have some large, treated lengths of wood on the property that I am thinking of using as a makeshift retaining wall (secured with rebar into the ground) that could hold soil that gets backfilled into the space and tamped down for the dog run to sit on (any recommendations about substrate/drainage would be wonderful). I was also thinking about potentially putting a corrugated drainage pipe in a channel around the back of the kennel to reroute excess water from the back hill.
Fig 3: Additional scope of the topography of the area since it's hard to see in pictures.
Fig 4: Additional view of the prospective kennel with the wood retaining wall.
I've been looking into substrate and have been leaning towards coarse river sand, since I don't have enough property to have a big compost pile for when organic substrate eventually starts to decompose.
Any and all advice would be really helpful! I've tried reaching out to a few local farming organizations for advice but they keep passing me off to other groups so I'm hoping this works!
Thank you!
