It’s moving day! I’ve been so busy painting that I haven’t had time take & post photos.
I have a flip up door with food and water on the other side. Eventually the food and water will move to the run, but this will be handy for now. There was no particular reason for the slats, I was just using up wood I had on hand.
On the opposite side is where the nesting boxes will go, so this side is just firmly wedge in place (as in it took a hammer to get it in properly!)
Mindful that this will be used as a Dutch door only about 10% of the time I devised a simple “bolt” to hold the two doors together. The nail just slides out when I want to separate the two (and then is stored by inserting into just the two lower eyescrews).
These were a birthday gift from my dad - a chick feeder (has four tiny ports for 0-5 weeks and four larger ports for 6-12 weeks) and a 5 gallon horizontal nipple waterer. They are sitting on blocks of wood to hold them at the appropriate height.
I added rope “hangers” to keep them from getting toppled by rambunctious chicks. That shelf is 6’3” off the floor, time will tell if they will try to fly that high (I realize that many do, but most of my chicks are heavier breeds). If they do I’ll continue the poultry netting up to the ceiling.
Here is the brooder area with the lid and doors open. Since I don’t currently have any older chickens my plan is to let the chicks roam the entire coop during the day and then lock them in this area at night. I’ll put their baby waterer in with them so they have a source of water in the brooder.
Here is a close up of the “huddle box”. The wall behind the box and the one to the right are both insulated. The box itself slides out so I can remove it when I’m not brooding. The portion that you see with PDZ sprinkled on it is actually the top of the mama heating pad (MHP). You can see the cord coming up on the right side of the box (center of the photo) to the controller which is suspended from eyehooks and plugged in on the far right of the photos.
This is a side view of that shelf. The left is the front the right is the rear. Top board is some kind of melamine coated board (same thing I made the poop board out of) so poop should scrape off easily. I made it wedge shaped so that the rear is lower than the front, but the top stays fairly level for when the chicks jump on top.
The heating pad is covered with an old dishcloth and held in place by a piece of paracord that is run through slots in the front and rear of the shelf.
A better view of the slots.
Very excited to show them their new digs!
