Chicken-vention... what inventions have you come up with? (Pic heavy)

Awesome idea, Hummingbird!
Questions:
Does the poop not stick to the slide at all?
How do you clean it if it does?
Where can I find this kind of material?
How much space is between the roosts and the slide for chicken tail-room?
Sometimes a bit of poop does stick to the slide, but a poke with a stick is all it takes to have it roll down into the bin. Now, we do live in a dry climate, and chicken poo tends to dry out pretty quickly. Don't know if this is the same everywhere. When we did the annual, rake out all the bedding and wash out the coop, I took the poop slide and hosed it down and any remaining spots came clean really easily. Since the poop slide is more or less propped against the wall under the roosts, removing it was pretty easy.

The corrigated plastic I used is the kind of stuff folks use for political yard signs or some store signs, you know the kind that are on little metal legs out in the medians or road right-of ways. Mine came in a big box...I think I used two for the poop slide. I also used a big 4'X8' corrigated plastic political sign for bottom of my coop, covering the plywood floor to make it easy to clean. As to where to get that material, you could probably get it from a sign store...it is an election year, so you could poke your head into your county Republican or Democratic headquarters and see which local candidate is using that kind of sign in their campaign and see if you can take a few for your yard (hopefully this is a candidate you like, so you can actually display the sign before your let your chickens poop on it) or you could do what I did, which is actually run for office and then when you lose, let your chickens poop on your political aspirations.

Originally I had about 8" between the roosts and the slide. Later, when my little pullets became big heavy-breed hens I worried that the roosts were too high. They were coming down from the top roost with a loud THUMP every morning and I worried about them hurting themselves, so I removed the bottom section of the roost ladder and moved everything down about 16". At that time I also gave the girls a few more inches of tail room. The photo shows the original setup: slightly steeper poop slide and less tail room.
 
So no pics yet as I am only halfway through the material and design phase. but here is the plan. I built a chicken waterer using some of those fancy chicken nipplers that I bought on ebay. drilled them in a piece of PVC pipe and it works pretty good. Now for the adaption. Thats right - adaption (adapting this invention and making it work. if yall can coin the term chicken-vention, I want adaption. I am going to put a return line on the end of my pipe and return it to the original 5 gallon bucket which feed this contraption. Next I am going to take the backhoe and dig about a 6 foot hole next to the chicken coop and drop a 1/2 hose in it about 50ft long, keeping both ends above ground. then I will take a small circulator pump and cycle the water through the ground, through the chicken nipplers and back into the bucket as a reservoir. In the winter this will keep my water from freezing and on these incredibly hot sultry days, my chickens will always have cool water. The chickens will have geothermal in their coop before I do in the house. Conversely this could also be used with a small radiator and fan for climate control, but I am not ready for that yet. The next thing my girls will want is satin sheets.
 
In the winter this will keep my water from freezing and on these incredibly hot sultry days, my chickens will always have cool water. The chickens will have geothermal in their coop before I do in the house.

That's awesome!
I think chicken people are some of the most creative people there are!
 
Thanks, Bulldogma, for pointing me to this thread! I LUV inventing stuff! Here's another thing I invented besides the chicken toy.
It's a feed catcher so save on the spilled feed that the chickens beak out onto the ground. The catcher has a quick release and comes off and on again in seconds to save probably a few pounds of feed a week.

The catcher is a stiff fabric - I used naugahyde - with a heavy wire slipped into the seam to hold it in a circular rigid form. The loops are from the heavy strapping they put around lumber to ship it. the catch I got in the camping section at Wal-Mart. The flaps on either side of the fastener are to keep the belt from slipping out of the loops when you unfasten the catch.

You need to use a neutral color, no patterns, as the chickens are afraid to eat from anything too colorful.
 
Mine is my chicken tractor/playpen/stroller. Since I have predator problems, my girls have to be safely confined, but I want them to enjoy scratching for bugs and worms in grass. I used a pre-existing pen, and attached a child's old bike wheels and made a wooden handle. A friend calls it "Poultry in Motion":




Don't know how original the concept is, but I LOVE my poop drawer that sits under the roost and pulls out for easy clean-up. After reading the sand thread, I'm thinking of filling it with sand, instead of shavings, which are quickly filling up my composter. A kitty litter scooper should handle clean-up easily and allow me to put just the poop in the composter along with food scraps.

 
Just bumping and adding this thread with another awesome Chickinvention!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/688785/great-new-chicken-toy#
Very cool.. Sort of like a "Kong" for chickens. (For those of you without dogs, a Kong is a hollow, tough rubber ball thing that you can fill with treats that will fall out when the Kong is rolled around or something like peanut butter and freeze. It can keep your dog entertained when you are away) I bet you could make a suet "kong" using a similar bottle for one of those long winter days when you can't let your hens out to forage!
 
Mine is my chicken tractor/playpen/stroller. Since I have predator problems, my girls have to be safely confined, but I want them to enjoy scratching for bugs and worms in grass. I used a pre-existing pen, and attached a child's old bike wheels and made a wooden handle. A friend calls it "Poultry in Motion":
A chicken stroller. How very cool is that! Love the drawer too. I'm not sure my carpentry skills are up for that...maybe I could find something at the ReStore and repurpose it!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom