Consolidated Kansas

[sunflowerparrot]

Anyone have to pay personal property tax on their small chicken coops? Ours is not by any means on a foundation - we have it on skids and have moved it and will probably move it again throughout the year. Yesterday, the county appraisers came and said I will have to pay personal property tax on my little coop ... I wanted to ask them if I had to pay for the dog house and duck pen too.. but thought it best I just be quiet. I am going to call down there today and see what is going on with that. Just doesn't seem right.. It's not on a foundation and is moveable.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Hawkeye I would be going insane if I didn't know where I was going to be in the spring. I kind of went through that here and had a garden I couldn't attend except by long distance. I had purchased this house but hadn't moved down here yet. As it was the raccoons and wild turkeys ate the whole thing.
I need to get out and get busy but I have a severe headache. My neck has been really causing me problems lately. I guess it's about time to start using the tens unit again cause the medications aren't helping.
I actually did better than I thought on the hatch. I had a couple that didn't hatch but I ended up with 6 out of about 11 . Actually it was 7 but one little chick was too chilled and died right away. I need to go pull some more eggs today and get them in the hatcher. Hawkeye I do believe that Mr. Meat bred my little d'uccle hens. I have some awfully dark little d'uccles. There was no other possibility. I figured he was safe since he just was learning to crow but maybe not. I can just see a fat, big legged red faced bantam chick. Now that would be weird!!
Trish I'll bet she meant it was sold to you. I hope so.
Well I have wasted enough time so I'd better get busy.

I'm glad you had some of them hatch out. If they do end up being Mr Meat's babies and you keep them until they are some what grown-- I'd love to see a picture of how they turned out! I wonder if they will have a cornish body and legs on them?? Yeah, every Spring I plant at least 4 new trees. Sometimes more-- but I try to keep the number down because I know I will be watering them all summer long and for the next couple of years. The older trees still get watered too, but not quite as often as a tree I planted in the last year or two. They get watered once a week and the new ones will get watered every morning or every other day depending on the weather. It's a LOT of work to get them started out here. If we had something pop up soon for us, I'll be buying trees again in full force! haha! I know I want more fruit trees, but I need more shade, too. I bought a Globe Willow last year that is doing great and looking beautiful-- so I think I'm going to get another one of those. The Ash trees I bought last year really struggled even with the watering. It was just so miserable. I had 3 new Maples just barely hang on. I think everything in the yard would do better if we had a bit of shade and not be burned up in the sun. If we had to sell, I'm pretty sure new owners would not take care of my trees and probably not water them. People just don't take care of things like they used to.

They are supposed to be done this afternoon late!!!!!!!!!!

They are putting all the final trim on!!! The barn looks so good!! Pictures tonight!!!!!

Hawkeye, what post are you talking about?

I have most of my rosecombs out side, OH MY we are so busy, Now for wiring, dirt and finish the room!!! My dream is coming true!!!

Talking about the post where you posted the pictures of your birds at the Pryor OK show and talked about how it went and how yours birds placed. I clicked it and it didn't show up for me. Anyway-- YAY on the barn!!

DD had to redo all her blood work and bone age xrays today since DH's company changed insurance at the first of the year. Isn't that crazy? They have to apply all over again for coverage that we know will be denied. There is a charitable organization that foots the bill for her injections because she fits every single criteria for not being able to make her own growth hormone.

I think it's nuts that the insurance rejects it in the first place. My neighbor kid gets growth hormone shots every day, BUT of course, his is supposedly because of his celiac disease and not dwarfism. But he is two years behind in growth, I believe. But his body doesn't produce the hormone either-- so couldn't that be considered the same thing? I'm guessing they checked your daughter for celiac or other nutritional diseases that prevent growth hormone from being produced. The insurance would cover it at that point. I know the boy gets his shot every single day! And I talk to his parents all the time, they never have mentioned any difficulty in getting the meds. I think it's rotten you have so much trouble with it!

Derrick you won't find a nicer bunch of people. We become friends not just people who talk about chickens. Welcome.
Well I had to come in for awhile and I still have to feed and water before dark. I ventured outside and decided to wade half to my knees in the mud and melting snow and work on my hoop coop again. I made some progress.
Here's the front. I did all this today. I have it built to be really strong and have the panels fastened to the wood with pipe strapping. Most of the lumber is double to give the doorway extra strength. Probably overkill but DH would say, "I would have doubled it." so that is what I did. Of course now he'll probably say I wasted wood. Click to enlarge photos.

Here is my framing for the back wall. As you can see my ducks were in the field behind me playing in the melting snow and watching what I was doing.

Here's the framing for the back wall from the outside for comparison.


Here's the first panel for the back wall of the coop part. I just drug it through the mud and clamped it to the frame. Then marked the wood with a red sharpie with the cutting line so it will fit. I had to come in and take some meds. If weather permits I'll get this piece taken down, cut to shape and installed tomorrow.

The mud was so deep out there. I kept sinking the whole foot part of my boots into the mud. I guess my tilling it up before we moved this over there wasn't such a good idea with all the snow we got afterward.

I think you've been doing a GREAT job on this! This is looking really good! I think these pens are really cool looking. I like them a lot!!

Looking good. Do you think something like this would be okay out in pasture with mini donkeys and a filly paint? Need to make a run for my coop thats out in the pasture but don't want to spend a lot on getting supplies i was thinking of attaching some how to the building

I wouldn't want to say hey don't do a hoop coop for your equines... but from my own personal experience with equines, I'd say it's a bad idea. It could probably be done in a safe way, though. These guys just think differently, and when you've had leg and foot injuries due to fencing-- your eyes will be opened. And I'm talking about ALL fencing. For example, one day we were coming back from a show and I had a trailer full of horses and when I was pulling up into my drive, some of my other horses in the pasture saw us driving up and became excited. They run around and snort and go nuts. Very typical behavior. But this day, I had a 4 month old baby gelding in the pasture with the older horses and he ran straight to the fence line so he could stop and watch us. But instead-- a larger horse (part draft) ran up behind my baby and didn't stop until HE got to the fence. The collision pushed my baby up into the air, flipped him over head first through the fence and my baby got his two front legs stuck in the fence. It's hard to explain-- but the wire twisted around his legs. I immediately stopped my truck and ran out across the property to where he was lying on his back with his front legs stuck in the fencing holding the front part of him up with his face caught. It was a NIGHTMARE. I think I cut the fence getting him out, it was a blur and still don't remember what happened. I ran back, unloaded the horses I had in the trailer and loaded him up bleeding all over and gushing blood and grabbed his mama and took them to the vet and called him telling him I was on my way and to meet me at his clinic. He had tendon damage and lots of cuts all over. We had delicate muscle repair that had to be done and months of special care for him. That was the worst I've seen. I've had a LOT of fencing injuries over the years-- and I'm not talking about barbed wire, I'm talking every kind of fencing you can imagine, I've seen it and dealt with it. Equines--horses, whatever, they put their feet and legs through anything. Don't know why! But if they yank back, you have a broken leg. I have a mare that has broken her bone down low in her leg. I've spent 5 years dealing with her injury and keeping her with special ferriar care-- that wasn't even a fencing injury-- it was her being dumb and jumping a ravine in the back pasture all on her own. I would never put in woven or welded fencing for a horse. Not unless you could cover up the woven squares so they can't get their heads, feet and anything else through it. So if you do it-- cover it all up in some way. Otherwise you could wind up with a strangled animal-- and I've not seen that personally, but a friend had that happen with woven fencing. I was so upset over my ordeal and my baby getting injured, I sold that horse that was part draft that very weekend. I couldn't look at him again. It wasn't my fencing problem-- I'm just saying that even if you have the best fencing they can STILL do stupid stuff.

So you have to "baby proof" it like you would for your own babies in your house.

I had a friend come over today & we whipped out that goat pen in like 2 hours, it was so nice to have someone else to help & talk to while we worked.

Now I have another hoop coop to get built, it's just one project after another here it seems like. This one though my DH is going to help me with, I already told him he's going to have to help this time since this one is for the broiler chicks coming next month.

Sounds like the end is in sight! YAY!!!! I'm gad you have your pen up! So exciting! So only the hoop coop left! I bet that feels great!

Anyone have to pay personal property tax on their small chicken coops? Ours is not by any means on a foundation - we have it on skids and have moved it and will probably move it again throughout the year. Yesterday, the county appraisers came and said I will have to pay personal property tax on my little coop ... I wanted to ask them if I had to pay for the dog house and duck pen too.. but thought it best I just be quiet. I am going to call down there today and see what is going on with that. Just doesn't seem right.. It's not on a foundation and is moveable.

I would think NOT. If it's not on a perm foundation, I don't think you have to pay taxes on it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is true. My coop is raised on stilts and is not taxable because of that! I'd say your county appraiser just didn't realize that you actually DO move your coop. He probably didn't believe that it's not staying in one location. He sees a shed on a property and in his mind, that's where it is.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Anyone have to pay personal property tax on their small chicken coops? Ours is not by any means on a foundation - we have it on skids and have moved it and will probably move it again throughout the year. Yesterday, the county appraisers came and said I will have to pay personal property tax on my little coop ... I wanted to ask them if I had to pay for the dog house and duck pen too.. but thought it best I just be quiet. I am going to call down there today and see what is going on with that. Just doesn't seem right.. It's not on a foundation and is moveable.

A mobile coop is supposed to be nontaxable. Better call in and talk to a supervisor. That's just ridiculous.

 

[chicken danz]

Danz, The situation with the insurance not covering our daughters "pituitary dwarfism" is annoying but I'm so grateful to the people who are providing the product for us. If I am remembering correctly, one month's worth of the injections is several thousand dollars. It was just not possible for us to pay for it. The difficulty is that the insurance company doesn't cooperate even though it isn't footing the bill. Things like "losing paperwork" and all kinds of mysterious things have happened. You get a 3 month supply upfront and then the difficulty begins. After that, the paperwork has to maintain a strict timeline or there's no injections until they get it straightened out. I guess because they aren't making money on it, it's not a priority for them. Once they have stalled beyond a certain time period, then they can require you to redo all of the initial paperwork. It's a nightmare on the paperwork end. Giving the shots each night is very hard but when you're not giving them it's also very hard because you're thinking it's worse for her to not have the benefits. It's funny but I have never thought of her as having a special need. I guess she really does! She's such a smart, funny, strong, stubborn little trooper, it just never crossed my mind she has a special need. They tell me we're aiming for 5'2" for her. I hope she makes it. Danz, we don't get any accolades for adopting a special needs child because we didn't know when we adopted her. Not that it would have stopped us!

Many internationally adopted children are placed as healthy when they have underlying issues. If I look at the term "special needs" I realize we have 6 that would qualify for that label. Yet, they are smart, funny, strong and wildly quirky people that we really do enjoy spending our time with. They can also be very frustrating but I think all children are because they aren't able to think like an adult and sometimes we don't get that.

Rambling again.

Tomorrow is a beautiful "down" day for me. I'm looking forward to just playing with the chickens and putzing around, as much as possible. We'll see how that turns out!

I know exactly what you are talking about. My Dad is going through something similar but it is with the Veterans Administration. He ap[plied for benefits to help pay for living in the assisted car home. That was over 3 months ago. A month or so ago they said they needed another from filled out by the doctor since they lost the first one. That was done and sent in. So then yesterday a form came like he was applying for the first time. So then all this time down the road they have managed to loose his whole file. It is supposed to be retroactive back to the day it was filed so he is loosing months of benefits and it will take another several months to get through this. He doesn't have enough savings to last that long.
I have to go through something similar every year to prove my incurable physical illness hasn't gone away. It's crazy and it takes months each time to see it through.
I had a child with special needs but he was my own. I honestly would have never have chosen to take that on. I don't think I would have thought myself capable of handling it. But in the long run I learned anger control and I also learned to appreciate life as it is.
Originally Posted by HEChicken r

Anyone have to pay personal property tax on their small chicken coops? Ours is not by any means on a foundation - we have it on skids and have moved it and will probably move it again throughout the year. Yesterday, the county appraisers came and said I will have to pay personal property tax on my little coop ... I wanted to ask them if I had to pay for the dog house and duck pen too.. but thought it best I just be quiet. I am going to call down there today and see what is going on with that. Just doesn't seem right.. It's not on a foundation and is moveable.

Yes I do. Permanent structure has nothing to do with it I found out, although I was told otherwise. Any building over a certain number of square feet gets taxed. I had my greenhouse sitting in my driveway and have to pay taxes on it because of its size. It is still not in a permanent place. Any of my chicken coops over 8 X 8 are taxed. They come out and measure every building out here and it is a real pain in the butt. If I move one to a different location they show up and remeasure it. I swear they are like Hawks. However Sunflower that will go on Stephens taxes not yours.

I'm glad you had some of them hatch out. If they do end up being Mr Meat's babies and you keep them until they are some what grown-- I'd love to see a picture of how they turned out! I wonder if they will have a cornish body and legs on them??
I honestly don't know what I will do with them if they are his. I suppose I'll just donate them to anyone who will take them at some point. I'll let them grow out to figure out what the deal is for sure. I guess they would be like tiny little cornish hens in the long run. But they would take forever to grow.
Yeah, every Spring I plant at least 4 new trees. Sometimes more-- but I try to keep the number down because I know I will be watering them all summer long and for the next couple of years. The older trees still get watered too, but not quite as often as a tree I planted in the last year or two. They get watered once a week and the new ones will get watered every morning or every other day depending on the weather. It's a LOT of work to get them started out here. If we had something pop up soon for us, I'll be buying trees again in full force! haha! I know I want more fruit trees, but I need more shade, too. I bought a Globe Willow last year that is doing great and looking beautiful-- so I think I'm going to get another one of those. The Ash trees I bought last year really struggled even with the watering. It was just so miserable. I had 3 new Maples just barely hang on. I think everything in the yard would do better if we had a bit of shade and not be burned up in the sun. If we had to sell, I'm pretty sure new owners would not take care of my trees and probably not water them. People just don't take care of things like they used to.
I had plans to get the Catawba trees going this year until the cat knocked down my seedlings. Maybe if Chickies Duckies sends me some seed I still can.

I think it's nuts that the insurance rejects it in the first place. My neighbor kid gets growth hormone shots every day, BUT of course, his is supposedly because of his celiac disease and not dwarfism. But he is two years behind in growth, I believe. But his body doesn't produce the hormone either-- so couldn't that be considered the same thing? I'm guessing they checked your daughter for celiac or other nutritional diseases that prevent growth hormone from being produced. The insurance would cover it at that point. I know the boy gets his shot every single day! And I talk to his parents all the time, they never have mentioned any difficulty in getting the meds. I think it's rotten you have so much trouble with it!

I wouldn't want to say hey don't do a hoop coop for your equines... but from my own personal experience with equines, I'd say it's a bad idea.
I thought she was talking about putting a chicken hoop pen into the area where the equines were...not for the equines. Michelleml please clarify.

HeChicken are you just building your hoop as a pen without a coop? Like a covered shelter? I think a lot of people do that but I am trying to make something they can live in year round. More like what Mstng67 did. I am trying to decide whether to put in a floor or not in the coop part. If I use it for guineas it will be fine without one. If I use it for chickens I need one.

I went out to the goose pen yesterday and checked the nest. I found two baby bunnies in there. Tiny... just old enough to have some fuzz. I thought they were big dead mice until I looked carefully. So now I am confused. It was obvious the goose had grabbed them cause they were dead and had goose mouth marks on them. But what confuses me if did a rabbit have them in the goose house or did the goose find them and put them there? We have several resident rabbits around even though the dogs pursue them. The dogs don't go to the goose pen because the geese don't want them there. So I am thinking maybe a rabbit found a place to hide a litter in their pen until the geese found it. I can't help but wonder if there are more of them out there somewhere.

 

[HEChicken]

HeChicken are you just building your hoop as a pen without a coop? Like a covered shelter? I think a lot of people do that but I am trying to make something they can live in year round. More like what Mstng67 did. I am trying to decide whether to put in a floor or not in the coop part. If I use it for guineas it will be fine without one. If I use it for chickens I need one.

Mine are to be temporary shelter for my turkeys and ducks during breeding season. I didn't want them going off broody and building a nest somewhere they are vulnerable to predators, so although they will hate the confinement, to keep them safe, I am building the two hoop coops for them to live in while they are brooding and raising their young. For the ducks, I want to get some of those barrels to cut in quarters like the picture Chickies-duckies posted a week or two back, so they will have shelter from rain and wind while they are in there. For the turkeys, I haven't quite decided what to do yet. There will be tarps over about half of each hoop coop so they will get some shelter that way. I wanted to have part of it covered by a tarp to protect from rain but half open so they have the option to hang out in the sun.

After breeding season, I may use these pens as breeding pens for my project birds and at that point I'll probably have to build them a secure enclosure to go in at night, but that will be down the road.

 

[Trish44]

Danz & HEChicken, my hoop coop doesn't have a "building" on it, I just built it & covered the entire top with a huge tarp that goes one end to the other. It comes down the sides aways & in warmer weather the bottom half of the sides & back is open. For the winter I put plastic over the back & sides. In warmer weather the peacocks like to sit & look out the back of the coop & it gets morning sun there, which they like. I was actually surprised about how warm it has stayed in there this winter even without the front being covered at all. I'm going t build the next one just like it since it has worked out so well. I forgot to say Danz that your hoop coop is looking really good, you're really talented with building.

I was laughing with my friend yesterday about how we got the goat pen done in two hours & if my DH had built it he would have taken two days since he would have to draw it out first, put stakes in the ground where the posts would go, & then after all the planning put it up. We weren't working with straight panels either, so they are bowed in places. It's just too hard to straighten them up, so we didn't try for the most part. The goats won't know the difference.

It's supposed to be a lot colder today & tomorrow then warm up again. I'm lookind forward to that so I can go out & do the finishing touches to the pen.

Danz & Karen, that little chick with the issues seems to have them resolved now, it's running around just like the others & I don't see it cocking it's head any strange way like it did. Maybe it was good that I waited to see what was going to happen. I think it's really going to be OK. I hatched out two more last night, so they will join the others in the brooder as soon as they fluff up & rest a little more. I like them to be able to walk well before they go in with the others, especially since they are a bit older.

 

[chicken danz]

Trish I am glad your chick is doing okay. Good save.
I learned from DH that if you lay those panels on the ground and drive over them that it will straighten them out. We have tons of hog panels around here I took off the fence line that are really crooked. When I had my goats that is how we built their pen.
It's nasty out there today. The weather man said last night the chill index would be in the teens with the cold and the high winds. I haven't ventured out yet. I have plenty to get caught up on in the house as well so I might get some energy and tackle some of these indoor projects.
I need to move some chicks out to the brooder house today. They are getting too rambunctious to be in a bin in the house. They keep flying out and scratching all their shavings into the their water. I also need to load up the hatcher today. I should have done that yesterday. I don't want chicks hatching in the incubator.
I'm still on the fence about what to put over my hoop coop. I keep thinking that using these plastic panels they use in public restrooms because they resist bacteria, would be perfect. I would have to buy two of them and split one to cover the top. But they should last for years as opposed to a tarp. DH wanted to order a specially made tarp but it would cost as much as the panels. If I painted them with that plastic Krylon spray paint it would give them extra UV resistance so they would last even longer.
I do have an old air bed that developed a leak. I thought of splitting it in half and using it at least temporarily as well. It should be pretty darned strong. I have used an old swimming pool liner for various projects and it worked great. Too bad I don't have more of that.
I've been planning in my head only about how to build the double unit with the coops in the middle. I think I can pull that off with a little pre-planning. Of course that is more money to spend.
I really need to keep a check on money right now.

 

[sarajoy]

A mobile coop is supposed to be nontaxable. Better call in and talk to a supervisor. That's just ridiculous.

At our new place in Wilson County, the automatic response I got from the lady at the desk was "we don't value chicken coops". Bizarre way to put it. However, later, Mike rechecked, when asking about other things, and they said that if it were a "chicken palace" they would value it - but didn't define what they meant by that, said it would be up to the discretion of the person doing the assessment. Wilson County is a farm friendly county, so hopefully they won't consider my plywood 24 by 14 chicken coop a "chicken palace". It will look bigger than it is, with the ten feet of covered run on each side. But at least for Wilson County, it doesn't depend on a foundation or not. Its more on the size and how fancy the structure is, and USUALLY they don't assess them. Sara

 

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

Danz, The situation with the insurance not covering our daughters "pituitary dwarfism" is annoying but I'm so grateful to the people who are providing the product for us. If I am remembering correctly, one month's worth of the injections is several thousand dollars. It was just not possible for us to pay for it. The difficulty is that the insurance company doesn't cooperate even though it isn't footing the bill. Things like "losing paperwork" and all kinds of mysterious things have happened. You get a 3 month supply upfront and then the difficulty begins. After that, the paperwork has to maintain a strict timeline or there's no injections until they get it straightened out. I guess because they aren't making money on it, it's not a priority for them. Once they have stalled beyond a certain time period, then they can require you to redo all of the initial paperwork. It's a nightmare on the paperwork end. Giving the shots each night is very hard but when you're not giving them it's also very hard because you're thinking it's worse for her to not have the benefits. It's funny but I have never thought of her as having a special need. I guess she really does! She's such a smart, funny, strong, stubborn little trooper, it just never crossed my mind she has a special need. They tell me we're aiming for 5'2" for her. I hope she makes it. Danz, we don't get any accolades for adopting a special needs child because we didn't know when we adopted her. Not that it would have stopped us!

Many internationally adopted children are placed as healthy when they have underlying issues. If I look at the term "special needs" I realize we have 6 that would qualify for that label. Yet, they are smart, funny, strong and wildly quirky people that we really do enjoy spending our time with. They can also be very frustrating but I think all children are because they aren't able to think like an adult and sometimes we don't get that.

.

So sorry you are having to struggle so with the insurance co. That is so not right.

As to "labeling" kids, it is not always the right thing for the child. Kids are so complex, developing, learning and trying to figure out a mountain of emotions, they don't need a negative label to deal with. Even "good" labels.

I hope your DD reaches her goal of 5'2". That worked for me for so many years. But, if she doesn't, she will make what ever height she is work for her. My youngest DD wished so much as she was growing, that she would reach 5'. When she found out she had grown that tiny bit more and made it to 5' she was sooo happy. But she never let being small hinder her. Tiny and full of determination she has succeeded in everything she has set out to do. It sounds like your DD will also.

 

[chicken danz]

I just called our county assessor and tried to get a straight answer. The answer is everything is taxable in this county is taxable if it is in use. I asked about my coops that are on skids and that do get moved and he said those were taxable as well. I mentioned that some were no bigger than a dog house and it left him questioning things. So he is going to do some checking and get back to me. I find it strange that my insurance company gives these no value but the county does. It obviously varies from county to county. The girl doing the appraisal had said everything over 8 X 8 but the appraiser says it all is subject to taxing.
You know, if I spent $0 building something from recycled material I just can't see that it should be a taxable building. I have several of those around here. I guess that would be an advantage to a hoop coop. How could that be considered a structure. I have an old water tank for my wild turkeys to use as a shelter and it sure isn't a building. Again I wonder how they could consider that taxable.
I am sure every county sees things differently. I think it's just a way to get more tax dollars.