Consolidated Kansas

[tntblake]

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I agree we have worked our whole lives to make others happy & that's exactly how I feel about it all. I got my chickens because I like having them & they make me happy, they weren't for anybody else. I probably will get the rabbits, but I have to find some kind of hutch for them & figure out where I want to put it. DH will have a fit because he will say I don't need more things to take care of. I'm also going to have to find someone to care for our animals when we go on our cruise for 2 weeks next November. I really think I would like to find someone to house-sit, I think that would be better than just having them come here once a day, but I'll have to see who I can find around here.

I hope you all are having a great day. We still haven't heard from the witch, we're going to try calling in a few minutes & see if she answers her phone. My son was finally able to talk to his daughter today. We'll see if we're allowed to talk to her. We never know what we did wrong, it just depends on the mood of the day, the woman is a wacko.

 

[checoukan]

Merry Christmas to all!! Posted 2 of my Rosecomb trio's for sale, I hope they sell, as I really need the room. We have to wait on our oldest son. His wife's sister can mess up the best laid plans. Changed from afternoon to morning for her, and then yesterday we had to change from morning back to afternoon. Now we are waiting to open presents until 3. Not very happy, but it will be different next year, either they make it or they don't, not going to switch like this again sure messed up dinner plans.....

 

[chicken danz]

Just got home a little while ago. It was great to see my sisters and brothers all together. I doubt it will ever happen again because we all feel it will be the last year to spend with our parents. My poor chickens had to wait all day to get fed cause I left for church early and didn't come back. I'll have to get out there in the morning and give them some extra special attention. Maybe I'll make them some hot mash or something special so they'll all feel like they had a Chicken Christmas too.
I am exhausted. Unfortunately I still have tons to do and presents to wrap for the get togethers with my sons.
It sure doesn't seem like it was Christmas. Maybe next year I'll get more organized and decorate and stuff. If it snows in the next couple weeks I'll be wanting to put out lights and stuff.

 

[Dancing]

Hi again everyone. Just popping back in. Life has been busy. Hubby and I have worked out the plans for the new coop. I told him if we are going to "do this" we need to do it RIGHT. Go big or go home (as they say).

We have our existing coop that is 8'x12' and has an "addition" on it that is twice that size (we call the "general store") that has brooder area available. The way it is set up, we have room for 12-24 chickens in there (but I'm happy with 12). I don't like it because I can't see it from the house. We recently lost 2 hens to opossums (they thought we were running a bed and breakfast!).

Anyway, we've been working on the plans for the new coop. This will be in addition to the old one. It is actually going to be a double coop set up with a feed shed in between them, all under one roof. They will have separate yards but with a gate in case we decide to run one big flock. We decided to do the split so we can have one rooster yet still have eggs we don't have to worry about being fertilized (we have a few very picky customers). We figure 12 hens per side plus a rooster on one.

We have 80 acres so size is only limited by how much material we can salvage (which is pretty unlimited). My other coop only cost me $7 to build and that was for door hinges. The real expense is going to be the hardware cloth to close in the yard. After loosing some to preditors, I want to go "over board" on the safety. This one will be "out back" where I can see it from the house and actually get to enjoy my chickens more. We will be starting with a group in the south side first and then expand with a second group on the north side. (plus a third group in the other coop) This will give us between 36 and 50 chickens total.

Here's the plans for it...would love some feed back.
West end view
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx104/TAHaas/Chicken coop plans/chickencoopplanseastendview.jpg

East end view
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx104/TAHaas/Chicken coop plans/chickencoopplanswestendview.jpg

North and South side views
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx104/TAHaas/Chicken coop plans/chickencoopplanssideview.jpg

View looking down
http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/...coop plans/chickencoopplanstoplookingdown.jpg

 

[chicken danz]

Wow Dancing, that looks nicer than my home! My restraints on building is having access to electricity, water, and having money for the project. I could always run more power lines and water lines but the expense is the kicker. Wire is so high. And I also don't want to walk any further to get out to feed and water, I like to be able to view my birds from the house.
I envy people who have the resources to do that sort of thing.
I really should have married a hard working well to do farmer!

 

[chicken danz]

Got another very sweet picture of Topaz and her adoptive ducks from her new owners. A little blurry but how sweet.

 

[Trish44]

Danz, what a sweet pic!

Well we're getting to have Christmas with our granddaughter today, yay! We finally were able to talk to her yesterday afternoon & told her we were coming to get her today. So I probably won't be on here until later today. I hope everyone had a great Christmas & have a good day today.

 

[chicken danz]

I'm so happy for you! I hope you have a wonderful time with her.

 

[Dancing]

danz, we are "dirt poor" but hubby works for a lumber yard and delivers to the major builders in KC. He talks them into letting him "clean up" their job sites and so gets an incredible amount of lumber for free. It takes a a bit to save up enough for any one project but I can't remember the last time we had to buy any lumber at all. Also, hubby is a carpenter and I'm not to bad with a nail gun so doing the work ourselves isn't difficult.

As for electric, the new coop will be about 50 feet from the "shop" and so there won't be that much wire to run. And Joe constantly is bringing home left over wire from these job sites he cleans up. The old coop was built next to a power box (that the previous owners put in for their motor home) so when we built the "general store" we built it around the power supply so it has electricity. That is why it has the brooder ability.

He also gets the damaged bags of concrete for free from work (to set the posts). They can't sell it and would just throw it away (say 1/3 of the bag got wet or the bag got torn open). He gets, on average, anywhere from 1-3 bundles of shingles per month from these job sites (half a bundle at a time) and we just save them until we have a project.

Water is the only issue we have. But I guess that is what garden hoses are for right?

We have windows that were salvaged that just need new sashes (easy to build) and we have an exterior door that had a dent in it so the builder couldn't use it and let us have it.

I think all this would be a major issue if I was in a hurry to get it done or had to buy all the materials.

All told, this new coop should only cost us for the hardware cloth for the fence. Its going to be pretty pricey but worth it for the building we are putting in. (a $10,000 building for about $500)