Consolidated Kansas

[Hawkeye95]

Wow, your coop is awesome! What do you do in your spare time? Build houses?

Today has been a bad day for me. My cousin died this morning, my aunt in hospice could not get out of bed for the first time, and I lost my little white serama hen. She stopped laying eggs about five days ago and looked to be broody. I put her outside the coop and she continued to just sit most the day for the past three days. She did not appear ill other than the sitting. I lost a young hen in my big coop so I am baffled. I called K State and I guess I am going to have a necropsy on her and the other bird. Probably overkill but I do not want to introduce any chickens or trade anything until I have this one ruled out. I lost some new chicks last fall from Meyers and two of the seramas from Jerry and I thought whatever went through then was gone. I guess I am in quarantine until I hear something definitive. Boy when it rains it pours.

Oh wow, I'm so sorry about your cousin. You're right it doesn't sound like a very great day overall. It'll be interesting to see what KState says about your birds. Are they doing this for free, or is there a charge? I will be keeping this in mind myself if something ever happens. I think you are being incredibly responsible about your flock.

 

[Hawkeye95]

New babies at my house.
The light colored one is supposed to be a brown/red oe. Never had one this color.
The other two are Black Rosecomb bantams. Just out of the hatcher.

Awwwwww!!! So cute!!! I love the little black ones. What did you band them with? Did you do that so you can figure out who their parents are??

 

[chicken danz]

My DH brought home a cold or flu to me. I had a flu shot but apparently it didn't prevent this one. I had a procedure done yesterday and as soon as I woke up I started sneezing and blowing my nose. It hasn't stopped. I have taken every thing I could get my hands on and it's not kicking it at all. I feel l like crap. Mean while he is sleeping like a baby but I can't sleep because I can't breath. Ugh!
I am so careful about preventing germs/virus so I don't get sick. He woke up the night before coughing and blowing his nose. I didn't think much about it at the time, cause he is a smoker and does that a lot. What a D.A.! I never let him smoke in the house or my car cause I am very allergic to it.) My poor nose is beet red and raw even though I keep putting bactracin on it to keep it well. OH geez!
After we got home yesterday Marshmallow had dug a hole alongside the old garage and was carrying her pups out to it. I guess it had gotten too warm in the dog house for her. So I opened the door flap and let the cooler air in and put the pups back. Sure glad I did cause it's been raining here this morning and I'd have some wet chilled pups. The pups are now up running around on all fours. They are so cute. It's about time to give them some supplementary food even though Marshmallow has been doing a great job of keeping them fat and healthy.
My ducks were out before day light playing in the rain puddles.They are very happy with the weather.
Any more word from Ivy?

 

[Hawkeye95]

My DH brought home a cold or flu to me. I had a flu shot but apparently it didn't prevent this one. I had a procedure done yesterday and as soon as I woke up I started sneezing and blowing my nose. It hasn't stopped. I have taken every thing I could get my hands on and it's not kicking it at all. I feel l like crap. Mean while he is sleeping like a baby but I can't sleep because I can't breath. Ugh!
I am so careful about preventing germs/virus so I don't get sick. He woke up the night before coughing and blowing his nose. I didn't think much about it at the time, cause he is a smoker and does that a lot. What a D.A.! I never let him smoke in the house or my car cause I am very allergic to it.) My poor nose is beet red and raw even though I keep putting bactracin on it to keep it well. OH geez!
After we got home yesterday Marshmallow had dug a hole alongside the old garage and was carrying her pups out to it. I guess it had gotten too warm in the dog house for her. So I opened the door flap and let the cooler air in and put the pups back. Sure glad I did cause it's been raining here this morning and I'd have some wet chilled pups. The pups are now up running around on all fours. They are so cute. It's about time to give them some supplementary food even though Marshmallow has been doing a great job of keeping them fat and healthy.
My ducks were out before day light playing in the rain puddles.They are very happy with the weather.
Any more word from Ivy?

I thought about you all day yesterday! I am sick too! I don't think it's a sinus infection, though. I'm pretty sure it's a cold. I have the runny nose and cough and lots and lots of sneezing! All I want to do is sneeze, and half the time that tingly itchy feeling doesn't do anything. You know that feeling when a really good sneeze doesn't happen? Really annoying! I got this from my kids. My littles came home from preschool coughing all over me two days ago. Bah. Fortunately my oldest child and DH are fine... so far. I'm hoping they don't get sick.

Crazy Marshmallow-- she could have had wet pups! Good thing you caught her doing that and solved her problem for her. Cute about the ducks!

 

[checoukan]

Awwwwww!!! So cute!!! I love the little black ones. What did you band them with? Did you do that so you can figure out who their parents are??

That is a little zip tie. You can get them at wal-mart. The zip tie is a chick from some of my breeders that I raised. The other is a chick from my new breeders from New York. As they grow, I will remove the small one and put anouther one on and make sure it does not get tight.
This way I can see what each mating is producing. If I have something not staying to standard, I will not continue with that mating, and swap around. If I still have problems, then those birds will be sold as I will not keep anything that does not breed true to the SOP.

 

[WichitaKidd]

David, I'm not Tweety but you got my attention with this. I tried Google SketchUp several years ago but couldn't get it to do much that was useful so I eventually uninstalled it. When you wrote the other day that you are working on a materials list based off SketchUp I just couldn't picture it because my experience of the program, well, let's just say, it never gave me a materials list. So I decided to try again. I am currently going through the tutorial videos (don't tell me I should have done that the first time around

) and think I am starting to get the hang of it. I guess you can tell, I normally don't like tutorials - I kind of like to just dive in and if the program won't do what I want it to do, I give up on it. But in going through the tutorials I'm now feeling like I might actually be able to use it to create something useful. I'm going to start designing my coop this afternoon after I've finished the tutorials but I hope you won't mind if I pick your brain if/when I run into trouble?

I will admit, SketchUp can be somewhat frustrating at first, but stick with it. I'll also add that the current version (8.0) fixed a number of bugs that I thought made using the previous versions more than frustrating. I'm also like you when it comes to tutorials in general, but the "new" SketchUp videos they've posted were a big help to me. They give you a good idea of how the software was designed to be used & how it "thinks". I also didn't want to imply that SketchUp will create a materials list for you once your plans are done. You'll still have to figure that out by hand. However, when you have something to look at that has measurements it's not too difficult. I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but I feel pretty comfortable with it that I could help you out if you run into problems. Just let me know.

 

[checoukan]

Ok, have not heard from Ivy this am. Her phone was low battery. I will try to give her a call and see how the night went. They were planning on going home today, but that might be this afternoon.
No rain here. Couple of passing showers, but nothing to speak of, more like sprinkles.

 

[WichitaKidd]

Congrats! I'm going to be a grandma the end of March and can hardly wait! I decided that I wanted to make a crochet'd quilt for her as well, learned online how to crochet and then promptly started. Two months later I've only got about 2 inches created. My fingers hurt and it was going way slower than I'd planned. I decided to quilt on instead. LOL. Sorry I can't help ya, but again congrats!

Congrats tweety. I'm right there with you. Going to be a grandparent mid April. Not sure I'm ready for this.

Does anyone crochet or knit? We have a grand baby coming in July and I would like a handmade blanket for him/her but I don't know how to make one. We will find out later this month or early next month if the baby is a boy or girl. If anyone is willing to make me one please let me know how if you knit or crochet and about how much you would charge.

Ivy, I am glad they found something that they can fix. My husband had 2 stents put in in Dec. and he said he felt much better immediately. I hope your husband has a speedy recovery and feels much better with the stent.

OK. I'll admit it. I've been crocheting for over 30 years. Just one of those hobbies you learn when you're little & just can't let go of. If all you are looking for is a baby blanket I could probably help you out. Give me some ideas on colors, patterns, etc & I'll shoot you a price. Probably just the cost of materials which won't be much. Let me know.

 

[HEChicken]

How large are you wanting to build your coop? I could help you with a materials list. For example-- anything 4 X 4 ft and under will simply need 2X4's for the floor joists and support. But if you are going to go with something larger-- like an 8 ft long structure, I'd use 2X6's for your flooring frame and joists. You can still use the 2X4's for building your walls. If you know what length you are going and where your windows, etc are, you can count up on each side how many 2X4's you're going to need. When I did my walls, I put my studs at 16 inches-- but you'll need to double stud your ends for caps, so it will attach to your other side. If you're doing a really small structure-- none of that is necessary. But the coop you can see in the background of my tiny coop-- that has 6 foot high walls, and the pitch of the roof gives you about 8.5 head room (with 6ft being the smallest head height on the sides). I've also learned about trusses since I made a couple different kinds and finally went with the modified Kingpost with a 5:1 pitch ratio. Of course-- my coop is on the larger side... none of that is necessary with a smaller one. BTW-- the little coop I just made has a 6:1 roof pitch ratio since it's smaller. Anyway, if you have any building questions-- just ask!

Here is my Coop Page: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hawkeye95s-page I have my coop outlined step by step and what materials I used if you are interested.

Thanks Loralee. Oh trust me, I've already read your whole page. I even subscribed to it so I'll know when you update it. Bwahahahaha.

Thanks for the tips on building. Here's my deal: we will be moving shortly to our new place in the country that is on 10-acres. While house-hunting, many of the places we looked at already had either a chicken coop or a shed that could be converted, but the place that we finally settled on doesn't. In a way I'm happy to build from scratch and be able to do it just the way I want it. On the other hand, right now it seems a pretty overwhelming task. I'm no stranger to tools and do have *some* skills. My dad didn't have a son to follow him around so instead I was always his helper and he taught me a lot along the way. At 10 I mixed all the concrete in a rotary mixer, for him to complete a really large building project. I did yard work and helped him both build furniture from scratch, and strip older furniture to refinish. At 16, he put an extension on our house entirely by himself and I was right there with him. Well, I guess I would say we did it entirely by ourselves LOL. Later, in my first house, I had the basement roughed in when the builders built the house, and I refinished parts of it myself, doing electrical, drywall, dropped ceiling tile, door framing, and some nice shelving in the window. So its not that I've never used a power tool but somehow I've never built a whole building from scratch by myself and I'm here scratching my head a little trying to figure out how to get started. Maybe its because Dad was an architect by trade so he always planned everything and I never had to do that part....

Anyway, that gives you a little background. Now back to the project itself. Originally when I looked at the google map images of the property, I planned the placement of the coop. Then I had to go back out to the property one day and discovered a concrete "pad" in another area, that I thought would be a great place to build the coop. So I had to readjust my plan but now think the new location will work even better. The dimensions of the pad are:

15'9" long by 10'11" wide. In addition, there is a 4'x4' extension on one of the back corners. There must have been a shed of some type on the pad at some point in the past because in each of the 4 corners there is what is left of a steel post. The posts are 6-8" in from each corner. So my idea was to use the points where the posts used to be to mark the dimensions of my coop. This will mean that the coop will sit wholly on the concrete pad with a 6-8" strip of concrete surrounding it. For the 4x4 extension, I thought that might be a good place to keep a couple of bins, for feed etc, so I'd like to extend the roof to cover that area. So to wrap up, I'm looking at a building that will be approximately 10x14, give or take a few inches. I was a little disappointed the pad fell just shy of allowing a 16' side wall, since more cutting will be involved this way.

As for materials....I have multiple doors already so the people door to the coop is taken care of. In addition, one of the doors is a narrow little internal bathroom door that I thought might be used as a poop tray under roosts. I plan to obtain windows from Habitat so I'm not concerned about those. I also am not concerned about roofing material. We just found out that the roof on the house will be replaced prior to closing. I plan to tell the roofers to leave enough of the old shingles (from the un-hail-damaged area of the roof of course) to use for shingling the coop. I also have a lead on siding that has been recycled from a guy who dismantles mobile homes. So what I'm looking at purchasing new is really just the base lumber - studs, OSB etc.

Anyway, any tips you can give me on planning will be more than appreciated!

 

[checoukan]

Just talked to Ivy. She was in Wal-Mart picking up somethings. Guess they finally removed the cath around 10 last night. Whatever they put in DH's artery to like self close the wound failed, so, anyway, they had to hold pressure on it for like 45 minutes! Guess they had a all start football player holding pressure. OUCH!!! Anyway he still bled some, and had to change his bed. He has not got out of bed yet, giving that time to heal and stay healed. Don't want that to open up! Anyway all of DH's syptoms are now gone. No chest pain, no shortness of breath. So he is feeling much better!