Coop design... I finally decided!

[Hillsvale]

well now is the time to lower it so I wil steal your experience and do that....

Snow... urgh changes to temperature too much from when its just sunny (and down right cold), dressed up in the leggings and snow mobile pants, an undershirt, long sleeve shirt and a hooded sweatshirt to work.... I ended up down to my undershirt and hooded sweatshirt....

 

[Hillsvale]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=43249

with the help of high speed at work

I finally figured out how to update my page....

 

[LynneP]

Broadband finally coming to our area in late January. Whew. It's on the Eastlink site and you can pre-register there!

 

[Hillsvale]

Ah... I thought I told you... must have been Bob. Eastlink emailed me last week... stoked. Simon is studying for his MBA on line... its terrible!

 

[Pureupto99per]

cute but expensive....

 

[Hillsvale]

Quote:
P99... the coop is actually coming in around 900.00, thats lots but with our climate we need to do things right the first time rather than try and fix it later on or have losses due to cold etc., in the long run it pays to do things right from the get go.

The wood siding that appears a "bit" extreme was actually 20 cents a foot, it is the shim wood that lumber yards trim off a log to square it up and put it at the optimal size to cut "sellable" lumber. The big window cost 20.00 and the two small windows and door cost 10.00 each, my peeps need light!

and I actually have four more windows for the next project... shush. Lucky for the mister this is money out of my pocket not our joint coffers....... even though he won't readily admit it he thinks its pretty cool and we have a nice home so I didn't want a little shanty.

Luckily this coop will last for our lifetime.. and with a name like Cluckingham Palace what else can you do .. (my Simon is a Brit, it seemed fitting)

Next at the pig and sheep huts and some suspended shelters for hay etc., I'll make sure they aren't as opulent.

 

[LynneP]

I agree, everything related to construction here is expensive. You should see the storm we had, the snow weighed TONS. Even though we used the barn and recycled lots of wood, by the time we finished the run we had spent $1100.00 Cdn. Worth every penny though- sturdy and predator strong. The eggs we got paid for it in about 13 months. Feed is costly here, too, it's hard to make a profit but what you can do is create foods that are superb and reduce the amount of contamination due to pesticides and herbicides. Some larger operations make money but most homesteaders break even and enjoy superior food.

 

[Hillsvale]

I agree Linda and that is what we are after... superior food. I was at Superstore yesterday and they had packages of "seasoned" chicken breasts frozen in a package of 4.... for 6.60 ..... now I am sorry but there is no way that a producer can manage that sort of pricing with happy healthy roaming chickens.... the packages of fresh chicken breasts were 5 for 20.00 .... chicken here, fresh happy chicken is desperately over priced!!

 

[Hillsvale]

Finally chipped off the snow and ice and finished off the other half of the roof, carried on with the OSB inside and lowered the nesting boxes to 12" off the floor....

It is so hard working with all this snow...

 

[Hillsvale]

sooo.... today I finished the insualtion (which Simon had placed in the attic several weeks ago) and added the hatch door

its kind of boring to see but will cut out the drafts



I finished off the OSB on the last wall... took me too long to do so

and I made a feeder box... got a galvanized feeder , it has thing twirley bit that wil help ensure feed stays in the tray.


and "altered" it so the feeder box will hold about 25 lbs of feed

I actually made two by my Simon thinks its not necessary so the other one will be for meaties, turkeys, geese or ducks.







Last bits to do.... add vinyl floor, paint the walls and create the the pop door ramp... now if the snow would go we could put up the fencing and run the underground wiring..... then chickies.