Das Hühnerhaus

[Alabama Jack]

Weather finally cooperated today. Got the roosting bars done and filled the poop board with granular PDZ. The girls have been roosting on the poop board, so hopefully this is a natural progression for them.



Started trying to dig down 24" for the post holes for the extended pen. Gave up after about an hour trying to move wet red-clay and went and rented a post hole digger. This thing is a beast! Lot of physical effort needed to move it around though...





Put in nine 10' 4x4s and added quickrete to the first 12-15"s. I plan to go back and install the hardware cloth next and then another bag of concrete for each pole. The top is going to look like a pergola, if all goes as planned.



The two on the left-front will be the doorway.




My son totally enjoys cleaning the sand in the coop pen, we'll see when he's 10 instead of 5:

 

[Brookliner]

What a well designed, well constrUcted, beautiful coop. You and your DW should be very proud. Lots of great ideas. Also, very well predator proofed. You would be surprised who will be hanging around at night for a chicken dinner. Great job.e

 

[Brookliner]

What kind of rake is your son using to clean the sand in the last picture. Could you post a picture of it. Thanks

 

[Alabama Jack]

Thanks Brookliner! I thought it would take a month. It's now been 6... Speaking of predators, the security light seems to trip every night at 1130, but when I go out in the morning, there's no tracks or signs of digging. I'm watching closely!

The rake is a horse stall pitch fork with 1/4" HW cloth zip tied on from TSC. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow for sure. It works great on the sand, but I'm realizing our sand has quite a few small rocks in it. Half of the muck out is rocks.

Question for you; I see you have bantams, how do the eggs compare size wise? Do they have the same temperment as the bigger girls?

 

[Brookliner]

My bantam Cuckoo Marans lay a dark brown egg that is about the size of a regular store bought large egg. My bantam Welsummers lay a similar size egg that is terra cotta color with dark brown speckles. My Ameracuna's lay eggs equivilant to a medium store egg. The rest Wyandotte's, New Hampshire's etc. lay small light brown to buff colored eggs. It makes for an interesting egg basket. When I give friends eggs I try to mix the egg box with a variety of colors. Alas, from my DH point of view my 11 roosters don't lay any eggs. LOL. All my hens are very friendly. The 2 Roos that I have in my big coop are very good boys. I also have a coop with what we call the batchelors club ... 8 Ameracuna roosters who all live together in harmony. The head roo some times gets feisty with me but he is small enough to easily put in his place. I also have a Cuckoo Marens roo who is very gentle but he is the largest of my birds. I prefer bantams since they don't take up as much space as LF birds. I currently have 35 birds in 4 coops.

 

[Alabama Jack]

@Brookliner thanks for sharing the info on bantams, I wouldn't have guessed on half the info you shared! Here's a picture of the pitch fork:

 

[Alabama Jack]

We got the lower half of the HW cloth installed on the extended pen. What a pain! Folding the HW cloth over about 5-6" before pushing into the ground helped. We then unfolded outwards and used a shovel to push it down. Added another bag of concrete per post, with the HW cloth in place. Hope I'm not here 15 years from now to replace the HW cloth if it rusts...









Just a picture of two of the ladies. The back EE is one of my favorites, but also one of the most shy. They seem pretty happy and content. BTW, they all slept on the roosting bars last night and poop cleanup was a cinch with the PDZ on the board.

 

[Achap-henrow]

just a pinch of advice; when working the hardware cloth, use a cottonseed or pitch fork to make the wire tight prior to nailing. works for me.

 

[Alabama Jack]

just a pinch of advice; when working the hardware cloth, use a cottonseed or pitch fork to make the wire tight prior to nailing.  works for me.

That's awesomsome advice! Thanks for sharing, that would have made it look a ton better. I'll definitely use that on the top sections.

 

[Brookliner]

I picked up a really useful tool at Lowe's it is a rotary cutter that is great for cutting hardware cloth. It is made by Skill and is cordless it made my last coop project go really smoothly. It was around $30. But well worth it. I will take a picture of it and post it tomorrow.