Dixie Chicks

[vehve]

We just have this small foyer, it mainly houses shoes. I put that shelving together with some OSB that I spray painted black, and a sheet of glass on the top shelf. If the room would have been designed by a smart person, the door wouldn't open into it, and you could actually hang stuff on the other wall too. But it will have to do.

Flappy, Squeeky, Tweety or whatever we keep calling the little dude is doing much better, very alert today and making some noise. It's Driving the Dachshund crazy, and it's poop smells really bad. All the fluids it took in yesterday have made it's poop pretty loose, so when you come into the house you're greeted by a lovely milky, sweet smell.

It's been acquainting itself with it's temporary home today. The wound is looking a lot better too, we cleaned it again and put some more vetramil on it.

 

[BriardChickens]

Morning all! I am back at work

4 days off go by way too fast.

@vehve glad to see your little chick is doing better! How is the rabbit hutch coming along?

@Alaskan A metal stair case sounds like a good idea, but I doubt it's any good if I need to send the dog up and down those stairs. Depending on how rough the material is it could cut into his paws pretty good. Maybe even freeze his paws at -30C to the metal... hmm spray it with anti slip material?
The plan is to make this house look pretty for resale, DH and I aren't planning to stay here. Does a metal stair case add to the resale value?

 

[Peep_Show]

Woke up to 16 fuzzy bator thumpers and 6 pips. It would be easy to spend all day looking at the cute mayhem happening in the 1588, but I have a coop run that has been stalled on for too long. Soon as it gets light out I'll get to it.... But for now it's quiet time with the computer.

Good morning All!

 

[vehve]

Rabbit hutch is still in the planning stages. Karin is a bit impatient about it, she would like me to haul the circular saw out in the snow and get cutting. I've gotten the compost cages that we are going to use as the net, but I haven't bought lumber yet, and I also need to find some tin roofing. And maybe some bricks to make the base.

Chick is getting perkier by the hour. It's been roosting on it's little cardboard coop today.

As for the grate, you don't have to build it solid. We have a concrete porch, and on the first step we have a metal grate, it's as wide as the step (maybe a foot), and about a meter and a half wide (5 feet) It's heavy enough to not budge easily, but you can still lift it to the side to sweep under it. That's the first line of defense, gets most of the sand and gravel and crap. Then by the door there's a coconut fibre carpet, really tackles sand well. And on the inside of the door there's a synthetic carpet. The dogs mostly ignore the grate, but the carpets do work wonders when you want to cut down on how much they track in. I'd say that one carpet on the outside and one on the inside cuts it down to about 20% of what it would be without them. The back door is a bit of a problem, it opens directly to the living room, but we've got a coconut fibre carpet on both sides of the door there too, and it really helps. I'll add a picture of the grate in just a second.

*Edit* Okay, it was only 4 feet long.

They also make these grates with a brush system, it's basically three brooms with plastic bristles, set so that the middle broom is pointing upwards, and on both sides of it, slightly above it, you have a broom pointing inwards. You pull your shoe back and forth in it a couple of times and it gets most of the stuff out. Not very pretty, but highly functional.

 

[vehve]

Here's a pic of the brush thingies. Called a "rappuralli" in Finnish.

 

[vehve]

While I'm plugging products, here's what I'd really want in a mudroom, a kurasyöppö, or "mud eater".


It has a drain with a sand collecting basket built into it, together with a hand held shower this would be great for a entrance. You just need to empty the filtering basket every once in a while.

Here's a better way to build it:

 

[vehve]

@BriardChickens While I'm rambling by myself, I could describe the plan for the rabbit hutch, and bunny tractor.

Okay, so the hutch will basically consist of a little house, that will be built out of a large plastic container. I'm going to put exterior paneling on it, and some insulation in between, and make the roof openable for cleaning. The run will be made out of compost cage elements, installed on a treated wood frame. I'm going to build it in two 3*6 foot sections. Both sections will be built from detachable wall elements, again treated wood frame holding the compost cage elements. I want this thing to be easily stored in winter if we house the mama bunny with the chickens.

When the bunnies get a bit older we're going to have to separate them, so Karin came up with a great idea for a bunny tractor. Using again the same kind of compost cage elements, we will put them together as triangles, and build a tractor by attaching 3-4 triangle sections to eachother. Then some plywood in both ends, and a bit of a roof on top of it in one end, along with a raised floor to make a place to sleep in. This thing will be great, if it ends up looking as good as it does in my head. It won't have wheels, but it will be light enough for two people to lift it and move it around. And it will break down into a really small size when not needed. The compost cage elements are great because they're built to be in constant contact with compost, so the weatherproofing is really good. The won't rust apart immediately.

 

[Cold Canadian]

We just have this small foyer, it mainly houses shoes. I put that shelving together with some OSB that I spray painted black, and a sheet of glass on the top shelf. If the room would have been designed by a smart person, the door wouldn't open into it, and you could actually hang stuff on the other wall too. But it will have to do.

Flappy, Squeeky, Tweety or whatever we keep calling the little dude is doing much better, very alert today and making some noise. It's Driving the Dachshund crazy, and it's poop smells really bad. All the fluids it took in yesterday have made it's poop pretty loose, so when you come into the house you're greeted by a lovely milky, sweet smell.

It's been acquainting itself with it's temporary home today. The wound is looking a lot better too, we cleaned it again and put some more vetramil on it.

Reverse the doors swing , make it a outswing , not hard to do and then you have a bigger area ? That or build a edition onto the outside , ten feet deep by say twelve or fourteen feet wide , insulate and heat and your problems are solved , could even put your laundry room into it .......open up even more space in the main house ........not that expensive if you do most of it yourself , a little help from friends ??

 

[Beer can]

vehve, if you plan on building one similar to mine, basically a small doghouse on legs with a wire cage in front. I would suggest that you do the bottom of the hutch like a trap door on hinges for easy cleaning. I didn't do that with ours a it was a pain in the butt to scoop the bunny turds and hay out. Not all rabbits will mess in their hutch, you might get lucky and not have to clean it. Males are more likely to. We had a black and white dutch rabbit in our house as a pet when I was a kid. It always went to the bathroom in a litter box with hardware wire over it.

 

[hennible]

Ok I want that mud eater thing in a potting/nursery shed. As well as a new boot/mudroom with one... Oh and one in the chicken coop, yup so I can get the poop off my boots before going back to the house...

Vehve I'm only sending one kind of tomato I'm just not sure how they'll perform outside so I don't want to send you a bunch that won't do anything... The yellow ones are almost always my earliest crops, in the right location somewhere, nice and sunny they should do well outside.