DIY Thread - Let's see your "Inventions".
- Thread starter Eznet2u
- Start date
No tooling on this job, I just marked the conduit about 3 1/2 inches off the center and 7 inches from each end, there's a mark on the bender to line that mark up with.
The bender has a bar about 3 feet long, you can't go too much longer as you have to keep your foot on the head of the bender.
I used the seam of the conduit as a guideline to keep it in plane, tho they were all off at least an inch and very hard to clamp to bend back into plane...so I left them.
Once I made the first bend I put that end in between two cinder blocks to keep it upright.
Again.... if I had to install these rafters to fit hard surfaces it would not have been pretty, but the t-posts and the mesh over them allowed for lots of error.
The bender has a bar about 3 feet long, you can't go too much longer as you have to keep your foot on the head of the bender.
I used the seam of the conduit as a guideline to keep it in plane, tho they were all off at least an inch and very hard to clamp to bend back into plane...so I left them.
Once I made the first bend I put that end in between two cinder blocks to keep it upright.
Again.... if I had to install these rafters to fit hard surfaces it would not have been pretty, but the t-posts and the mesh over them allowed for lots of error.
- Sep 12, 2012
- 2,252
- 281
- 193
I had a photo somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now....
My sister and I made a chicken pen out of an old above-ground pool. This was the old-style "professionally installed" with the sheet metal that makes up the side walls, a liner inside of that, exterior supports, etc.
We got it without the liner, and with most of the poles in bad shape. But we tried to set it up anyway, and the sheet metal kept falling into the middle. So we put up some 4x4's around the inside, nailed the sheet metal to those, made a gate out of 2x4's and lattice (plus we added screen at the bottom to keep baby chicks inside, and added a landscaping net over the top. We got two plastic 8-foot poles from the lawn and garden section of Lowes to hold the net up in the middle and keep it from sagging, and some heavy-duty clips (98 cents each at Lowes) to pin the net down to the sides of the pen.
Then we got an old wooden "workstation" stable, and set it inside as a coop/nesting area. We set the table right up against the sheet metal siding, and added plywood on both ends to enclose it. The table didn't come out far enough to protect the nest from rain, so we just got an old piece of plywood to lean against half of it to provide actual shelter.
Enter an old wooden saw horse for roosting, and an old off-the-ground rabbit hutch for more roosting, and now 22 chickens happily spend their days in the pen. All of this came as an emergency shelter needed to stop attacks from raccoons and foxes. It did NOT stop a snake from getting in there and eating a golf ball which I use in the nests. But it DID stop him from getting back out once the golf ball was in his belly and he couldn't "break the shell" like they do with eggs!
And we were able to kill the snake because of that, and haven't seen anything else in there since then. No hawks, no raccoons, no foxes, and no loose neighborhood dogs!
My sister and I made a chicken pen out of an old above-ground pool. This was the old-style "professionally installed" with the sheet metal that makes up the side walls, a liner inside of that, exterior supports, etc.
We got it without the liner, and with most of the poles in bad shape. But we tried to set it up anyway, and the sheet metal kept falling into the middle. So we put up some 4x4's around the inside, nailed the sheet metal to those, made a gate out of 2x4's and lattice (plus we added screen at the bottom to keep baby chicks inside, and added a landscaping net over the top. We got two plastic 8-foot poles from the lawn and garden section of Lowes to hold the net up in the middle and keep it from sagging, and some heavy-duty clips (98 cents each at Lowes) to pin the net down to the sides of the pen.
Then we got an old wooden "workstation" stable, and set it inside as a coop/nesting area. We set the table right up against the sheet metal siding, and added plywood on both ends to enclose it. The table didn't come out far enough to protect the nest from rain, so we just got an old piece of plywood to lean against half of it to provide actual shelter.
Enter an old wooden saw horse for roosting, and an old off-the-ground rabbit hutch for more roosting, and now 22 chickens happily spend their days in the pen. All of this came as an emergency shelter needed to stop attacks from raccoons and foxes. It did NOT stop a snake from getting in there and eating a golf ball which I use in the nests. But it DID stop him from getting back out once the golf ball was in his belly and he couldn't "break the shell" like they do with eggs!
And we were able to kill the snake because of that, and haven't seen anything else in there since then. No hawks, no raccoons, no foxes, and no loose neighborhood dogs!
perchie.girl
RIP 1953-2021
Those old pools can serve long after swimming days. I have three of the walls in my "junk" pile But mine are some sort of heavy duty plastic. Would be great for roofing too... At least the tin ones would.... The plastic ones are degrading so If I use them I will use them as wind or sun breaks not necessarily for structure.... Of course mine have been sitting for about ten years now.... LOL.
deb
Last edited:
We need some photos of that !
- Sep 12, 2012
- 2,252
- 281
- 193
I took some today, although it was raining and it's due for a cleaning.
This is the overall pen, from the outside. The gate swings inward, to keep the chickens from coming out of the pen as it is being opened. They line up at the gate when someone gets near, and if it swung outwards, they would fill up the space as the gate opened.
The gate was recently reinforced (the piece of lattice was already attached to the 2x4's of the gate, and most of the nails had come out, so it dragged the ground). I haven't attached a latch to the gate yet, and it swings open on it's own, so I used a rope and a brick to hold it shut for now. Hey, redneck work has it's benefits!
The almost-flat pile of mulch to the right is what we use to "clean" the pen. The mulch was free from the county - we caught them as they were cutting trees limbs away from the power lines, and they were more than happy to dump it in our yard! It's just shredded leaves and tree limbs (not chipped) and it works just fine in there. We cover up the old poop with it, so worms and other bugs can crawl up and eat the poop - and then the chickens eat the bugs and worms!
This is the old rabbit hutch that sits in there for them to roost on. The net on top cuts a bit close by the pen's wall, but the open side is where they all want to roost. The bottom is wire, but their poop still tends to get caught on it. That's almost the only thing that needs cleaning regularly. A strong hose gets most of it out. This isn't their main food bowl, either. It's just a side bowl for the ones who get picked on a little more when the food is brought in.
The black bucket is a make-shift nest with a golf ball inside of it. The newest bantam hens like to sleep in there. And although it's dark and dirty from the rain and their nearby digging, the plastic pool has sand in it that they used regularly to take their dust baths in the summer.
Also, just above the hutch, you can see two of the clips that I use to secure the net to the sides. And the green pole in the foreground is what holds the net up. The net was stapled to the top of the green pole using a staple gun.
This is the old wooden saw-horse that gets used as another perch for roosting. You can also see several pieces of pressed chipboard laying around the pen. I do that on purpose to get bugs to collect up under there, and then occasionally I go in and flip them over so the chickens can eat the bugs. You can also see the 4x4 in the back that the sheet metal is nailed to.
The 4x4 on the right (laying down) was just an extra one that we didn't use.
And this is the nesting area/coop. You can see the second green pole used to hold up the net. The plywood on the sides of the nest area are nailed to it as-is (we didn't bother to cut it down, thinking they might use the top as well - and they do). The plywood leaning up against the front isn't secured at all - it's just leaning that way. When the pen is "cleaned" the plywood is simply flipped over allowing the poop to drop to the ground and mix in with the mulch, before we add new mulch to cover it all up and let the bugs get to it.
The 4x4 here WAS secured between the old table and the sawhorse as another roosting area. But none of them ever used it, and the board soon began to warp as well. So I took it down one day, and realized the younger chicks used it like that to climb up to the sawhorse. So I decided to leave it like that to help them.
And this last photo is actually an old one...
The nest boxes. I made these using a single sheet of plywood. For each box, I got five pieces of 12" x 12" plywood. Four of them were used to make the bottom, back, and two sides. The fifth one was cut into two pieces - the shorter piece making the front, and the larger piece making the top. The front piece is roughly 1/3 of the 12x12 panel, and the top is roughly 2/3 of it. I simply nailed them together with thin nails, and added hay.
This pic was taken immediately after I finished making them, and put the hay in. By the time I brought hay in for the third one, I noticed my hen Brownie had already claimed one as her own. So I moved the other two, and left the third one for her for a short while. She laid an egg in it, and then I moved her and the nest boxes into the pen shown above. There are four of these total.
This is the overall pen, from the outside. The gate swings inward, to keep the chickens from coming out of the pen as it is being opened. They line up at the gate when someone gets near, and if it swung outwards, they would fill up the space as the gate opened.
The gate was recently reinforced (the piece of lattice was already attached to the 2x4's of the gate, and most of the nails had come out, so it dragged the ground). I haven't attached a latch to the gate yet, and it swings open on it's own, so I used a rope and a brick to hold it shut for now. Hey, redneck work has it's benefits!
The almost-flat pile of mulch to the right is what we use to "clean" the pen. The mulch was free from the county - we caught them as they were cutting trees limbs away from the power lines, and they were more than happy to dump it in our yard! It's just shredded leaves and tree limbs (not chipped) and it works just fine in there. We cover up the old poop with it, so worms and other bugs can crawl up and eat the poop - and then the chickens eat the bugs and worms!
This is the old rabbit hutch that sits in there for them to roost on. The net on top cuts a bit close by the pen's wall, but the open side is where they all want to roost. The bottom is wire, but their poop still tends to get caught on it. That's almost the only thing that needs cleaning regularly. A strong hose gets most of it out. This isn't their main food bowl, either. It's just a side bowl for the ones who get picked on a little more when the food is brought in.
The black bucket is a make-shift nest with a golf ball inside of it. The newest bantam hens like to sleep in there. And although it's dark and dirty from the rain and their nearby digging, the plastic pool has sand in it that they used regularly to take their dust baths in the summer.
Also, just above the hutch, you can see two of the clips that I use to secure the net to the sides. And the green pole in the foreground is what holds the net up. The net was stapled to the top of the green pole using a staple gun.
This is the old wooden saw-horse that gets used as another perch for roosting. You can also see several pieces of pressed chipboard laying around the pen. I do that on purpose to get bugs to collect up under there, and then occasionally I go in and flip them over so the chickens can eat the bugs. You can also see the 4x4 in the back that the sheet metal is nailed to.
The 4x4 on the right (laying down) was just an extra one that we didn't use.
And this is the nesting area/coop. You can see the second green pole used to hold up the net. The plywood on the sides of the nest area are nailed to it as-is (we didn't bother to cut it down, thinking they might use the top as well - and they do). The plywood leaning up against the front isn't secured at all - it's just leaning that way. When the pen is "cleaned" the plywood is simply flipped over allowing the poop to drop to the ground and mix in with the mulch, before we add new mulch to cover it all up and let the bugs get to it.
The 4x4 here WAS secured between the old table and the sawhorse as another roosting area. But none of them ever used it, and the board soon began to warp as well. So I took it down one day, and realized the younger chicks used it like that to climb up to the sawhorse. So I decided to leave it like that to help them.
And this last photo is actually an old one...
The nest boxes. I made these using a single sheet of plywood. For each box, I got five pieces of 12" x 12" plywood. Four of them were used to make the bottom, back, and two sides. The fifth one was cut into two pieces - the shorter piece making the front, and the larger piece making the top. The front piece is roughly 1/3 of the 12x12 panel, and the top is roughly 2/3 of it. I simply nailed them together with thin nails, and added hay.
This pic was taken immediately after I finished making them, and put the hay in. By the time I brought hay in for the third one, I noticed my hen Brownie had already claimed one as her own. So I moved the other two, and left the third one for her for a short while. She laid an egg in it, and then I moved her and the nest boxes into the pen shown above. There are four of these total.
Very nice...I showed to DH..He will be making one of these!Our homemade chicken plucker. Rubber bungee cords - PVC 4inch cap - bolt -washers. Lock to power drill.
I'm thinking Dear Heart or Husband but it may not always be a term of endearment. Just depends I guess.
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