That is really cool! I have livestock guardian dogs called Anatolians, and they keep all birds away my chicken pen is a "no fly zone" for anything other then chickens, lolHawk Shield!!! After having several deadly incidents, involving either red-tail hawks, owls, or falcons with my chickens, I decided I could no longer let my chickens free range without patrolling right by their sides. Working and other time commitments made this impossible except occasionally on the weekends. This swayed me to build a rectangular fence around the coop last spring; that way they can stretch their wings and dig in the grass all day without me worrying about them getting into danger's way (but I lock them away in the coop&run each night however).
The fence allowed protection from gorund-predators but didn't provide a solution for the real problem, the predators from the sky. This gave me an idea to create a fishing line-webbing atop each fence post, spanning above the coop and across the whole fence-pin. My design required two 10 feet beams placed generally centered in the pin and equally distant from each side of the fence. Each 6 ft post holding up the fence has an eye hook drilled into the top allowing strong Spiderwire fishing line to be attached from the tops of each post to both center posts.
It has been up 6 months and I haven't had a single bird-predator problem since. The web of green, braided fishing line forms a criss-cross pattern overhead and doesn't give the hawks access to the chickens on the ground if it were diving from the tree tops overhanging the coop. Now I can leave my chickens out all day without worry. The only problem I have encountered so far is falling limbs from the shadowing canopy tearing threw and breaking the wires on their way down. Therefore the only maintenance of this design requires replacing broken lines a few times a year.
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Call the little one the Auxiliary dog.... Auxiliary dogs orbit the bigger dogs to keep them pointed in the right direction... they are necessary but not really a dog....
deb
Call the little one the Auxiliary dog.... Auxiliary dogs orbit the bigger dogs to keep them pointed in the right direction... they are necessary but not really a dog....
deb
Fabulous execution! I did a similar thing with HOT pink contractor's "grade" string. But I think the fishing line would work better, long term. I'm going to use your idea in a pen I'm hoping to build around my coop/run with next year's tax refund.Hawk Shield!!! After having several deadly incidents, involving either red-tail hawks, owls, or falcons with my chickens, I decided I could no longer let my chickens free range without patrolling right by their sides. Working and other time commitments made this impossible except occasionally on the weekends. This swayed me to build a rectangular fence around the coop last spring; that way they can stretch their wings and dig in the grass all day without me worrying about them getting into danger's way (but I lock them away in the coop&run each night however).
Hardly my invention just a take on other slide to roll egg turners... Sorry no pictures of the build or of it outside the incubator, maybe next time as I want to address a few small issues and thus make a revision...
I'm working on a large fully automated incubator so this was just a stop gap fix for now using my old home built incubator...
I tossed this together with stuff I had laying around, the only thing I purchased was the egg turner motor and dowels... All the wood was ripped from either a scrap 2x6 or from a small scrap of plywood... Nothing fancy I wanted to get it build ASAP...
The aluminum motor control arms were cast and finished by me (mostly with hand files and a belt sander) after melting down and sand casting the rough shape from some aluminum soda cans... I made the arm on the motor large enough that it can easily be converted to a longer throw to rotate larger eggs like peafowl...
It gives me about a 180° roll one way and then a reverse 180° roll every 4 hours, or in other words it flips the eggs about every 2 hours...
It works but I want to address a few issues I have noticed, I was too 'stingy' on the spacing between the dowels, made 3 different spacing but looking back I should have just made them big enough for the larger eggs, it's a hassle sizing the egg to the slot...
As it sits now the tray has pins that ride up and down a groove in the side walls, but it also has foot slides on the bottom to ride across the plywood... Next revision will have the slides on the bottom removed and a section of softer drawer liner will be glued to the sheet of plywood to give a little cushion and also provide more resistance as the eggs have a tendency to slip on occasion vs roll...
Also the next revision the tray will just have side rails and dowels, really no need for the front and back rails, the tray is plenty sufficient with just the dowels across it....
In the last photo, yes the metric temp gauge is reading a little high, that is just the air temp on the high swing of the heat cycle, you can't see it but the blue gauge shows a near dead on 99.5° - 100° all the time and that is measured from the small baby bottle of water seen in the lower left to better simulate the inside of the egg temp... The other thermometer (glass on on the left) at egg level and slower to change due to the steal temp buffering balls also reads a steady 100° give or take...
