*Edit: All pics & progress are all together on my BYC page so you don't have to scroll through all of the posts unless you want to.
I just got done playing around with setting up a page here to document our new coop progress but thought I'd stick it here in the coop forum as well.
Most materials are free from scrap & salvage but we did pay for the concrete and hardware cloth. (Hubby is a welder so has a rather impressive scrap pile.) We live on several hilly, wooded acres in southeastern Oklahoma. Predators abound so we need an impenetrable fortress. We're also building the new coop to last forever. Most materials are free from scrap & salvage but we did have to pay for the concrete and hardware cloth. We started by leveling an area near our kitchen garden so that, once all is finished, we'll have the run as a moat around the garden.
The coop sits on a 10' x 15' concrete pad, is metal framed, with metal sheeting roof, exterior walls, and interior walls. 5' will be partitioned off from the north side for storage, brooding, and whatever else, leaving a 10' x 10' living space for the chickens. Hardware cloth covers the vents and windows. The run will be a combination of welded wire and hardware cloth welded to steel poles atop buried I-beam.
The new flock, born mid-March 2009, about 3 weeks old here. 30 birds -- RIRs, "Dominiques" (I think they might be Barred Rocks), and a couple of Aracaunas -- a few are likely hybrids but we're cool with anything dual-purpose. They are straight run so we'll put all but one or two of the fellas in the freezer in a few weeks. The gals will stay as layers, of course.
Formed and filling to level with rock dust.
The pad poured.
Walls partially up.
Here you can see the vents that run the length of the east and west sides, each about 7" high and covered with hardware cloth.
The interior walls are getting up and the linoleum is down. There are large, hardware cloth-covered windows on all four walls that will have flip-up closures. The wall to the right in this photo will have two pop doors below the window. One will be for entrance into the garden during non-growing months. One will be an entrance into the "moat" run around the garden. They're both framed up but we sheeted over them for now as it will be quite a while before that side of the run is completed. You may also notice a little dark blob above the right-hand window. That is square tubing through which cable will run to connect to the window closure outside. Each window will have one so that we may open and close all windows as needed from inside the coop. Now, see the large square opening below the left-hand window? That is for a third door -- large enough for us to enter the run if needed but will have a smaller pop door built within it for regular use. This is for the other end of the aforementioned "moat" run -- the end we will start building first. (We will also be building a gate in the run itself but, again, that's still a bit further in the future.
I'll post further progress as we go along.
I just got done playing around with setting up a page here to document our new coop progress but thought I'd stick it here in the coop forum as well.
Most materials are free from scrap & salvage but we did pay for the concrete and hardware cloth. (Hubby is a welder so has a rather impressive scrap pile.) We live on several hilly, wooded acres in southeastern Oklahoma. Predators abound so we need an impenetrable fortress. We're also building the new coop to last forever. Most materials are free from scrap & salvage but we did have to pay for the concrete and hardware cloth. We started by leveling an area near our kitchen garden so that, once all is finished, we'll have the run as a moat around the garden.
The coop sits on a 10' x 15' concrete pad, is metal framed, with metal sheeting roof, exterior walls, and interior walls. 5' will be partitioned off from the north side for storage, brooding, and whatever else, leaving a 10' x 10' living space for the chickens. Hardware cloth covers the vents and windows. The run will be a combination of welded wire and hardware cloth welded to steel poles atop buried I-beam.
The new flock, born mid-March 2009, about 3 weeks old here. 30 birds -- RIRs, "Dominiques" (I think they might be Barred Rocks), and a couple of Aracaunas -- a few are likely hybrids but we're cool with anything dual-purpose. They are straight run so we'll put all but one or two of the fellas in the freezer in a few weeks. The gals will stay as layers, of course.
Formed and filling to level with rock dust.
The pad poured.
Walls partially up.
Here you can see the vents that run the length of the east and west sides, each about 7" high and covered with hardware cloth.
The interior walls are getting up and the linoleum is down. There are large, hardware cloth-covered windows on all four walls that will have flip-up closures. The wall to the right in this photo will have two pop doors below the window. One will be for entrance into the garden during non-growing months. One will be an entrance into the "moat" run around the garden. They're both framed up but we sheeted over them for now as it will be quite a while before that side of the run is completed. You may also notice a little dark blob above the right-hand window. That is square tubing through which cable will run to connect to the window closure outside. Each window will have one so that we may open and close all windows as needed from inside the coop. Now, see the large square opening below the left-hand window? That is for a third door -- large enough for us to enter the run if needed but will have a smaller pop door built within it for regular use. This is for the other end of the aforementioned "moat" run -- the end we will start building first. (We will also be building a gate in the run itself but, again, that's still a bit further in the future.
I'll post further progress as we go along.
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