gearheadmb
In the Brooder
- Mar 6, 2017
- 11
- 7
- 32
So i tried starting my build thread yesterday, but i put it in the wrong place, so i'll give it another go.
Ill tell you a little about myself. I grew up on a small farm, but we never had chickens. This will be my first chicken experience. A year ago my wife and i bought an old house and three acres in the country about a mile from the house i was raised in. We LOVE it here. It was so great to get out of town, where we lived for the last seven years. Now we get to do a little hobby farming. Chickens, a couple acres of hay in my field in front of the house, and whatever other adventures we can dream up. Its really quite a lovely little existence.
Anyways, the chicken coop. We plan to keep 8-12 hens. So i went with 4'*8' with a sizable run as the plan. When shopping for bargain materials i found a truck driver selling boards that measured 2.875" square by 5 feet long. He hauls steel and these were used in between the bundles of steel. He had them priced at a dollar a piece so i bought 50. I thought they would make a nice frame. The tricky part was how to join them together. I didnt want screws running into end grain. I also didnt want to spend $100 on brackets. So i decided to channel my ancestors and do timber frame style construction just like all the 100 year old barns in the area, albeit a very shrunk down version.
And just like that i had a good old fashioned tiny amish barn raising. The hardest part was finding tiny Amish people to help.
Ill tell you a little about myself. I grew up on a small farm, but we never had chickens. This will be my first chicken experience. A year ago my wife and i bought an old house and three acres in the country about a mile from the house i was raised in. We LOVE it here. It was so great to get out of town, where we lived for the last seven years. Now we get to do a little hobby farming. Chickens, a couple acres of hay in my field in front of the house, and whatever other adventures we can dream up. Its really quite a lovely little existence.
Anyways, the chicken coop. We plan to keep 8-12 hens. So i went with 4'*8' with a sizable run as the plan. When shopping for bargain materials i found a truck driver selling boards that measured 2.875" square by 5 feet long. He hauls steel and these were used in between the bundles of steel. He had them priced at a dollar a piece so i bought 50. I thought they would make a nice frame. The tricky part was how to join them together. I didnt want screws running into end grain. I also didnt want to spend $100 on brackets. So i decided to channel my ancestors and do timber frame style construction just like all the 100 year old barns in the area, albeit a very shrunk down version.
And just like that i had a good old fashioned tiny amish barn raising. The hardest part was finding tiny Amish people to help.
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