Getting ready for peas! (Pics of the setups/progress)

[Mmmatt13]

Hi all!
I've got 4 fertile and growing eggs left out of the 20 that I started with. Unfortunately it just seems like a bad hatching season for everybody, but I'll be happy to have my perfect little babies, no matter how small the number.
Anyways! We've been getting ready for these little guys and yesterday we went out and bought an 8'x4' sheet of plywood and a couple scrap 2"x4"s in the $0.51 cull lumber pile. We had the 8'x4' cut straight down the middle, then into four 3'x2' panels, and two 2'x2' panels. Each 2"x4" were cut in half, to make 2"x2"s to use for the supports on the inside of the brooder. We also bought 24"x25' roll of hardware cloth (going to use it on the coop as well). We used about $20 worth of what we bought (we were left with one 3'x2' panel and one 2"x2").



The black at the bottom is a double layer of Visqueen sandwiched between the 2"x2"s and the bottom plywood for easy cleaning and so that the water and poo doesn't get soaked into the floor wood... We used 2" deck screws for everything but the lid. And also used the lid hinges and a handle that we had lying around the barn.

Now, in the first brooder box that we made, I had to have windows in the front so that I could always just peek over at the kids and watch them without having to hover over the top.


That's Bug, my little Olive Egger hatched from my own birds - Lavender Ameraucana and Black Copper Maran.
And this brooder box is about 6-7 years old.. All that wood was bought from the hardware store, you can see how much it's been through LOL!

So originally, to talk my dad into building a new brooder with me, I said it does not have to be big or complex, just a quick put together box, but while we were building it I asked "So, no window?" And he was reluctant, but he found a spare piece of plexiglass that we had from other projects. The piece he pulled out was the PERFECT size, so we used a bansaw to cut out a hole in the front piece of plywood, and used some of the extra 2"x2"s for a "frame" to hold it in place.



So in all the brooder is much more sturdy and well built than the original, and it only took a couple hours and $20 bucks to throw it all together! I think it looks pretty darn good!
There's also a perch on the one side just for fun!




So that's the brooder, now on to their pen.
We're stealing some ideas from Randy and his beautiful Pea Palace, but putting in our own little details.
The fence for the yard is 30'x40' and within there is an 8'x16' enclosed "coop" that will be their first outside home as well as their forever home when they are allowed to go outside. So far we're focusing on the "coop" first so that we can move the babies out to it when we need to!

All of the "pen" posts are spaced 10' apart, and four of them will have 4"x4" perches, none of which will be on the outer perimeter posts to keep the chance of the males getting their trains snagged by predators - we don't have too many predators but it's better safe than sorry, I think.



In the pic above you can see the building's door frame and bottom boards. For the walls of the "coop" we are using large boards of lumber that my dad got at an auction for a great price - he's just happy to be using it all up. For the posts we bought 10ft tall log posts from our next door neighbor. They are each cemented 2 feet into the ground, there's 8ft of log above ground. And the "coop" logs are thicker in diameter, and are notched out so that the wall boards have a barrier to bolt into and stay put. The front of the building is going to be 8ft tall and will slope down to 6ft in the back. For the fence perimeter we will use 2"x4" welded wire for the top 5ft, and the bottom 3ft we will have a sort of sight barrier - maybe made of wood, maybe metal, not quite sure yet - for more protection from predators.



This was before we had bolted the boards into the logs - used several lag bolts laying around - and added more boards on the walls. The pics below illustrate the progress since the pic above.



Some of the boards are heavily warped, but we're doing what we can.





And that's what we've got going so far! Unfortunately, progress will have to be put on hold for 2 weeks because my parents are going to Norway for their 25th wedding anniversary, and I can't exactly do all this by myself. Hopefully I can upload progress pictures as we get more built.

Thanks for looking, hope you like it!

 

[birdking11]

looks like a very nice set up

 

[Mmmatt13]

Just adding photos of the current progress! Here's what we got done this weekend:

The front:




The Inside:



The side:


And the back:



There's a total of six windows, as you can see in the photos. They will just be wire mesh windows with coverings on them for winter, and for when the babies are growing up - until they get their big-kid feathers. I'm hoping to move them out sometime this week, we just have to do a couple more things until we can!

Hope you enjoy!

 

[zazouse]

Looking good

 

[Trefoil]

I'm jealous! That is going to be a .great set up. Just one thing, I don't know the predator situation where you are, but here in Michigan, I would suggest burying hardware cloth or some other barrier around the perimeter of your coop to discourage diggers from tunneling into the coop for dinner. I admit i'm ignorant but are you in the desert? If possible a couple of shrubs in the pen would give shade as well as being pretty.

 

[Mmmatt13]

Trefoil, technically, we are in a desert, but it's not a desert like the Sahara lol. The location of this pen/coop is situated so that in the afternoon it will have shade from the trees to the east of it, and in the morning, and just before noon, there will be a "shade" coming off of the coop for them. There haven't been any digging predators here in Colorado since we've had our chickens - about 7 years - but the only problems we've had are bobcats pulling carcasses through the fencing once or twice. We will probably end up putting quarter logs around the perimeter of the coop and the pen, to discourage diggers. We will see how that plays out, we just gotta get these cute little babies outta their brooder box! They grow up so fast.....

Here's a quick photo I took of them yesterday, a little over five weeks old.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Mmmaddie13,,,Your dedication with what your building is an inspiration,been there-done that,with more to come here next spring too! Please remember those little peas will need supplemental heat if your planning to move them outside very soon.Also a place that is draft free.I like your building,,but I see between the boards there is cracks which can be expected using recycled lumber.I'd just make a suggestion that inside your building dedicate a smaller space possibly 1/3 of the total inside building space that is draftless and maybe can be supported with a heat lite. Peas love to perch up high and your building will work great for them at night. Run some 2z6"s laying flat about 2' under the roof. You can buy 4x8 sheets of OSB board that is only 1/4" thick for about $5.00 each that will work very well as an inside wall that will cut the dafts off the peas.On a cheeper note,large pieces of cardboard could be stapled to the inside walls just to cut drafts.Maybe find an appliance store that handles larger appliances such as fridges and snag the cardboard before they bundle it for recycling. Keep up the great work,,looks like you will have room for 3-5 seperate pens??

 

[Mmmatt13]

Randy, thanks for the ideas! We are planning on chinking the larger spaces between the boards, but the cardboard idea is a great temporary fix! I'll have to do that. The building will eventually have electricity in it, but not for a little while, so we are going to string an extension cord out with the heat lamp. I am planning on putting perches at 5ft inside the coop, and at 6 ft outside, I have some spare 4x4s that I was planning on using for perches, think 2x6 is better? And hopefully we can keep the whole outdoor pen the way it is, at 30'x40', but our neighbor is really not being cooperative and it may jeapordize about 300 sq ft of the pen, but that still leaves about 9000 sq feet total so I can have ten adult birds in there comfortably. I'm considering building some actual breeder pens that are 10x30 that I can move them to when they're 2 years old. Hopefully I can talk my dad into that one, too!

Will your peas stay in their designated breeding pens over winter as well? Or do you have a separate place to house them all together? Or does it matter? Just curious!

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Mmmaddie13,,if you look at some of the first pics in Pea Palace thread,you will see the building I added on to the side of the existing corn crib,,it is 24' wide and 30' long.From this new building is where my breeding pens was built from.I have another facility that has a minature metal building on it too,that is about 12'x16' with a fully enclosed outside pen with a metal roof over it,,the outside pen is about 10'x16',,,this is where all my home rasied peas lived up to the time I seperated them for breeding this spring,,I had close to 30 Peas in this smaller space.Concrete is under everything in this building-pen,,this is where I kept my Charcoals all summer mainly because of the concrete pad not alllowing anything to dig under the fence or wall to get to them.
What I have considered doing this fall is move all my India Blues back to the smaller pen with the Charcoals (Would be about 12-16 peas).I still have room under the netting at Pea Palace for 3 more breeding pens which I didn't finish this summer because I didn't need to,,but if I build an entry door to this larger undivided space so I can go in-out,,I can leave the balance of peas here.I still have not done any work inside the 24x30 building either as far as walls or pens,,it's just one large open space but I'm looking at keeping back 30 or so young peas,,and I want to devote an area for them either inside this new building,or inside the old corn crib upstairs.My peachicks won't hit dirt until we have a good freeze here,thats just a rule I have about raising young peas,they are off ground until we get frozen ground.
I'd use your 4x4's as the posts that goes in the ground with a 2x6" across the top of that for a perch,,making sure the 6" part of the board is flat. My perches are 4' above ground with 2' of the 4x4 in the ground surrounded by concrete.I allowed about 12" per bird for perch length.
All my Peas will have access to getting inside this winter,,with the ability for me to lock or keep them inside by closing a door,ect.

 

[Mmmatt13]

As of today, here's what it looks like.

We have steel cable up across the top of all of the 8ft posts to hold up the netting (stole that idea from FBC). I'm not sure what we're going to put over the top of the posts to keep the wood from rubbing the netting, but we'll figure it out. I believe they're secured in place by "U-shaped" nails.


We have two sections of 4ft tall 2"x4" welded wire fencing, which will have a board going all the way around the perimeter of the pen at the seam of the fencing. On the bottom two feet we have chicken wire to make it harder for predator hands to reach through the fencing. Originally we planned on having some type of barrier on the bottom 3ft or so, but decided that fencing all the way down would be okay. The trenches at the bottom of the fencing will have logs to discourage digging predators. We have had chickens for seven years and have used just a few inches of buried boards around the perimeter of their fences and we have had no digging predators to date. *Knock on wood.*


And here's the whole pen and house. I open their top door for them every once in a while, if it's a nice day out, so they can look outside and have some fresh air. They're pretty happy little boogers, and I can't wait for them to be able to go outside and enjoy their new home!!!


We will be putting the netting up VERY VERY soon, and we have hog rings to attach the netting to the top of the welded wire fencing and the steel cable. More pics soon!
Click pics to enlarge.