Helpful hints for building coops

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Maugwa said:
If you are going to be using any wood lathe (Strips generally about a quarter or 3/8" inch thick and 1 1/2" wide) or furring strips (also called 1x2s even though they are really 3/4" x 1 1/2"), or any thin lumber you may have ripped, to secure the ends of poultry netting, hardware clothe, tarps, or plastic, or as decorative trim, there is an old trick of blunting the sharp end of a nail with your hammer before driving it to prevent splitting. I would rather not use this trick though, it seems to only work about half of the time. Anymore with all the cordless screw guns out, I'd prefer screws, but they still will split thin wood easily. They should be pre-drilled. If you have two drill/drivers, putting the drill bit in one and the driver in the other will save a lot of time swapping bits. If you are working with one screw gun, you can pre drill a small stack of lathe, then swap bits and screw them all on. No matter which method you end up using, try to avoid at least the last two inches of the pieces of wood being used, but if you have to put a screw near the end, stay back as much as possible from the very end, don't over tighten, the thicker the piece the better, and pre-drill it a hair bigger by running the drill bit through it a little longer and better.

You Also can use self tapping screws, designed for use in metals, they will work in wood, they'll pre-drill their own holes. There are a few drawbacks, they cost a little more, and you lose some of the threads that hold them in place due to a portion of the end of them being drill bit rather than holding threads. If you're screwing into thicker material like a 2 by, it won't matter much, just use about a quarter inch longer than you would have (as long as the point does't come through in places that matter), but if you're attaching to 1" by, or plywood, you probably don't want to give up this bit of thread. In places where they do work fine, I feel the small extra cost of them is well worth the time they save, once and done.

Make sure to use galvanized, dipped, coated, or some sort of outdoor fasteners everywhere on a chicken coup, this is not an area that makes cheaper fasteners cheaper, it makes the cheap ones into the most expensive a few years down the road.

Thin wood lathe weathers extremely fast too, if you can find it, they make synthetic wood composite materiel (recycled pop bottles, sawdust, straw, etc.) lathe too. It's somewhat expensive, but not so much really if you figure it lasts for years and years, and can be reused if you have to change tarps, etc., often.
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Thanks for the great tips!
 
aart said:
Here's some of them.......girls just went down to them local mill to be sold.
View attachment 1735871

View attachment 1735876
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Nice! Woke up to these chicks today!
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It is nice to have chicks now. makes it feel more like spring.
but spring is not up nort.. about mid 30's today.
but the sun did shine and some snow did melt.
had a scare this morning. went to flush the toilet and no water.. ran enough water to make a pot o' coffee. the pressure seemed low.. great, the deep well pump quit.. that was my first thought.. but after a cuppa and talking with Annie, we deduced that the flush valve in the toilet was probably plugged at the filter , again.. this happened a few years ago..long enough for me to forget it..
Annie washed a load of clothes, just to prove it wasn't the pump..
this is the time of year when I finally really am sick and tired of winter..
.....jiminwisc......
 
jvls1942 said:
It is nice to have chicks now. makes it feel more like spring.
but spring is not up nort.. about mid 30's today.
but the sun did shine and some snow did melt.
had a scare this morning. went to flush the toilet and no water.. ran enough water to make a pot o' coffee. the pressure seemed low.. great, the deep well pump quit.. that was my first thought.. but after a cuppa and talking with Annie, we deduced that the flush valve in the toilet was probably plugged at the filter , again.. this happened a few years ago..long enough for me to forget it..
Annie washed a load of clothes, just to prove it wasn't the pump..
this is the time of year when I finally really am sick and tired of winter..
.....jiminwisc......
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glad it wasn't the pump

yeah my toilet valve has fits all the time from the hard water... I keep a bucket in the shower, fill it with the water when waiting for hot water
 
someday somebody should write a book about all the little tricks people do to keep their lives on an even keel ..
save a bucket of water, jiggle the flush handle, pump the accelerator once and hold it at half throttle to start the truck, don't bother choking the lawn mower, just automatically give it a squirt of starting fluid, etc, etc, etc,
......jiminwisc.....
 
We've boxes and bins stacked all over the house. Full of the stuff we can do without for a few months but man it sure gets hard to move around. Next week we move all the boxes and bins and unnecessary furniture to a storage unit near the house. Should make the painting much easier.

Waiting for word that the slab's been poured to pull the trigger on the house build. 3 to 8 weeks later they should deliver and set it up on site. 13 weeks till retirement.
 

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