Helpful hints for building coops

[jvls1942]

you said it was hot, just give the poor guy a nice cold drink...

we are at the verge of putting an in ground wire for a dog fence.
our Maremma have expanded their range to include the road out front.
lots of semi traffic out there.
not to mention cars. and one guy on a motorcycle who seems to have a goal to hit 100 mph before the top of our hill.
I think he might hit a deer, sooner..

Art, that chicken coop used to have a row of windows across the ridge of the roof.
I covered them with that steep little section of roof. funny, I had forgotten about those windows years ago.
they let in lots of light , but the frames rotted, so rather than fix them, I covered them up..

I finished the day off by cutting a couple of rafters and mounting them to see how badly I would be off.
they fit as if they were made for that roof.
my ridge beam post was about 1/2" short.
but once the rafters are in, I don't need the posts anymore.
the 6" lag bolts turned out to be a great idea. I fastened the birdsmouth first with them, then I moved up to the ridge and put a few 3" screws in.
I did make one mistake.
I wore tennis shoes. not good when climbing a ladder. tonight my feet hurt, and my hips hurt.
I have a wheeled scaffold in storage. I think it is worth the effort to put it to work
I used to use it for drywalling ceilings.

.....jiminwisc.......

 

[CapricornFarm]

Here is my new bunny, photo from the breeder.

 

[jvls1942]

Here is my new bunny, photo from the breeder.View attachment 1146993

Auwww,
He looks delicious..

 

[CapricornFarm]

Auwww,
He looks delicious..

Too small, hardly any meat on her bones. But i am considering raising a few meat rabbits.

 

[tigger19687]

Awwwwww how cute.

Been crazy hot (well very warm to some of you) here lately ! and HUMID
Cooling down to 60's this week, from high 80's Mon-Wed and last week. Just crazy

I do NOT like the Re=store that we have here. Some stuff is good if you are looking for old stuff. But really the prices are almost sale items at Lowes and HD ! and it is 30 years old !
Seriously I just look into Craigs List and stuff on Sale.

Oh, and since Summer is now over things are going on sale all around Hoping to score stuff

 

[CapricornFarm]

Not much on Craigslist here unless you go to NC. Then you spend a lot on gas. One of the bad things about living in the forest. On the plus side, i saw a deer and those 2 mother turkeys with their babies yesterday.

 

[jvls1942]

sometimes they are called "landscape staples". They come in varying sizes but are basically large U shaped staples. We use them to hold drip lines in place, our "in ground electric dog fence" in place, to hold cages over plants we are trying to keep the deer out of and many other things. Check your local landscape store, or Amazon.

how does that dog wire work for you ?
after the dogs learn their boundaries, can you shut it off ?
we can rent a ditch witch for $90.oo/day
I want to place about 1500 feet of wire.
I like your idea of stapling it down.
can you mow the grass over it ?

we need two collars. the unit is on sale at
Menard's this week..

......jiminwisc.......

 

[aart]

I like your idea of stapling it down.

Stapling may render it unfucntional.
When I did buried dog wire it had to be a certain distance away anything metal...maybe 5 feet, can't remember.

 

[Molpet]

the staples I used for my apron around the coop were for dog fence
http://www.dogfencediy.com/installation/burying-the-wire/no-dig-method/

 

[lcwmt]

how does that dog wire work for you ?
after the dogs learn their boundaries, can you shut it off ?
we can rent a ditch witch for $90.oo/day
I want to place about 1500 feet of wire.
I like your idea of stapling it down.
can you mow the grass over it ?

we need two collars. the unit is on sale at
Menard's this week..

......jiminwisc.......

The dogs learned their boundaries quickly. We do not use the "shock" signal, just the audible. The dogs do not need the collars all the time... we seem to put them on for about a week every few months. Interesting, when we are away from home and the dogs are loose, they keep a perimeter equal to what they have at home.

What we did: watched the dogs normal range, watched the deer trails and marked it off so the dog boundary was inside the major deer paths. We "fenced" about about 3.5 acres. We stapled the line down where we couldn't attach it to existing fence. The
"soil" here is mostly rock, trenching would have been a major hassle. Across the driveway we did hand trench a piece of conduit, otherwise none of the wire is buried. Yes, we can mow over it. We mow as high as possible - about 4", no problem with the fence wire. (If you like your place to be kept very short, you'd make sure the wire was as flat to the ground as possible or buried.)
The deer do not trip up the wire.
Stating the obvious: the invisible fence keeps the dogs in, does not keep any other critters out. So, neighboring dogs, coyotes, deer - whatever are not excluded from your property. We are happy with the fencing, it keeps our dogs off the road, out of neighboring ranch fields , they stay safely home.
When we put the fence in we walked the perimeter with the dogs. The older dog heard the younger dogs signal go off. She freaked out, ripped back to the house. It took me a week to teach her the world was safe. Apparently she'd had an earlier experience and associated the sound with a shock. She did finally relax and never needed her collar.
Buy batteries for the collars in bulk!