Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[LeslieDJoyce]

 It sounds like you want to purchase some wire, and make your own. You can purchase pre made plastic guards for the openings. It does not cost much to do each opening. I pick up cheap dog crates from the thrift stores. Wire hoops are easy to make and disassemble.

Ooooo! New concept! Plastic/rubber wire guard trim! I like that!

 

[michelle15666]

THANK you for this post.

 

[hellbender]

It sounds like you want to purchase some wire, and make your own. You can purchase pre made plastic guards for the openings. It does not cost much to do each opening. I pick up cheap dog crates from the thrift stores. Wire hoops are easy to make and disassemble.

I wish my daughter had thought about buying some 'used' crates but she jumped and bought new ones that will not be used until the mid-fall, at the earliest. Ah well, at least they will all match. In one way, I think they may never be used, not like it was explained to me because she has her brother and one of his buddies working on a 16' X 8' cockerel pen with a house to be added later but for now, it will just be partially covered with heavy billboard material. I don't see the use for this because we have plenty of room in the new barn but she wants the youngsters to see what's going on around them, including the girls. (especially the girls).

Here's a pic that sorta' represents what they are doing but with her dimensions....plenty of room. I found this on the net and it is similar but I think she plans for a much larger house and fenced area. The dog crates will not go to waste however . I considered trying to return them but that would be bad business since she got at deep discount and they will fill a need around here, even if it's after I'm dead!

 

[bnjrob]

Here's a pic that sorta' represents what they are doing but with her dimensions....plenty of room. I found this on the net and it is similar but I think she plans for a much larger house and fenced area. The dog crates will not go to waste however . I considered trying to return them but that would be bad business since she got at deep discount and they will fill a need around here, even if it's after I'm dead!

That's similar to our largest mobile poultry tractors that we build - only not so fancy and cute and ours are open air without the closed in front wall in the apartment area Our base is 8x10ft & approx. 7 ft tall at the peak. There is solid plywood for the apartment area ceiling that is 4 feet wide and our wire portion is covered with double layer shade cloth since we don't have trees in the pasture. We put a deck *loft* about 3 feet off the ground in the back under the plywood to add square footage and have roosts up in that loft area. Nest box hangs off the back wall on the outside. We hang food and water from the ridge beam to maximize ground space for the birds. They work very well.

We modified the design a little bit for our new turkeys' houses and instead of the a-frame to the ground, we have side walls at 3 feet tall then the a-frame goes up from there. Gives the turkeys more room at ground level since they are so much larger than the chickens, but still has a low enough center of gravity that it doesn't seem to be bothered by the wind so much.

 

[hellbender]

That's similar to our largest mobile poultry tractors that we build - only not so fancy and cute and ours are open air without the closed in front wall in the apartment area Our base is 8x10ft & approx. 7 ft tall at the peak. There is solid plywood for the apartment area ceiling that is 4 feet wide and our wire portion is covered with double layer shade cloth since we don't have trees in the pasture. We put a deck *loft* about 3 feet off the ground in the back under the plywood to add square footage and have roosts up in that loft area. Nest box hangs off the back wall on the outside. We hang food and water from the ridge beam to maximize ground space for the birds. They work very well.

We modified the design a little bit for our new turkeys' houses and instead of the a-frame to the ground, we have side walls at 3 feet tall then the a-frame goes up from there. Gives the turkeys more room at ground level since they are so much larger than the chickens, but still has a low enough center of gravity that it doesn't seem to be bothered by the wind so much.

Believe me...the house, when finally built will be sturdy and functional, made with 3/4 plywood but absolutely not be fancy. They started with a base of two 16 foot long treated 4 X 4s. They are using goat panels, which are also 16 feet long and that's what I know so far.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

For fast and easy (& inexpensive) temporary coops, I'm really liking wire-covered Cattle Panels and T-Posts ... someone else mentioned those a few pages ago. Just poke the T-posts through the plastic so you can roll up the sides for extra ventillation.



For the doors, we just make a simple hinge.



After the the modules are put together (wire over cattle panel), it only took a couple hours to assemble a 25' x 8' coop. That kind of made us feel foolish for having previously built a pallet coop ...

 

[hellbender]

For fast and easy (& inexpensive) temporary coops, I'm really liking wire-covered Cattle Panels and T-Posts ... someone else mentioned those a few pages ago. Just poke the T-posts through the plastic so you can roll up the sides for extra ventillation.



For the doors, we just make a simple hinge.



After the the modules are put together (wire over cattle panel), it only took a couple hours to assemble a 25' x 8' coop. That kind of made us feel foolish for having previously built a pallet coop ...

I don't think my daughter plans for this to be all that temporary...but for certain, movable. So far I've seen six, 16 ft. treated 4x4s and 7 goat panels, the ones with 4x4 inch holes.

I like your idea much better...far less costly. Those darned goat panels cost $60 bucks each...about 3 times what cow panels do.

The 4X4s are the best deal of the lot at just under $20 bucks each. I like a heavier foundation. I just don't know what the purpose of so many of them are unless...........

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

To be fair, moving my version of the cattle panel coop will be a PITA ... you'd need to temporarily stash the birds elsewhere (out on the pasture?), then use a post jack to pull the posts, then pound them all again, bending the coop back into shape.

For a more portable version, we built one with BIG PVC pipes ... I'll see if I've got a photo. It was a lot harder to build, okay, a lot harder, but LIGHT and the pipes work super well as skids. If you split a couple extra cattle panels and put them under the edges, it works pretty well to keep the raccoons out. Ours is just a feed shelter for the ducks. The ducks prefer to sleep out in the fenced pasture, but do come in to eat and sometimes to lay.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Photo of the business end of the PVC coop that the ducks mostly ignore. Not fancy, but really a pretty clever twist to the wood-frame hoop coop thing, as it doesn't require cross bracing on the bottom, it's LIGHT, and it slides like a dream. I think this one is 4 panels long (50" panels, so 16')? We used standard PVC pipe length, then added as many panels as we could. We learned enough from this process to streamline things for when we built the T-post hoop coops.

 

[hellbender]

Photo of the business end of the PVC coop that the ducks mostly ignore. Not fancy, but really a pretty clever twist to the wood-frame hoop coop thing, as it doesn't require cross bracing on the bottom, it's LIGHT, and it slides like a dream. I think this one is 4 panels long (50" panels, so 16')? We used standard PVC pipe length, then added as many panels as we could. We learned enough from this process to streamline things for when we built the T-post hoop coops.