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- #31
PeterDenmark
Chirping
Thank you for your comments.Yes, the video not showing at first was my machine or ISP being glitchy.
Great coop and run, great video.....tho I had to watch a couple times with many pauses, I kept missing the captions because I was looking at the pictures
Your written english is excellent...Yeah, don't bother about the typos or misspellings, many first language english speakers do worse.
I love the big roof overhangs, they are aesthetically satisfying as well as highly functional, every coop should have them for summer shade and precipitation protection for windows and vents. But I almost cried when I saw the ceiling go in, you lost a great deal of ventilation from those awesome eaves. <shrugs> Maybe you don't need that, maybe the summer heat reduction is more important in your climate. Have you checked your humidity levels inside and out?
Excellent construction and many clever accouterments: the rubber hinge cover, the removable nests with stability cleats, the roost/board function.
Great job!
Did you drill and tap the rebar end for the screw/bolt and washer on the run anchors?
Did you put a solid or mesh roof on run?
Would love to see some pics of it all as it is today.
My Brahmas needed the wide side up too, they can be rather clumsy and they're BIG, added ramps too as they really didn't care to jump from higher than the 16" platform.
Reason for putting in a ceiling was two fold. If i didn't have a ceiling, it would have been a pain to insulate the ceiling. My rafter construction would have had to be totally different, or i would have to put a plywood sub-roof, insulate that, and then put the roofing on top of that, which would have added substantial cost (a regular sheet of 18mm CDX 5 ply construction plywood is $60 here, and i would have needed 5 or 6 to cover it.
Second reason was, that i only wanted metal surfaces in the coop. In case of red mites, fleas, coccidiosis etc. i can pressure wash the whole inside, let i dry, and torch all the surfaces with a propane torch, including the ground, where the "contaminated" water from the pressure washer were. and the spray it with Vircon S. You can do this with OSB and Plywood as well, but it doesn't get AS clean.
And yes - i do have moisture meters in the coop, and the moisture level inside rarely goes above what it is outside, and the windows never fog up. As i briefly said in the video, the outside walls are all open in the top. So there is a 3/4" (20mm) gap all along the top edge of the walls. Apart from that, there are 2 windows across from each other, with hardware cloth over them, so during the summer, they are never closed. They offer a nice cross breeze, without hitting the chickens.
If, for some reason, the moisture should rise in the winter, the metal walls will actually act like a giant dehumidifier, and excess moisture in the air would condense in the walls, and run out the gaps i the siding, along the floor. That situation hasn't happened yet.
AND i have 7 foot from ground to ceiling, so there is "more air" than if the coop was lower.
I have never had a chicken with breathing problems, or any inkling of frost bite on the combs.
I spent a great deal of time thinking about ventilation, before i started building, since the "well ventilated, but no draft" was tricky to wrap my head around. I actually went so far, at to hang pieces of thread over the roosts, and blowing on the house with a leaf blower, with a camera on the threads, so see under what conditions a draft might occur.
I hope my explanation doesn't come across as defensive, because it's not intended to be. I just very enthusiastic about the intricacies of these kinds of things, and no details are too small to overanalyze
.I'm in the process of building a smaller house next to this, to house brooders, and chicks, and that will indeed have the open eaves, and an osb sub roof, instead of insulation.
Regarding the video, i regret not having made it in english. Most scandinavians are pretty fluent in english, so it would have had a wider reach, but at the time i didn't think about that.
The rebar is not threaded. They are just pounded into undersized holes through the bottom "skids". With frost heaving, and the rebar having rough surface, plus a lot of rock they will never work their was furth into the ground. The ar pounded into 2 holes that meet under that big washer. The holes were drilled perpendicular to each other at 45 degrees each. So everything is pretty locked down, and with the system i actually managed to get the 2x3 botton skid, to "hug" the ground, even with up to 8 inch high differences over a 16 foot span.
Downside was, that i had to make the bottom skid first, and the cut each individual upright to the right high, since i wanted the top rail top be straight. Cumbersome job i tell you.
I have wire over the run now, and made a small "lean to" (60 sq.ft) roof inside the run, again mounted on hinges, so i can raise it up. I will shoot some pictures, as soon as it stops snowing.
I have experimented with different roosts, but they all seem to prefer the wide side. That includes my Marans, New Hampshire and Orpington. But i think i varies from coop to coop, what birds prefer. My main thing was the Brahmas, and when the temperature sometimes drops to -5 Fahrenheit (-22 c), their feet aren't exposed as much when they sit on the wide side, as opposed to grabbing a round object.
Your coop looks nice a roomy (6x8?) and looks liek you can stand up in there? Utilizing the space above the door is a great idea. I might make another roost over my door, so brooders have a place to sleep, if they get bullied.
Thanks again for your engagement - i love talking about this stuff.
In regards to your earlier post, there is no such thing as too much space, for sure! I have a 12 x 12 foot coop, a 8 x 6 coop, and a bunch of pens... and I'm still going to be building more in spring. 
so there's a technical term for every ignorant know it all I've ever met!? I'm thrilled. This could totally change my social interactions. My mental process can change from "wow what a blow hard jerk" to "ahh this poor soul has Dunning-Kruger" 
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