I can't believe my very first chicks are causing such obsessive tendencies, but there you are! DH started it all by saying that he didn't want a "redneck tarp coop" (no offense meant as we ARE southern rednecks LOL), but that our coop should look nice. So I obliged by having him help me build a pretty A-frame coop. Of course, now I am getting worried about not enough ventilation and not enough SPACE! So I've already let DH know that we will NEED another coop within a year, with lots and lots of space. He paled a little bit when I mentioned having room for turkeys
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So then it was a week before the chicks were due and I had to build a brooder! Okay, so I was smart enough to build one that fit through the doorways, but of course that meant that - you know - the chicks outgrew it pretty fast! So then I HAD to build another one, actually I built two 2'x 2' wire cages that I stuck together to make a 2'x 4' brooder. That doubled the space but 15 chicks are still going to grow out of that. I fended it off for a while by transferring my 5 White Rock meat birds to the original brooder box, but both the boxes were inconvenient to clean and were taking up a lot of space in my laundry room, not to mention giving it a faint chicken smell. So DH was kind enough to put together a bigger brooder a few nights ago, it is all hardware cloth on 2"x 2"s and is mounted on casters. It measures 42"x42", and I am going to put casters on the 2' x 4' wire cage brooder and stick it along this new one, and cut doors between the two. That should be enough space until they can go into the coop, and there is no rush as it's in the garage. Plus, it is pretty fast to put together as we used the 42" 2"x2"s from Lowes, so very little cutting involved. I added 1"x2" roosts in a cross pattern running the length of the inside, and the feeder and waterers are out of the drop zones that way.
But daggum! My first 15 chicks are not quite 4 weeks old and we've built one coop and 3 brooders with plans for expansion already!I must have the chicken bug bad... I don't remember nesting this much with my KIDS!
Send the doctor!
So then it was a week before the chicks were due and I had to build a brooder! Okay, so I was smart enough to build one that fit through the doorways, but of course that meant that - you know - the chicks outgrew it pretty fast! So then I HAD to build another one, actually I built two 2'x 2' wire cages that I stuck together to make a 2'x 4' brooder. That doubled the space but 15 chicks are still going to grow out of that. I fended it off for a while by transferring my 5 White Rock meat birds to the original brooder box, but both the boxes were inconvenient to clean and were taking up a lot of space in my laundry room, not to mention giving it a faint chicken smell. So DH was kind enough to put together a bigger brooder a few nights ago, it is all hardware cloth on 2"x 2"s and is mounted on casters. It measures 42"x42", and I am going to put casters on the 2' x 4' wire cage brooder and stick it along this new one, and cut doors between the two. That should be enough space until they can go into the coop, and there is no rush as it's in the garage. Plus, it is pretty fast to put together as we used the 42" 2"x2"s from Lowes, so very little cutting involved. I added 1"x2" roosts in a cross pattern running the length of the inside, and the feeder and waterers are out of the drop zones that way.
But daggum! My first 15 chicks are not quite 4 weeks old and we've built one coop and 3 brooders with plans for expansion already!I must have the chicken bug bad... I don't remember nesting this much with my KIDS!
Send the doctor!