I finally did it!!

[ShrekDawg]

Okay, so I tried to make some videos showing the two potential locations but as usual they got ridiculously long and/or ended up showing other things so yeah. But the second one (made because the first was too long) I tried to be more organized with pros and cons but it still only ended up being 5 minutes shorter. Then I made a separate short video showing the chain link kennel. And ANYWAY. Point being I put all 3 in a Drop box album and here's the link in case anyone feels like watching one or all three. I mention some of the concerns too but I guess that falls under cons. As usual, I haven't watched it back yet I am sure it's embarrassing as usual and shoddy camera work but oh.well.

Anyway, here's the link to the album.

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/zn7837g8dxq7bui/AAAW8-J8F29HzO6wnNE60eiSa

 

[ShrekDawg]

And here's the other album links with photos in case you'd rather not watch the long video haha

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/9qi0p0o5urxo7oa/AAAzybRH-7U6Dhn2ZCoKDzCXa

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/vcyqzge5nqrhz88/AAD-KCkSh8y_hqcWvAHQj7v1a

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/3pt1rvk8mjey5bw/AAAErrvYGme8_2uYvEZMmT3Qa

 

[ShrekDawg]

I can just list the pros and cons here, rendering the video pointless I guess but there is some decent stuff in it still

But anyway, location 1 would be next to the garage and location 2 would be over by the doghouse.

Soo then..

Location 1

Pros:

- Close to house

- Not exposed/is sheltered from elements

- Large area

- Can enter directly from garage

- 2 walls already

- going off above, cheaper with 2 walls and a dog kennel.

-Not near woods/predators

-Out of the way

Cons:

- Close to neighbors and especially property line (noise? Smell? Rules?)

- Minimal sun exposure if confined

Location 2

Pros:

- Can have huge run/hoop coop

- Possibly cheaper with the hoop run

-Tons of sun

- Still fairly close to house

Cons:

- Even with pallets and hoop run, could expensive to make huge

- Fairly exposed

- Right next to woods

- Dog likes to sniff around over there and edge of woods. Wouldn't be able to.



They're both good and bad. I don't know

 

[ShrekDawg]

Anyway, sorry, I'll stop adding stuff now haha

 

[ShrekDawg]

Got the heating pad today! also a surprise, which I'm posting pictures of lol

 

[ShrekDawg]

Almost wish I'd gotten one of these suckers for myself!! LOL

Also, here's the surprise haha they're so cute. I know I'm way premature on it but it was only $11.75 each (for 12) and they're so cute. Now, I could have gone to an egg carton website and gotten like 120 for I think... $50 or $60, maybe more or less, some were more likw the $60 some may have been closer to $40, but I didn't wanna spend that much and I didn't need that many lol but these were cute and yeah.

Premature but so cute.

And all the info. Except the nutrition's probably for caged birds lol but still.

Anyhow, well worth it I say.

 

[bruceha2000]

You do need to check with the town to see what restrictions there may be with regard to how far your coop and run can be from the property line. Some places have more restrictive rules than others. I would bet that the pipe you show in the video is an official survey marker. Also, if you can free range them some, you will need to put up some sort of fencing to keep them out of the neighbor's yard. Chickens don't understand lot lines, they go where ever they spot something that might be food. And most chickens can easily get over a 4' fence if they want to. My chickens are MOSTLY pretty quiet, except they tend to sing the "egg song" after they lay an egg. Some are quick about it, some go on and on and on. "SHUT UP CHICKEN, I get it, you laid an egg, thank you".

And as for chickens and sunlight, yes they like light but at least MY girls hang out under trees, lilac bushes, the deck, in the barn etc when the sun is high. They are hardly ever out in full sun except early and later in the day when the sun is lower. Thus I wouldn't worry about the amount of shade in the areas you are considering for the run. I would think hard about putting any part of it in the woods simply because you will find is a huge PITA to dig holes for the posts. All those trees have .... ROOTS! Since you mentioned hawks several times, you might want to run fishing line crisscrossed over the top of the run.

There is nothing at all wrong with a dog kennel run! Plenty strong to keep out predators, just make sure you do the 1/2" hardware cloth up ~2 feet. Raccoons can reach through chicken wire and rip the heads off chickens. And have the "no dig" skirt (that green 2x4 wire would work ).That might be your first run, especially since you already have the kennel. If you use the "one side of the garage" location, the kennel will make a larger run. And having it where you can easily get to it in the winter is a BIG plus. I seriously doubt you will have smells that get to the house from the side of the garage. The pine shavings in the coop soak up the moisture from the chicken poop. I have about 6" of shavings in my coop and just rake through it every morning to mix the poop in. If you do that, make sure there is a removable board across the door (and chicken door) or a lot of the shavings will end up outside the coop. BTW, composted chicken poop and pine shavings make good fertilizer for the garden.

An alternative to the skirt is placing paver stones around the outside edge. As I read it, canines don't think "hey if I dig out here I can tunnel under the stones" they want to dig right at the fence. So if you happen to have a bunch of those hanging around use them. Or if in all the "stuff" you have, you happen to have some old metal roof panels, use those instead of wire or fencing as "no dig" skirting. Attach just above ground level, flex it and bury it several inches down. Just make sure it STAYS buried. Don't want to catch the edge of that with feet or mowers. You can use zip ties to attach the hardware cloth but they age out in the elements and get weak. I would just use pieces of wire. It is plenty cheap and I bet you have something around already. For instance, if you have some Romex type house wire, you can strip out the conductors and use the copper wire.

You will find many nice cattle panel hoop runs on BYC. Hoop coops too! You do NOT need to make the entire run out of 1/2" hardware cloth! You do need to make sure predators can not get in. And the hoop runs can be extended easily. They usually have a wood frame base and some metal rods driven into the ground to hold that in place and the cattle panels are attached to the wood frame base. Cattle panels are usually 16' long and 48" high so each panel makes a run section 4' long and 6 to 8 feet wide depending on how much headroom you want. You can put a tarp over the top (clear or translucent is good because it lets in a lot of light) so the chickens can be out in the run without getting rained or snowed on. And you can roll up the sides of the tarp on nice days and in the summer. Some people get fancier by framing in the end with wood and putting a people door in it. Others wrap the tarp around and tie it though I think that would be a PITA every time you need to go in and hard to keep closed in winter winds.

You ARE quite the night owl! You chickens WILL need you to get up and let them out but since you are likely going to be asleep, think about an auto chicken door. They are kind of expensive, I have a PulletShut and it is great. BUT search for "car radio antenna chicken coop door". Cheap if you can get one at a junk (sorry, they are now called "salvage") yard. Put it on a timer and you don't have to get up early. The chickens will put themselves back in the coop at night after they learn that is "home".

Re winter water. That is a problem up here in the cold climates. No the nipples will not keep it from freezing, in fact the water can freeze as drops from the nipple when the chicken drinks and lock it up tight. There are examples of where people have put a piece of rigid insulation on the outside bottom of the bucket such that ONLY the metal nipple part sticks out. But for some reason chickens love to peck rigid insulation so you need to protect it. And you need a heat source in the bucket.

I use a 5 gallon Igloo drink cooler that I "plumbed" with a very small pump (used for reptile waterfalls), a tube going out to a 3/4" PV pipe (I'm using saddle nipples) then returns to the cooler via a second piece of tubing. Thus the warm water is constantly circulating when the temps are below freezing. The 3/4" pipe is built into the bottom of the nest box (I would make it a separate unit were I to do it again). There is rigid foam all around the pipe and holes in the bottom piece of plywood so that just the nipple pins stick out. I also have a stock tank heater in the cooler. They go on automatically when the water temp hits 40F and I think they heat to about 50F. That works until the outside temp is about 15F. After that I have to replace it with a submersible aquarium heater set at about 75F. That USUALLY works to about -20F but sometimes the nipples still freeze up.

With regard to what you should use first, the waterer you have is fine. And if you don't have a "permanent" water source, you can always take that one in at night (when they won't be drinking anyway) and fill it with warm water in the morning. But you will have to get up When I got around to making my "permanent" water setup, one of my Anconas was pecking at the nipples before I even had water in it. Chickens are curious sorts. Took no time for them to transition from the 1 gallon chick waterer to the nipples. Presumably the 3 Y/O hens have shown (by example only I'm sure) the 19 week old girls that there is water under the nest box.

 

[bruceha2000]

Kelsey, you DID get a heating pad for yourself! How often do you think you will be brooding chicks? Right, not often. No reason you can't use the pad for its designed purpose all the rest of the time. A red heat lamp is worthless to you except for brooding chicks in an unnatural way. Oh and yes the green 2x4 wire will make a nice MHP frame.

Yeah a bit premature on the egg cartons since your girls won't be laying for pushing 6 months. But oh well I find them too expensive, I just use egg cartons from people who bought their eggs at the store. You can reuse them a bunch of times. It is different if you are selling eggs to anyone but close friends. If my girls (originally 12) are any indication, you won't have a lot of excess eggs to sell "at the road". They lay well in winter as pullets (though yours won't start laying until probably April or May but the winter following their first year moult, not so much. And if you get any that go broody ( fully half of the 12 of my original girls) they don't lay a thing while they are trying to hatch pine shavings and not for almost a week after they are released from the broody buster box (you can check the "how do you break a broody hen" thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/181289/how-to-break-a-broody-hen
when the time comes. And they don't lay when they are moulting, a 2 month process. BUT they don't all moult at the same time so the egg count won't all of a sudden crash to zero.

 

[ShrekDawg]

You always have the most useful replies! I'd reply to it all but I don't even know where to begin this time lol

Anyway, I probably should check the property lines or just play it safe and put it in the other spot.

That's good to know they don't necessarily need a ton of sun too. very true about the trees though. Maybe I could not use poles? Though with the kennel I'd probably have to.

Thanks for all the great info on the run and water and all that too. Good to know I don't need to use all hardware cloth. Probably way cheaper this way too. We used to have pavers but we actually just gave them to that neighbor over the summer. I wonder if that large pile of bricks would work though? Wire sounds like a good idea. He might have actually said wire instead of zip ties

That water thing sounds like a great idea!

That's good this one will work for now though.

 

[ShrekDawg]

And that's very true haha I just figured it would probably get gross being in with the chickens? It could probably be washed though and either way it'd be under something anyway. I should probably get rid of the lamp, got it before I found this method haha and that's good the wire will work.

But yeahhh, probably way too early lol you're probably right that we won't have that many extra eggs though. But then again we don't really eat that many anyway and there's not many people atm. Although I'm starting to eat more.

But yeah, they're all so expensive even the ones wirh a ton. Probably should have just saved cartons but oh well aha