<IMPROVEMENT-UPDATE> Check out the PVC grit feeder I made!!

[mudhen]

Hi SeaChick !
I'm one of the dreaded 'summer people' that invades your beautiful state from April through September! LOL
I'm headed up to Scarborough next week for a couple of weeks. I just love Porland and the down east coast!!
I'm up there at least one week each month, our little cottage is seasonal only.
Anywho, the 4x4 coop I have is set up for 4 to 6 hens, though I have 7 in there right now (one banty adn six standard). It is difficult to picture it because it is so small.

I think with a heat lamp and a little insulation your girls should be fine in the winters. I have my heat lamp hooked up to a rheostat I got on line so the lamp goes on when the temperature drops below 45 degrees, and you can set the temperature to any point you'd like.

Here's some pics of how I set up the little coop:

Both the water and feeder are covered with a squirrel baffle to help keep droppings out. After this picture was taken, a linoleum floor was placed on there and then about six or eight inches of pine shavings were added. The feeders (and the grit feeders too) are hung so they are above the shavings.

I have four nest boxes, on top of which is a droppings board, which can be removed easily and cleaned:

and in this one you can see how I covered the heat lamp with a layer of wire fence to keep the girls from any possible harm (I've tacked up the cable since the picture was taken, and they also have a nightlite):

The opening on my coop is about 9 x 11 inches, and I added a little plexiglass window recently so the girls would have a little natural light in there:

Hope this helps you!

 

[SeaChick]

Hi mudhen, that's very helpful, thanks so much for the photos! I see you used vertical space rather than horizontal, so now I see how you got everything in there! Do they fight over the top roost? Do they have any trouble getting up there?

This is super-useful as I work on our design- thanks. I'm sure my plan will go through many iterations, since my Dad's an architect and I can never be happy with "good enough".... luckily I have a husband to talk me back to reality or our projects would never got finished on time or on budget!!!

Thanks
Stacey

 

[MissPrissy]

Mudhen, I love your coop house! It is fabulous and reminds me of the little outhouse behind my barn.

 

[keljonma]

Quote:
Stacey, we bought a farm house that had a small dog pet door installed. The owners had corgis and beagles and cats. All of them used the door. We removed it and use it as the chicken door for our flock. None of our flock has any trouble using it. Our Jersey Black Giant and Delaware girls, the largest birds we have, are just under 1 year of age.

I have the slider door on the inside of the hen house. I brace a non-opening window against the door at night to help keep predators out and during inclement weather to let any light in but blizzards out. My flock refused to go through the plastic screen, so I prop it open inside with the slider door. You can see this in the second pic. (click for larger images)

I went out and measured it.... the opening is actually 10 wide by 14 high after I prop the slider door.
regards,
keljonma
if edited, probably for typos...

 

[SeaChick]

Ah-ha...... so they won't go through the swinging flap part! That is very interesting. Basically the whole reason I was looking for a pet door was because I thought (from seeing other chicken coops with them) that the chickens would go through the flap like other pets. I figured that when it's a nice winter day they could go in and out but the flap would keep the inside of the henhouse warmer than just an open "pophole". But if I understand your post you are saying that the flap needs to be propped open for them to use it.... so basically it's the same thing as just a regular "pophole" that has a hinged door that you manually open or close. Or am I missing something here?

I was trying to figure a way to let them choose whether to be in or out without letting a whole bunch of cold air into the henhouse. I am probably waaaaay overthinking this though. Plently of chickens have been raised in Maine without all the luxuries I keep thinking they need!

Thanks
Stacey

 

[keljonma]

Yeah, we were hoping they'd use it like a pet door. BUT...

We brooded our chicks in the laundry/mud room of our house. The pet door was installed there the entire time the chicks were in the house. So I thought I would get them used to the door before they moved to the hen house in the barn.

Pat Nixon, our White Wyandotte, is our daredevil girl. She walks in front of the rototiller and lawn tractor while my hubby is operating them! She has no fear. As a result, she is my first choice for trying something out on the flock. Eleanor Roosevelt is our White Faced Black Spanish. She is the investigator of the flock, the little detective who searches unceasingly to find out what is in every dark corner of the farm yard or barn. That's Eleanor in the second picture in my earlier post. Eleanor is my second choice for flock guinea pig.

I took Pat and while holding her, pushed her through the flap. She screamed bloody murder! Then another time, I tried sitting with her on the floor in front of the flap. I lifted the flap so she could see it was the exit to the back yard. I tried to convince her to go through it. If I held the flap she would go out. If I dropped the flap on her, she either backed up into the mud room or out into the yard. Then I had to go outside to help her back in. She would not go through the flap. So then I tried the same steps with Eleanor. She hated it too! If I can't get these two interested, no one else will even make the attempt.

If the flap is closed at all, as far as my flock is concerned, that door is shut. SILLY CHICKENS!!

Maybe you'll have better luck.
regards,
keljonma

if edited, probably for typos...

 

[pasochicken]

What a

I love these ideas!! The PVC feeder is the cats meow!

Been trying to figure out a way to make a continuous feed feeder for grit that will hold a 50lb bag...and of course after seeing yoru idear... BIGGER PVC is in order..

I also like the duct-tape feeder!! Truly a RED GREEN fan in that coop!! Now, if someone could make a lid like that on the top of a water where you did not have to lift the five gallon waters up and to turn them boogers over, we-ins in the coops would have it made.. oooooO my aching back on that one!!
And dang, we would be a lot dryer in the end!!

Truly we have some farmer engi-newity here at work!!

LOVE IT!

PASOCHICKEN

 

[allen wranch]

Am moving to Coop section. A lot of great ideas here !

 

[mudhen]

Cool!

Thanks, allen wranch !

keljonma, I ;ove the idea of the dog door flap, but I'm pretty sure my girls won't go for it, too bad.

SeaChick, the girls don't fight or fuss over the roosts, plenty of room up there for all seven. Four like the roost over the nests, and three like the roost perpendicular to it. And none have any trouble at all getting up or down from there. Pretty amazing considering their size, but I guess they have it all figured out and it didn't take them long to adjust to their little outhouse coop!

 

[Critter Crazy]

Quote:
I took a Rubber mat, cut 2 inch slits in it, and hung it over the pop hole. I figured it would help with the weather. Keep rain and wind out, as well as some of the winter draft. It took the girls 2 weeks to figure it out, but now they use it like pros. when I first put it on, i would take all the strips but one, and prop them up, after a few days, I would drop a flap, till eventually they were all down. Works just fine.

Here is a pic.

Here are a few pics of them using it.