May I pick your brain?

[Trina Bambina]

We have just moved to ten acres, which is mostly wooded. There is an old playhouse on the property, roughly 6' by 11'. It has a tin roof, wood siding and floor, two windows and a human-size door...all in all, I think it will make a great coop. The problems are thus:

1) A tree fell on the old porch at some point in the last few years, and knocked the steps off and dropped one end of the playhouse to the ground. The other end is still up, supported on its 3'-ish tall legs. What would you think would be the best way to get it to the ground, without damaging life, limb, or the house any further? Or should we/could we raise the downed end and reinstall new legs? What would be the best way to do that?


We cleared a large area around the house yesterday...I LOVE clearing land!!



2) Would it be okay to leave it on the ground, or should we get it up on cinder blocks? What would be the best way to do that?


The offending limb...one nice thing about it coming down...the space it cleared for sunlight to come in.



3) Can you give me some tips on making a run and predator-proofing? I am reading a lot, but sometimes you can learn more from talking to a few folks who have been in a similar situation (eg. wooded property). Hot wire, chicken wire and hardware cloth, not sure what to do here...though I am sure we need to cover the top of the run, since there are bound to be hawks and owls.

Thanks for any help you can share!

 

[can you hear me now?]

I am not sure how much help I will be but let's give it a shot. For the house that you want to use, I would suggest a hydraulic jack or something of that sort so you can prop it backup on cinder blocks maybe. as far as predator proofing the best you can do is hardware cloth if you can afford it. I live on 6 mostly wooded acres in Missouri and I don't have hardware cloth little too expensive for my taste. The only reason I've ever used a hot wire was to keep my dogs out of my chicken pen. otherwise I would mostly suggest the hardware cloth and burying it part of the way under the ground. I also agree with you about covering the top of your chicken run. there are just too many things that can fly into there and get your birds and we all know we don't want that.

 

[aart]

Looks like a pretty solid structure to start with, few hundred bucks worth of lumber right there...... not sure how much building you want to do.

Would probably be a good idea to raise it up onto some 4" x 4" legs ....gives shelter to chickens in rainy weather, great place for dust bath, precludes rodents from nesting underneath.

That metal roof might really heat up the inside of the coop, most metal roofs are best with foam sheet insulation under them....which you could probably add from the inside.

Nice to have opening windows already, but cover the insides with 1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth attached with screws and washers.

Might need more ventilation, just cut thru the sheathing up near the high side of roofline and cover with hardware cloth.

You'll need a pop door, with a raccoon proof latch for nighttime security...on people door too.

Run definitely should be covered, I'd make the whole thing out of 2" x 4" welded wire fencing with an 18" apron.
Will keep everything but small birds(food stealers) and weasels(chicken killers) out.

You like to clear land? Please come to my place

You like to research....big hint for here. Use Advance search> titles only>apron

Good Luck, Have Fun!

 

[cosmo1104]

Great find! Wish I had one of those on my property. I'd lower the one end using a couple nice hydrualic car jacks and a few different lengths of 4x4's to slowly lower it down.

 

[perchie.girl]

We have just moved to ten acres, which is mostly wooded. There is an old playhouse on the property, roughly 6' by 11'. It has a tin roof, wood siding and floor, two windows and a human-size door...all in all, I think it will make a great coop. The problems are thus:

1) A tree fell on the old porch at some point in the last few years, and knocked the steps off and dropped one end of the playhouse to the ground. The other end is still up, supported on its 3'-ish tall legs. What would you think would be the best way to get it to the ground, without damaging life, limb, or the house any further? Or should we/could we raise the downed end and reinstall new legs? What would be the best way to do that?


We cleared a large area around the house yesterday...I LOVE clearing land!!



2) Would it be okay to leave it on the ground, or should we get it up on cinder blocks? What would be the best way to do that?


The offending limb...one nice thing about it coming down...the space it cleared for sunlight to come in.



3) Can you give me some tips on making a run and predator-proofing? I am reading a lot, but sometimes you can learn more from talking to a few folks who have been in a similar situation (eg. wooded property). Hot wire, chicken wire and hardware cloth, not sure what to do here...though I am sure we need to cover the top of the run, since there are bound to be hawks and owls.

Thanks for any help you can share!

It needs to be off the ground to keep the wood from rotting. The existing legs probably arent hefty enough so Now would be the time to replace them..... while its tipped up like this would be a good time to inspect the Joists that support the floor. And beef up if necessary..... Doing a cinder block foundation would require you dig a trench around the footprint and putting in footings to give it a solid and LEVEL place to set the Cinder blocks.

Raise i up like someone said with a car jack set on a good stout piece of wood. But first cut down the legs it has left a little bit by little bit. You want to transfer the center of gravity to shift closer to the existing legs.... this will make the process of getting the structure back to level much safer Probably leave about a foot and a half of legs. Jack it only high enough to get support under neath. Jack it up some more..... till its level at a foot and a half high. Supported by the shortened leggs on one side and Cinderblock or wood blocks on the other. Now you can decide how to do the foundation. Either morterless cinderblock or You could simply run some pressure treated wood across under neath...... put a layer of Asphault water barrier between the shed and the pressure treated wood or cinderblock.... Cinderblock is notorius for absorbing water and wicking it up wards. .

Now you can jack it back up and remove the wood supports..... then dig under the existing legs the same amount.... teeter totter it back down a few inches at a time. Once its resting on the wood then you can cut off the legs and remove the jacking up wood or cinder block. Then Id do a set of steps with cinder block and back filled with dirt then covered with a deck for the door access.

Another thing you can do is while it is jacked up you can fasten roebust pressure treated wood to the bottom with angle cuts on the ends that touch dirt. Then jacking it back down will give it its own foundation..... What this would do is allow you to fasten eye bolts to the treated wood chain to the wood and now you have the ability to drag the shed with a tractor If in fact you want to move it to a new location.

Nice shed by the way.... LOL.

deb

 

[TinTennessee]

If you know anyone with a jeep or 4 wheel drive ask if they have a highlift jack and if they'd help you lower the building. Is put it on cinder block's about 3 blocks high. Aviary netting on top of a run with the bottom 3 feet covered with hardware cloth for security. Good luck.

 

[Trina Bambina]

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! If anyone else has ideas, we are happy to hear them.

I will post pics when we are done.

 

[Trina Bambina]

This is what we found when we moved in the new house...a play house, crashed to the ground by a large fallen tree, surrounded by poison ivy and lost in the woods...




It took us three days of blood, sweat and tears to get it standing tall on its new legs...so glad that part is over! And I am really glad it is as tall as it is, because it makes it easier to catch the lil boogers when it is time to put them up at night. They are still learning to use the ramp, and to come up at night.





And....TAADAA!!!! The finished coop and run! We used 1/4" hardwarecloth (exactly 1-100' roll - my husband is soooo good!), and buried an apron 12" out from the base. We used river sand for the bedding in the run, and I built a PVC pipe feeder and am using a five gallon bucket with nipples for watering the birds. Will post pics of those additions after I get some taken. The nice thing is, we can take this all with us (except the coop) when we move in a few years, if we like.




Inside the coop...I used trees I cut down in the woods for the perches...smallest on the bottom and bigger as they go up. We are trying the deep litter method for the floor, based on recommendations I read here.

 

[perchie.girl]

Woo Hoo I was just thinking about you guys wondering how it all went.

deb

 

[CedarAcres]

Wow, great work!