Tankueray
Bird Nerd
So I'm in the process of building these. They were initially planned as breeding pens. However, I needed a place for food storage so the one on the right morphed into that. And then I found that I was going to need a broody coop pretty soon, so the one on the left started to be built.
Then, two of the ducks became broody right under the access panel for my roll away nest box, so I had to block off the rolling part and gather the eggs from the inside. Animals just don't understand function in design.
Since no serious breeding is going to be going on until next spring, I need to repurpose these now...again...ugh.
The back wall faces north. The left wall faces west and the main access gate to the yard is right next to it. My plan right now is to rotate that metal panel on the left and cover the west wall entirely, move all the feed storage to that left side, and try somehow to turn the left structure with the feed in it into a laying parlor, and the right structure into a broody coop / brooding pen.
I'll need the broody coop side to be done by this weekend, so I'll make that happen first. I'm extremely open to ideas for putting nest boxes on the left side. I'm thinking about putting a door next to the West wall, covering at least halfway up that adjacent middle opening (second quadrant) and situating the nest boxes in that second quadrant area, with the ability to do a pass through to the mostly finished coupe, which is the broody/brooder coop. The quadrant is approximately 4 ft wide by 6 ft long, and I'd like to be able to put some sort of duck nest on the floor and then above that go with my roll away nest box, a row of bucket nests and a row of milk crate nests? It's only 6 ft tall, so that may not be entirely possible, l've just found that they're kind of fickle when it comes to laying anywhere (not that any of them have laid in any of the buckets or milk crates that I have put out).
Please help with any ideas, suggestions, or critiques of my plan.
And before anyone asks, I've lost count. Somewhere north of 20 hens and and a dozen female ducks, 6 drakes (separated), 5 roosters, and 50+ chicks/eggs in various stages of chickiness and egginess. Oldest batch is 3 weeks, youngest batch due in 2 weeks.
TIA
-Tank
Then, two of the ducks became broody right under the access panel for my roll away nest box, so I had to block off the rolling part and gather the eggs from the inside. Animals just don't understand function in design.
Since no serious breeding is going to be going on until next spring, I need to repurpose these now...again...ugh.
The back wall faces north. The left wall faces west and the main access gate to the yard is right next to it. My plan right now is to rotate that metal panel on the left and cover the west wall entirely, move all the feed storage to that left side, and try somehow to turn the left structure with the feed in it into a laying parlor, and the right structure into a broody coop / brooding pen.
I'll need the broody coop side to be done by this weekend, so I'll make that happen first. I'm extremely open to ideas for putting nest boxes on the left side. I'm thinking about putting a door next to the West wall, covering at least halfway up that adjacent middle opening (second quadrant) and situating the nest boxes in that second quadrant area, with the ability to do a pass through to the mostly finished coupe, which is the broody/brooder coop. The quadrant is approximately 4 ft wide by 6 ft long, and I'd like to be able to put some sort of duck nest on the floor and then above that go with my roll away nest box, a row of bucket nests and a row of milk crate nests? It's only 6 ft tall, so that may not be entirely possible, l've just found that they're kind of fickle when it comes to laying anywhere (not that any of them have laid in any of the buckets or milk crates that I have put out).
Please help with any ideas, suggestions, or critiques of my plan.
And before anyone asks, I've lost count. Somewhere north of 20 hens and and a dozen female ducks, 6 drakes (separated), 5 roosters, and 50+ chicks/eggs in various stages of chickiness and egginess. Oldest batch is 3 weeks, youngest batch due in 2 weeks.
TIA
-Tank