New building for my birds

[Black Cochin Bantams]

I have been asked many times do I like the new coop and what do you especially like and what would you do different.

The biggest thing was I started too late in the year to completely finish before bad weather. Shingles did not get warm enough to seal down so I have replaced a bundle worth already. 45-60 MPH winds are hard on shingles. I also would have sealed the concrete to prevent moisture from wicking up into the bedding. That has finally slowed down but I was changing bedding too often due to the concrete not being cured for long before we closed the building for the winter. Already I wish I had added more windows or put in even bigger ones.

The cages are fantastic! They clean quickly and work well. They also are quite labor intensive to build. The pliers that connect the wire panels are quite hard on hand when you do hundreds of those J clips in a day. I would have padded the pliers to protect my hands. I did buy a pair of compound action sidecutter pliers at Lowes that cut the 1 x 1 wire SO much easier than the old sidecutter pliers that I have. You make 24 cuts on 1 piece of wire so easier(not easy) is really the way to go. I love the vinyl coated wire and will never go back to galvanized poultry netting. The vinyl wire I used for the base is wonderful. It is a tempered wire so harder to cut and bend but nothing sticks to it making cage cleaning a snap. If I was doing cages for Bantam hens I might use 3/4 x 3/4 vinyl wire for the smaller birds.

My air filter works wonders. With asthma an issue you don't see dust floating around in the air. Dust does settle on everything eventually but you have to expect that with poultry. Down side is that the chickens make so much dust I clean filters every other day. I bought this one because it uses standard sized furnace filters. I have been experimenting with different filters to see what works best and have to say they all work but what comes with the unit is the best by far. I also use an N95 rated mask which like the filter unit is supposed to remove particulates down to .3 microns.

I originally used large round hanging type feeder for feed. In most pens I have replace them with pig creep feeders that hang on the wall. Chickens roosted on the other and defecated into feeder which is hard to do now since I made covers for the creep feeders out of scrap wood.Cleared up floor space. When the weather warms I will install the low pressure automatic waterers and free up even more floor space in the pens. No more roosting on the waterer . Hoping they work as advertised. Glad I put in what seems like too many outlets because I have used them all at sometime.

I still have to fine tune a lot but my wife thinks this is so much better for caring for the birds than my old converted hog house. 6' tall chain link runs with wire tops go up this spring sometime. Also I have to reseed everything that was disturbed around construction site and the trenching in of electrical to the building. It is overall a good thing that I should have done years ago. I shamelessly used ideas from fellow breeders coops that worked so well for them that I had to incorporate them into my building. Thank you Tom and Matt.

 

[mibirder]

Couple more ??s as I'm still in the design stages for my barn.

I currently have attached runs on my pens but sometimes have water issues puddling in the runs - the are tarp covered in the winter. Adding shavings helps short term, but the birds eventfully dig into it and the puddles come back. On the new barn I'm thinking about elevating the grade maybe 4 inches to hopefully improve drainage. I can decide if I should use a base of sand or gravel and cover with shavings as needed. Thoughts?

Are you pens butted to outside walls for pen access or how will you handle getting the birds from inside to outside?

I know you said you incubate mostly so are you breeding in the large inside pens or do you have breeding pens in addition to the male pens?

Dave

 

[BGMatt]

Man I wish I would have read this thread about 3 years ago. I got almost entirely out of chickens because I had relocated them inside a pole barn on my property (new well, couldn't have birds within 100' unless they were on concrete floor) and was unable to keep air quality good enough to not be constantly fighting respiratory issues in my flock for the year they were in there before I gave up. Never thought about using a shop air filter like you have. Love the barn, and the birds look great too.

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

Couple more ??s as I'm still in the design stages for my barn.

I currently have attached runs on my pens but sometimes have water issues puddling in the runs - the are tarp covered in the winter. Adding shavings helps short term, but the birds eventfully dig into it and the puddles come back. On the new barn I'm thinking about elevating the grade maybe 4 inches to hopefully improve drainage. I can decide if I should use a base of sand or gravel and cover with shavings as needed. Thoughts?

Are you pens butted to outside walls for pen access or how will you handle getting the birds from inside to outside?

I know you said you incubate mostly so are you breeding in the large inside pens or do you have breeding pens in addition to the male pens?

Dave

I am still using some breeding pens in the old building too. I was going to sell it but my wife is fine with me keeping it and moving it again. I do not yet have outside pens made. I have hundreds of feet of salvaged 6' chain link from a HS football field remodel. I am debating smaller runs or 1 large pen with pasture access. I just started too late in the year to do any outside work. If I let them all have enough space outside I can run lots of birds outside together. Once breeding is done they become a blended flock 3except for the birds that have to be in condition for the State Fair..

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

Man I wish I would have read this thread about 3 years ago. I got almost entirely out of chickens because I had relocated them inside a pole barn on my property (new well, couldn't have birds within 100' unless they were on concrete floor) and was unable to keep air quality good enough to not be constantly fighting respiratory issues in my flock for the year they were in there before I gave up. Never thought about using a shop air filter like you have. Love the barn, and the birds look great too.

Thank you. I bought my Shop filter from Woodcraft. There are lots of brands and models out there. Just read the specs and size them properly. I chose to get one that used a prefilter that could be bought locally because it is a standard furnace filter.

 

[bbosshoss]

I think your set up looks great. It's funny how we take cage ideas from others and adapt them. Wire for bottoms of cages on feather legged breeds is fine a lot of people think it ruins the feathers. It doesn't as long as its heavy wire so it doesn't bow. I tried wire bottom cages years ago. I used fox cages the floors were 1"x 1.5". What I didn't like was the birds would throw the feed out of the Feed cups. I didn't like the waste so I sold all the cages. I like the filtering of the air. Nice job on the coop

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

Man I wish I would have read this thread about 3 years ago. I got almost entirely out of chickens because I had relocated them inside a pole barn on my property (new well, couldn't have birds within 100' unless they were on concrete floor) and was unable to keep air quality good enough to not be constantly fighting respiratory issues in my flock for the year they were in there before I gave up. Never thought about using a shop air filter like you have. Love the barn, and the birds look great too.

If I was going to consider gravel I would try washed river rock first. Smooth and does not pack as solid so water will drain through much easier than traditional gravel that can become hard packed almost like concrete after a while.

 

[BGMatt]

If I was going to consider gravel I would try washed river rock first. Smooth and does not pack as solid so water will drain through much easier than traditional gravel that can become hard packed almost like concrete after a while.

Oh I'd use sand in pens. This situation is different (and complicated, bear with me), I was purchasing part of the land from family where I had my birds, when it came time to drill the well for the house, all my pens were within 100 feet of the location to drill. In my county to get the permit for the well you are not allowed any livestock (which by definition includes chickens, but not turkeys, ducks or geese) within 100 feet of a well unless they are housed entirely on a concrete floor. So I had to tear down my pens and move birds inside an old metal pole barn with a concrete floor in the space of a week. The barn had poor circulation and caused all sorts of issues, which would have probably been solved with the air filter mentioned in this thread. I'll stop hijacking this thread now.

 

[Black Cochin Bantams]

After much procrastination I finally got my low pressure waterers in each of the pens. Making sure I have a good understanding before putting them on all the single cages too. Easy to install. Easy to break something if overtightened which is warned about in the instructions. Birds got it figured out in less than 2 days.
1st picture is one side of the pens. 2nd is the 35 gallon tank I had to use as the water source. 3rd picture is of the other side pens.

What I like is that It works and easy to install. Had several head that did not shut off properly. Easy to change parts out. Glad I had 4 extra heads.

 

[Pathfinders]

Wow. Just wow. This is the most amazing setup! Thanks so much for posting all these pictures and showing how you put it all together. This is like my dream barn, and reminds me very much of the one Shelby Harrington had, but in some ways is better than his was!

So very cool...