Ended Official BYC DIY Contest #2 - Show us Your Project and Win!

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Here's the feeder I built for my brooder. The chicks made a mess with the plastic flip-top feeder, which kept getting filled with bedding... and the older chicks knocked about half their food from the 7 lb hanging feeder into the bedding, creating a lot of waste. This was a simple built using 3" PVC as the bins for feed, a 3"-2" reducer, a couple of 2" 45 degree elbows, a couple of 2" tees, a pair of 2" end caps, and some short sections of 2" pipe. Nothing is glued together, so removal is easy. The hardest part was cutting the feeding holes, and it wasn't that hard when using a hole saw. It should be fairly simple to figure out how to duplicate this feeder by looking at the pics.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Here's the brooder I built. It's a 4'x4'x2' box elevated 2' above ground level. I built it with a divider in the middle so small chicks wouldn't get lost and not find their way back to the heater. Once they grew bigger, I could simply remove the divider giving them full run of the space available. The first batch to go into the new brooder consisted of 15 BR chicks... which quickly outgrew the 2'x4' space they were in. By the time they were 4 weeks old, I had another batch of 7 chicks in need of a brooder. I built a heating pad cave for the older chicks, and moved them to the other side of the brooder, and put the new chicks on the side with the Sweeter Heater. This worked great for about a week, and by then, the older chicks were getting really cramped. I built another brooder box on top (back half) of the existing brooder. Once I moved the babies and the Sweeter Heater to the top brooder, I removed the center partition from the lower brooder... which doubled the space for the 15 older chicks.

The original brooder and divider with two sets of chicks. A hard-wired timer to control the lights is mounted on the top.




I needed more space, but didn't want to build a separate brooder... so I went up top with the addition.



Completed addition.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

@Ur-ur-ur-urrr you need to make pages for your designs and post the link to the pages in this thread to enter the contest.
Here is a helpful thread on making a member page ~https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/953810/coop-pages-and-member-pages-tutorial-and-feedback/0_30 if you need it

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

@Ur-ur-ur-urrr you need to make pages for your designs and post the link to the pages in this thread to enter the contest.
Here is a helpful thread on making a member page ~https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/953810/coop-pages-and-member-pages-tutorial-and-feedback/0_30 if you need it

Thanks again, Yorkshire! The problem with my designs is they're not on paper. All my projects are created from beginning to end in my head (I think some people call it mind, or brain), and putting them down on paper isn't exactly my cup of tea. I usually start with a basic design concept in mind, and everything else evolves from that point. It's extremely hard for me to go back and trace each step of the process, and to document it takes 4 times as much effort as the actual build. It's just the way my brain is wired...

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Thanks again, Yorkshire! The problem with my designs is they're not on paper. All my projects are created from beginning to end in my head (I think some people call it mind, or brain), and putting them down on paper isn't exactly my cup of tea. I usually start with a basic design concept in mind, and everything else evolves from that point. It's extremely hard for me to go back and trace each step of the process, and to document it takes 4 times as much effort as the actual build. It's just the way my brain is wired...  

As long as you put your pics and a description you should be good to go
You have some really neat ideas and I think they would be great to help other members with ideas

 

[Pyxis]

Here's mine, a quick and cheap 30 pound feeder that can be hung: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/quick-and-easy-30-pound-feeder

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

This is my new breeding pen that will be used as a temporary grow-out pen for the chicks I hatched in early December and on New Year's Day.

I started by forming a square base out of 4"x4"x10' treated posts... which equals roughly 100 square feet of run.



Since the roof will be fairly light, I ripped treated 2"x4"s to form the wall studs. Birdsmouth rafters and slats are spaced at 30" centers.



It was a little wobbly, but adding upper corner braces, lower "V" braces, and plywood on the rear made it plenty strong.




Elevated coop will maximize floor space. The coop has slots in the floor (to install 2 partitions) to create 3 smaller coops. Adding two divider walls in the run will create 3 separate breeding pens with individual coops. This should be sufficient for 4 large fowl (1 roo and 3 hens) per pen.



With the wire hung.



Door built and installed.




Two of the doors and (internal/vertical) sliding pop doors installed. These will be operated on a pulley system. Pop door on right halfway opened, and board propped up in front of left pop door to simulate ramp:



It probably won't be used for breeding until early 2017, so I'll leave the nesting boxes off rear and the coop dividers out for now.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Not sure why the edit button isn't available on this thread. Perhaps I've exceeded edit limitation??? Anyway, this is a continuation of the growout/breeder pen. I've moved 15 Barred Rock chicks into the pen, and they turned 11 weeks old on Sunday (2/21/16). They seem to be enjoying the additional space, and it only took 2 evenings to train them to use the coop at night. I have the left side partitioned off, so they have access to the center and right side only... which is plenty big enough.




The metal washer to the right of the front door operates the pop door on the coop, which gets closed every night. I also added a larger, homemade 5 gallon water container with horizontal poultry nipples (right side).

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

My next project will be a homemade incubator. I have an IncuView bator from Incubator Warehouse, and had very successful hatched using it... but it's limited in the number of eggs it'll hold. 27 chicken eggs if I remember correctly. I scored a (dead) mini fridge, and have started work on it, even though I'm in no hurry to complete it just yet. The space where the 2 egg turners will go (current shelves) is 15 1/2" x 13", and the smallest turner I've found so far is the 1611 which measures 15" x 15". Unless I can find something else, I'll get a pair of 1611's and trim off the front row of each. The eggs will tilt forward and backwards in the bator, instead of side to side... and I will lose spaces for 14 eggs by removing the end racks. Instead of being able to incubate 82 eggs at a time, I'll be limited to 68 per cycle. I think that will be more than sufficient for my near-future needs.


The fridge...


I cut the inner door shelves and lip off, the ground and sanded the lip smooth...




I want to install a dual-layer viewing window in the door, but the larger flat panel inside the door was at the bottom. Turning the door over puts the bigger pane directly in line with the racks where the turners will be installed. The door didn't fit right when I flipped over, so I had to modify and swap the upper and lower hinges to get a tight seal. Problem solved...

 

[Hrhchazman]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/12-volt-water-warmer