Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

I found this video interesting as a way to build a quick pen for a few chickens. I think this would be great inside a barn or shed. Outside, I'd be concerned with predators, but can add some hardware cloth to it maybe.

 
ouch....ouch....ouch...

#@#*#@#**##@#####@#!!!!!!

must those ducks play in their drinking water and make the whole pen an icy rink.......I never could ice skate....


spring please !!!without the slippy mud..
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I love seeing Spring take hold, but I hate the mud. In a perfect world it would go from winter wonderland to green and happy all in one week. Oh, well... guess we are stuck.
picked up a few hens today so I could have a good look at them and check for any signs of frostbite,,,,why are these girls starting to molt again,,,,,I know the coops stay fairly warm but have they not looked outside.

I know! I am going thru the same thing. My Barred Holland hens are molting now?!?!?!!
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We have a couple here also... at first I thought it was roosters, but we put aprons on them a while back and they are worse now than before! Most of ours molted last fall, but these are a couple of black giants which will be a year old the end of March and didn't molt when the rest did. Poor girls do look pathetic.
 
Just a few recent pictures...

Gracie and 2 of her babies from the December hatch, she left them weeks ago, but now they often sit in a row on the boards and she treats them like flock mates.
Notice some family resemblance??? LOL... and BTW... we have no white roosters, so apparently her genetics are a bit strong!

Hardrock, Coco and Jo... at about 8 weeks (anyone know the old TV Christmas commercial?)

DH likes Jo's feather duster of a tail...

just a few girls chilling on their ledge

hanging out around the water cooler...

dusting party anyone?

checking out a newly added shelf...
 
Ok, i have to share this because it is haunting me and i am wondering if it bothers anyone else. What is haunting me is going to auctions, ie; Roots etc. and the birds and animals there in the dead of summer have no water. Am i crazy or does this bother others as well. Cause if it does i have an idea...


This has bothered me. We went to the Lebanon valley livestock auction in June and I would say 95% of the animals were in boxes or such with no access to water. We were there for 10+ hours. The animals could have been dropped off the previous evening too so by the time they actually had access to water could have been in the 24 hour range.
I occasionally stop at the humane society and want to let the cats out of their cages lol.
 
Just a few recent pictures...

Gracie and 2 of her babies from the December hatch, she left them weeks ago, but now they often sit in a row on the boards and she treats them like flock mates.
Notice some family resemblance??? LOL... and BTW... we have no white roosters, so apparently her genetics are a bit strong!

Hardrock, Coco and Jo... at about 8 weeks (anyone know the old TV Christmas commercial?)

DH likes Jo's feather duster of a tail...

just a few girls chilling on their ledge

hanging out around the water cooler...

dusting party anyone?

checking out a newly added shelf...
loving the shelf eh! I love all those ladders and such!! can u imagine my brahma trying to maneuver them? they refuse to use one and attempt hopping up instead of stepping their fat feet on the things! lol happy chickens!!!
 
loving the shelf eh! I love all those ladders and such!! can u imagine my brahma trying to maneuver them? they refuse to use one and attempt hopping up instead of stepping their fat feet on the things! lol happy chickens!!!

We switched our upper roost bars to wide shelves with 2" raised edges (1" boards to which I added molding to make it wider and rounded to the front) The shelves are designed to allow me to add sand to them, the birds roost on the edges and since they are so wide and sandy the birds can roam around on that level without conflicts or anyone getting knocked off. They just walk along till they find a bit of open edge and park themselves. With them having the sand it acts as a poop board, each day just take a cat litter scoop and get the lumps out. It keeps the floor so much cleaner. It also added a lot of daytime space option also, basically created about 25 square feet of elevated space.

The ramps/ladders are all over the place, it gives the birds numerous options on where they want to access the top level and allows quick exits for the youngsters when they tick of the hens... with a ladder from each end of all of the shelves no one has to get past a mad hen to find an exit!
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There are lower level boards on each side that are options for roosting also. We had 2x6's on their sides before, but there always seemed to be someone getting pushed off or causing a ruckus when they wanted to reposition and the floor was a mess under the roosts so I decided to try to solve both problems at once. The first night we set it up the birds acted like we had thrown a cactus garden into their coop and refused to use it, by the second day everyone was up on it acting like it was old news! LOL. The shelves are hinged at the walls to allow them to be lifted up out of the way if needed, and the lower ladders are also hinged to swing upward (and hook with a short chain) to stay out of the way when I am cleaning the coop floor.

BTW.... I guess I forgot to mention I really like building things? And I firmly believe that whoever dies with the most power/construction tools wins!!!
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Ok, i have to share this because it is haunting me and i am wondering if it bothers anyone else. What is haunting me is going to auctions, ie; Roots etc. and the birds and animals there in the dead of summer have no water. Am i crazy or does this bother others as well. Cause if it does i have an idea...


This has bothered me. We went to the Lebanon valley livestock auction in June and I would say 95% of the animals were in boxes or such with no access to water. We were there for 10+ hours. The animals could have been dropped off the previous evening too so by the time they actually had access to water could have been in the 24 hour range.
I occasionally stop at the humane society and want to let the cats out of their cages lol.

My idea to help the birds and animals at these auctions that most of us goes to at some point is.. This..
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If we all save 1/2 gallon jugs and then cut them so that one corner is higher than the rest, they can be used for waterers for the animals. The high back can have holes put in it so they can be fastened to the cages with twist tie's. I feel that if enough people donate these to the auctions maybe they will get the message and regularly give the animals water.. If they won't, I am not afraid to open cages and put these in. It's just an idea I had to help "fix" the problem no one else is making a change about.
 

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