Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

[KlingKlan]

This is wonderful!!! Your future girls are going to be very lucky!!

..I was wondering about the picnic table...great idea..i assume the coop is attached to it..

Awww shucks hehe... I would have been completely lost if it weren't for the great peeps here on BYC, seriously! We used the legs from the picnic table and put an old dining room table on top of them (it was a 10ft x 3ft picnic table, too big), then used all the 2" x 8" x 10ft boards from the picnic table as footers for the run's foundation, which was built on top of an existing concrete sidewalk. My DH is very knowledgeable about these kinds of things... I'd be lost without him too lol!

Here's a list of all the free/repurposed materials we used on constructing the coop and run.:

Picnic table
Old front door
Broken bed frame
Partially rotted outdoor deck cabinet
10 pallets
Basketball net back board
Old dining room table top
Plywood remnants
Pieces of drafting table
Shelving "L brackets"
Partial roll of rolled roofng
2 cracked pieces of plexi glass
Picnic table wood
Old wooden screen door

Our landlord bought us a gallon of white exterior paint, we bought 2x4s for the run's frame and the wire to enclose it. We're pretty proud of it when it's all said and done.

 

[fisherlady]

Awww shucks hehe... I would have been completely lost if it weren't for the great peeps here on BYC, seriously! We used the legs from the picnic table and put an old dining room table on top of them (it was a 10ft x 3ft picnic table, too big), then used all the 2" x 8" x 10ft boards from the picnic table as footers for the run's foundation, which was built on top of an existing concrete sidewalk. My DH is very knowledgeable about these kinds of things... I'd be lost without him too lol!

Here's a list of all the free/repurposed materials we used on constructing the coop and run.:

Picnic table
Old front door
Broken bed frame
Partially rotted outdoor deck cabinet
10 pallets
Basketball net back board
Old dining room table top
Plywood remnants
Pieces of drafting table
Shelving "L brackets"
Partial roll of rolled roofng
2 cracked pieces of plexi glass
Picnic table wood
Old wooden screen door

Our landlord bought us a gallon of white exterior paint, we bought 2x4s for the run's frame and the wire to enclose it. We're pretty proud of it when it's all said and done.

You have every right to be proud!!!! Well done! And even better that so much was 'upcycled' to finish it!

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

In all seriousness, will I know now if anything was ruined in the gardens last night, or will it take a few days to die off?

I know this is late, but you will always see it the next day. If I understand correctly, when a non-frost-hardy plant experiences a frost, the cells inside burst because the 'old water expands as it freezes routine. That's why the plants look all limp and pooped out, they have burst asunder. I'm sure Dhetzel can chime in if my info is wrong...

Hatch day !! Some cochin bantams from wingstone are hatched, at least 5 for sure. I can't wait to see how they fluff out. And some random pics for everyone . . . My favorite turkey hen, we have a special bond, she will leave a pile of fresh greens to come and sit by me when I come in the pen. A sampling of eggs I'm setting today, from the left: Rhodebar New Hampshire Welsummer Ameracauna - pullet just started laying Easter egger - older hen covered by a Lavender Ameracauna roo Curious peafowl. They aren't sure if that phone is dangerous or edible.

Gorgeous eggs, and peafowl too!

I got a kick out of watching my gals today.............. they loved sunnying themselves............and I sooooo wish I could have a picture of them doing this because on at least 3 separate occasions I see them peeking at food in their food bowl and then lying down ...........keeping their face in the bowl and lying on their side with their wing out to catch some sun! 2-3 birds with heads in bowl and sunning themselves! maybe somewhat like humans on the beach..............lying around with a cooler right next the them................ it just seems a nice soft grassy spot would make for a better headrest???? but what do I know! plus they all found a way to sneak under the temp fencing I have up to give them a little grassy area to graze...............they clearly wanted to FREE range and knew they could squeeze under the silly fence! lots more antics................and it sure is fun to just sit and watch their shannanigans!

I love the chicken shenanigans! The first time mine sunbathed it was a bit disturbing too, but i soon realized I had seen that normal, healthy behavior before too.

None of the folks I grew up with much cared what kind of duck laid the balut. So long as the size is right and the egss sufficiently "crunchy" your customers won't mind.

Wasn't sure what this was. Googled it. . wasn't expecting that, different strokes for different folks!

Nice job, I really like the idea of using the picnic bench!

I didn't even see that till you mentioned it!

pictures I promised

I still get dibs on loving in your coop. Thank you for painting it a lovely color for me!

I remember the first time we watched the chicks sun themselves, we truly thought something was wrong..they just all of the sudden laid down and melted into the grass..the craziest thing ever...hahaha...I knew raising chickens was going to be an adventure, but this is the life!..I can't even imagine life without poultry now..hahahaha..Hello, My name is Danielle and I am addicted to poulty Sorry to hear things aren't going well with the crazy broodies...only the sky knows what they are thinking ...Do you have an incubator you could put the eggs in ? Hope they get their act together for you!!

I think the next sunny day I will join the chicks in a sunbathe.....

 

[AnneInTheBurbs]

Awww shucks hehe... I would have been completely lost if it weren't for the great peeps here on BYC, seriously! We used the legs from the picnic table and put an old dining room table on top of them (it was a 10ft x 3ft picnic table, too big), then used all the 2" x 8" x 10ft boards from the picnic table as footers for the run's foundation, which was built on top of an existing concrete sidewalk. My DH is very knowledgeable about these kinds of things... I'd be lost without him too lol!

Here's a list of all the free/repurposed materials we used on constructing the coop and run.:

Picnic table
Old front door
Broken bed frame
Partially rotted outdoor deck cabinet
10 pallets
Basketball net back board
Old dining room table top
Plywood remnants
Pieces of drafting table
Shelving "L brackets"
Partial roll of rolled roofng
2 cracked pieces of plexi glass
Picnic table wood
Old wooden screen door

Our landlord bought us a gallon of white exterior paint, we bought 2x4s for the run's frame and the wire to enclose it. We're pretty proud of it when it's all said and done.

Awesome job! I only had to buy a few materials for my coop too. Although, mine looks like Mr. Magoo built it, haha.

Hey everybody, nobody warned me how much Chickens like Hosta. It's a good thing I have a lot!

 

[LittleMissPurdy]

Well to be fair, I'm Filipino. So yes. Not my cuppa, but I can see how people would like em.

cool! so you did try it..it would definitely be a hard mental thing, especially for people (me), who haven't been exposed to , what would be called, exotic food...would love to have at least tried it. just a little bite

..
Although, I was brought up on ''scrapple", "pudding", filled-mahw(pig)-sp?, mince-meat pie,..all those wonderful pen-dutch concoctions!!..that is exotic to some..

So I see from left to right:
Flowers
Eggplants
Lettuce on the "EndCap"
Peppers
Tomatoes
Some Brassicas. (Is that Kale? Collards?)
Next you have some hills/furrows. I'd almost think this was a potato row if I hadn't seen your bin at the end. What's in here? Corn maybe?
The next area is squashes right?
And then you have a fenced area, next to the bin. What's going in there?

In front with the flowers I have "Autumn"-sunflowers planted
eggplant & jalapeno's, leaf lettuce
sweet peppers/yellow beans
tomatoes (grape/Heirloom-Mr.Stripey/peach,(from *Sharrons seeds)/supersonic)
cauliflower & broccoli
sugar peas/green beans
the "hill" is actually dirt from the 'row-hole',(behind the mound) that is dug to put debris and animal dirt into throughout the growing season..
zucchini/yellow squash/watermelon/sm. & lrg. pumpkins/cantaloupe/cucumbers
In the fenced area is..garlic/onions/red beets /carrots..then the potato bin..it was fenced off because it was the first things in the garden , started it from seed & sets, didn't want the chickens to get into it.
**we had extended the garden this year..should have made it bigger

..we preserve a lot of our food, supplement for the chickens & fresh produce is 90% of my diet..it is so expensive and not all that great in the stores...we are really looking forward to this year!!
There are herbs, rhubarb & chamomile planted in the cutting garden( the garden with the lilac.) Also have herbs in pots on the front porch for faster picking..gotta make tofu awesome!!
Do you have a veggie garden?

 

[fisherlady]

Speaking of 'up-cycling'.... a bit of second hand bragging to do here.

We recently tore down an old shed that the floor had gone bad in. We had hoped to save a lot of the plank wood in the roof, because it looked like nice wide old boards, but on tearing it apart we found that most of it was much shorter pieces (often only spanned 1 truss at 24") so very little we could use, it appears to have been made out of old packing crates, with multiple pieces still having shipping labels on it from the 1950s. We had it stacked to be burnt but I told a good friend of mine about it since I know he likes doing small scale projects.

Well, my buddy and his wife showed up to get a bunch of these boards to use for a cellar entry repair and in digging through the pile he found the old doors DH had removed from the shed before we started taking it down. He took a bunch of the boards and both of the doors (it was a double barn door style opening, so 2 halves)

He decided to not tear apart the doors, but rather he made them into a decorative piece for his garden fence area... I just love how he did it...



He used a 2nd scrap board to cut large squares out of... he traced the top of the plant containers onto the pieces and cut them out slightly smaller... those circles he cut in half to create the flats for some of the other shelves. The shelf supports were also cut out of the same boards, and he supported the base in the back with some more cut out boards. The left side of the door is attached to the existing fence also.
He sent me an email to show the end result... I loved it so had to share it...
He did tell me I can't have my doors back though!!

 

[dheltzel]

I know this is late, but you will always see it the next day. If I understand correctly, when a non-frost-hardy plant experiences a frost, the cells inside burst because the 'old water expands as it freezes routine. That's why the plants look all limp and pooped out, they have burst asunder.

I'm sure Dhetzel can chime in if my info is wrong...
Gorgeous eggs, and peafowl too!
I love the chicken shenanigans! The first time mine sunbathed it was a bit disturbing too, but i soon realized I had seen that normal, healthy behavior before too.

You explained freeze damage very well.

Tonight I was watching the newly hatched chicks and I saw one in the pile was on it's side with it's legs stuck out at what seemed an odd angle. After watching, it was obvious she was just stretched out and sleeping. Another chick was sleeping in a bowl of crumbles, like a tired baby that falls asleep in his high chair. And then there was the "quarterback move", when a chick just walked on top of the others as they were sleeping in order to get into the middle of the pile. Very entertaining, we should start a "chick TV" channel on cable! Definitely more fun than a fireplace.

 

[LizardCat]

Awesome job! I only had to buy a few materials for my coop too. Although, mine looks like Mr. Magoo built it, haha.

Hey everybody, nobody warned me how much Chickens like Hosta. It's a good thing I have a lot!

Funny how that works. The DO planted hostas around our coop and run to hide the bottom boards, and they look just lovely...

..till you look up close and see that all the leaves that were up against the wires have been savaged.

I actually have several plants INSIDE our run that are still alive. They haven't been able to kill the pitiful azalea that we haven't managed to kill or move yet. They DID try to kill the day lillies, but those grow too fast for them to keep up. And there's a lone peony in the run that they seem to ignore. Maybe it tastes bad?

I was happier to find that they'll eat creeping charlie. I can't seem to eradicate it from the garden. Having a tought time keeping it out of the beds even. But there's not a bit of it in the run!

 

[LittleMissPurdy]

pictures I promised

I really like the way it looks from the outside!! It does look like a barn..great color!! They have a nice big run too!! Very-very nice!!! Your girls are sure enjoying themselves!!
New and all clean...i look at mine and think UGG!

hahaha..it still needs a good spring cleaning..this weather needs to get a little more stable for me to tear things apart & wash them.

 

[LittleMissPurdy]

Speaking of 'up-cycling'.... a bit of second hand bragging to do here.

We recently tore down an old shed that the floor had gone bad in. We had hoped to save a lot of the plank wood in the roof, because it looked like nice wide old boards, but on tearing it apart we found that most of it was much shorter pieces (often only spanned 1 truss at 24") so very little we could use, it appears to have been made out of old packing crates, with multiple pieces still having shipping labels on it from the 1950s. We had it stacked to be burnt but I told a good friend of mine about it since I know he likes doing small scale projects.

Well, my buddy and his wife showed up to get a bunch of these boards to use for a cellar entry repair and in digging through the pile he found the old doors DH had removed from the shed before we started taking it down. He took a bunch of the boards and both of the doors (it was a double barn door style opening, so 2 halves)

He decided to not tear apart the doors, but rather he made them into a decorative piece for his garden fence area... I just love how he did it...



He used a 2nd scrap board to cut large squares out of... he traced the top of the plant containers onto the pieces and cut them out slightly smaller... those circles he cut in half to create the flats for some of the other shelves. The shelf supports were also cut out of the same boards, and he supported the base in the back with some more cut out boards. The left side of the door is attached to the existing fence also.
He sent me an email to show the end result... I loved it so had to share it...
He did tell me I can't have my doors back though!!

I love this stuff!!!

...the older the better

...you have a talented friend. Maybe he'll make you something next time!