With hardware cloth on the ground you're going to want to pack in as much material over it as possible, I'd go more than just "a few inches". Chickens can dig down pretty far and you don't want them all tearing their feet up on it.
Hmm, like how deep? In the old coop the chickens haven't dug more than maybe 3-4 inches down for dirt bathing. In the new coop I'm actually going to be putting a small aluminum boat in there filled with a dirt bath mix. So maybe with the 3" of actual dirt + the 4-6" of wood chips will be enough? Basically up to the top of cinder block
Well I suppose a chicken can't dig that deep if they hit metal first!
You can't really see it in the pics, but there's an apron/skirt of hardware cloth underneath the gravel. It's over 12" wide.
I hate it when life gets in the way of completing your projects -- it's sooo close to being done yet still isn't, hahaha
First off I wanted to share this cool thing I do every year that has to do with cooking and eating chickens. Last weekend in Sept was my 6/7th year helping cook teriyaki chickens for the annual Food Bazaar at the Budhist church my wife's family is associated with. The men in the family have helped cook the chickens on Sunday of this event for the last 45 years.
Inside the dedicated "chicken shack" there are two cinder block fire pits that get loaded up with Kingsford briquettes. Pits are covered with a cantilevered "lid" panel. There are 3 huge exhaust fans pulling from the roof cupula/stack to evacuate the smoke. Each pit holds 6 racks (so 12 racks total). Each rack holds 36 half-chickens that have been salted/sugared a few days in advance. 36 halves = 18 whole per rack X 12 racks = 216 whole chickens per batch. They go skin-side up for about 15min, then they get flipped and sprayed with teriyaki sauce on the ribs side (garden sprayer hose attached to pressurized soda keg) and cook for another 15, then a flip and spray on the skin-side and cook for 15min, then a flip for about 10min, flip and check for 180 degrees. When finished we carry the trays over to the table, unload the cooked chickens into wooden boxes that go to the kitchen for cutting up and making bento boxes, then we load up another batch and start over again! We did 6 batches starting at 6am and done around 1:30pm = 1296 chickens that day, it was fun but a lot of work!
I got the interior finished up. Roosting bars are made of 2x3s and I stole an idea I found somewhere and put them on a hook/loop mounting system so they're easily removable in the future for cleanout or to change them out. I also made a simple pulley system for my window shutters. The tailgate baffles come out for cleaning time.
Front view with baffle and then with the nesting boxes installed. The thing above the nest boxes is sorta like a poop board, mainly to keep poop out of the boxes when they roost on the bars.
Here's the whole front opened up:
And now really getting ready for the big move-in
On a whim at almost dusk on Sunday night I decided to start tossing together a simple feeder. It will get painted and have an acrylic window to see the feed level. Decent size that should hold at least two, possibly three full bags of feed:
Confused about the lower row of nests, don't see them on the inside?
How many birds will you have that you need 2-3 bags of (50#?)feed in a feeder?
Might want to add an adjustable panel where feed comes out bottom of hopper.
Bottom of that edge needs to be below top edge of trough.
Confused about the lower row of nests, don't see them on the inside?
How many birds will you have that you need 2-3 bags of (50#?)feed in a feeder?
Might want to add an adjustable panel where feed comes out bottom of hopper.
Bottom of that edge needs to be below top edge of trough.
Yes, the lower nest boxes are accessible from the run only, not from inside the coop. I already had the upper section built and the lower boxes were more of an afterthought idea I had after I started thinking about chicken math taking over. We have 17 chickens currently but more than likely there will be more coming once I start the expanded run space next year, so I'm planning ahead.
The feeder isn't done yet obviously and literally took me 10 minutes to construct as-is so if it gets scrapped, so be it. It will definitely be getting an adjustable flow restrictor panel at the bottom since I wasn't sure how the different feed types would flow through the opening. It still also needs the plexiglass viewing window, an angled hinged lid to keep chickens off it and paint for aesthetics.
In regard to the volume - it just happened to turn out that size with the scrap wood I grabbed. I still need to cut the top at an angle which will reduce volume a little and I can always cut it even shorter. Until my kids grow, I'm currently the only one in the family who fills up their feed and my schedule doesn't allow me to check up on them but every couple days, usually just on weekends - so one main goal with the feeder was to have enough volume to last a full week and still have reserves for a few more days just in case. Currently we go through about 25-30lb feed per week when they're not being free-ranged.
Well, sometime in the last week we lost the first one of the new flock She was the Buff Brahma and my boys called her Ella/Cindarella. Too bad it wasn't that rooster Hei Hei who sometimes attempts to go after my youngest, but he also kinda taunts him.
Likely it happened when free-ranging is my guess, but didn't notice any pile of feathers anywhere. Anyways, after I noticed she was gone I decided to move them into the new mansion the next day, regardless of the feeder and waterer not being done yet, I can always wrap those up later. They were all super anxious the first evening but now I think they're getting accustomed to things and really enjoying it. I'll be leaving them in there all this week to imprint on it.
Last day in the old janky coop:
1st night in the new coop, everyone's gotta re-establish roosting areas
And now enjoying the new run. Boat is for dirt baths. Needs to have some wood ash once I can burn again, but for now is dirt + diatomaceous earth. Old feeder and waterer are temporary. Still probably going to expand the jungle gym, lol. Friend saw the coop this weekend and commented it looks like I stole an exhibit from Folsom Zoo, hahaha
Lastly, my son's pet rabbit, Bunny Wunny, has needed a new home for the last two years. Figure before I start packing up my construction site I might as well bust it out. Per normal, I didn't have any plans and didn't take any pics while building it until I got pretty far, lol. Took me a day to get this far and I'll hardware cloth it later this week so he can move into his new place. I painted the plywood but I'm probably just going to leave the rest of the wood bare since it should last a few years, if not I'll just slap together a new one (I had a lean-to greenhouse that got watered every other day for the last 8yrs, so I figure if that survived being bare 2x2s, this one will for sure as long as it's got the pressure treated bottom)
Constructed mostly out of leftover materials, I think the house section is 36x24OD, the entire footprint is 3ft x 6ft. The whole thing lifts up via the handle in front to truck it around the yard. I think I saw this somewhere online once when looking up chicken tractor designs. Pretty simple really, I just used lag screws for my pivots since that's what I had on hand. If they fail later i'll upgrade to all-thread or some sort of axle. For now it seems surprisingly sturdy in my testing.
She was the Buff Brahma and my boys called her Ella/Cindarella. Too bad it wasn't that rooster Hei Hei who sometimes attempts to go after my youngest, but he also kinda taunts him. 
