post your chicken coop pictures here!

[cabinchicky]

Here are some pic's of my new coop and run, still under construction, I will post more when I'm finished [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR]

Very nice cooop!

 

[bruceha2000]

Everybody seems excited about auto feeders, my pet peeve is cleaning and filling a waterer that has to be turned upside down to fill. Who has an auto-waterer? BTW, I agree with full size house doors for access to the coop areas. I enjoy my project much more since I added that feature.

You will find lots of people on BYC using chicken nipples. Vertical or horizontal in a suspended 5 gallon bucket or saddle nipples in 3/4" PVC pipe connected to a water source of some sort. I have 5 saddles in a pipe inside the coop connected with 3/8" clear tubing to a 5 gallon drink "cooler" on the other side of the wall.

 

[gpeters3]

I've heard of a few people with auto waterers actually! The one's I've seen though have either been with one of those Igloo drink coolers then i think low pressure down into PVC pipe with nipples (not sure if these are auto though or you refill the cooler. either way, seem cool) or they have some sort of low pressure system and/or you simply connect to your hose. Never seen the details on these though and it seems to me as if it would waste water but who knows. Plus you have to be near a hose. The other one I've heard a lot of, which I don't think is auto but could be, is the 5 gallon bucket system with the poultry nipples on bottom or sides. Or the PVC pipe running through with nipples. I've heard that the vertical nipples freeze though and horizontal is better which sucks because I bought vertical haha but yeah, either way, all of those seem way easier than those waterers, which I agree are a huge pain to fill.

All of these are impossible to heat in winter. Why can't they just put the fill hole in the top? What about heat tape. Used to use that whan i lived in a trailer. That would solve the hose problem but still need to heat the bucket and the nipples (how does a chicken drink from a nipple???)

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
I personally prefer this setup:

Stock tank float


Five gallon feed tub.

When they freeze the water chunks out in a block. But I dont get hard freezes often. Wehn the sun comes out it warms that tub and the ice melts. I actually have three for my chicken pens. A similar arragnement with a bigger tub for my goats and horse. In the big tubs I can put gold fish in to keep the algae down. the most Ice I get is about half inch. ON any of em.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Awesome the trades are needed big time.....

When I bought my land the idea was to build a small prototype machine shop. Build a few horse drawn vehicles and then turn the design over to a dune buggy manufacturer. I did some tool design for injection molding and lead casting some time ago... But my best medium is designing for sheet metal fabrication. I always bowed to the machinists or sheet metal guy because they know much more than me as a designer.

deb

 

[gpeters3]

[quote kname="perchie.girl" url="/t/596294/post-your-chicken-coop-pictures-here/10200#post_16083487"]



I personally prefer this setup:

Stock tank float

  But I dont get hard freezes often.

the most Ice I get is about half inch.  ON any of
em.

deb
[/quote]

It can get -15 in January here (not often, I remember 3 or 4 years) and water tanks can stay frozen for several months in winter. I tried gallon drink dish but had to dump ice out every day and on colder days it froze up before they could get filled up so had to go to a heated dish but they just pooped in that so I got the heated hanging drinker but its still a pain because it has to be cleaned every fill (about 4-5 days) and the fill plug is on the bottom so you have to flip it over after filling spilling water all over your shoes etc.. I know, minor complaint but they Add up. I'm interested in hearing more about the nipple idea, how does it work, how can they get water into their mouth that way etc.??

 

[MeepBeep]

I've heard of a few people with auto waterers actually! The one's I've seen though have either been with one of those Igloo drink coolers then i think low pressure down into PVC pipe with nipples (not sure if these are auto though or you refill the cooler. either way, seem cool) or they have some sort of low pressure system and/or you simply connect to your hose. Never seen the details on these though and it seems to me as if it would waste water but who knows. Plus you have to be near a hose. The other one I've heard a lot of, which I don't think is auto but could be, is the 5 gallon bucket system with the poultry nipples on bottom or sides. Or the PVC pipe running through with nipples. I've heard that the vertical nipples freeze though and horizontal is better which sucks because I bought vertical haha but yeah, either way, all of those seem way easier than those waterers, which I agree are a huge pain to fill.

All of these are impossible to heat in winter. Why can't they just put the fill hole in the top? What about heat tape. Used to use that whan i lived in a trailer. That would solve the hose problem but still need to heat the bucket and the nipples (how does a chicken drink from a nipple???)

They are not impossible to heat, simple bucket style systems with horizontal nipples are pretty easy to heat with common stock tank heaters or bird bath heaters, it's when you add pipes that makes things complicated, and you really need a circulatory system in addition to heat... The horizontal nipples might ice over in extreme cold and need a little TLC, but for the most part they won't...

Here is my water nipple water system, my coop is heated so I really don't have to worry about freezing but I will be installing a circulated heating system as soon as the parts arrive to keep the water closer to 50° just for piece of mind... The 55 gallon barrel has a float valve installed so I can keep a water hose hooked up 24/7 if I want, but generally don't, I just hook up the hose and top it off every week or so... I also have water in the coop so filling in the winter is easy, but if I didn't I would simply install a hose adapter on the kitchen faucet and use some of those new stretch hoses for the weekly filling bringing them back inside after the fill so they don't freeze... I also have a water heater drip tray under the barrel that catches any falling water and diverts it to a bucket outside the coop so there is no water build up in the coop area...

 

[Latestarter]

I use 5 gallon buckets with horizontal nipples about an inch up from the bottom of the bucket. I have submersible heaters that are automatic, set to 40 degrees. When water temp drops below that, they come on and heat the water then cycle off. I put some broken paver tile (bricks) under the heat element as it helps hold the heat longer and keeps the element up off the plastic and away from the walls of the bucket. When time to fill, I hook up a hose and pop the cover open, fill then close. When done, I drain the hose and put it up. If it's really cold like sub zero, I carry a 5 gallon bucket out and fill from that as the hose would freeze before I could get them all filled and get it drained.

Last winter we had a 2 week period where temps at night were 15-20 below zero and the buckets never froze. I did have several nipples freeze up by morning, but rubbing them with my fingers melted the ice and they were good through the day. Since the chickens don't drink at night, that worked just fine. You can see a small skim of ice across the top of the open bucket. That happened because I tripped a circuit breaker and didn't know it. After re-setting it, no more ice. I discovered I couldn't run 4 heaters off 1 circuit...

 

[FarmerPhronc]

I use 5 gallon buckets with horizontal nipples about an inch up from the bottom of the bucket. I have submersible heaters that are automatic, set to 40 degrees. When water temp drops below that, they come on and heat the water then cycle off. I put some broken paver tile (bricks) under the heat element as it helps hold the heat longer and keeps the element up off the plastic and away from the walls of the bucket. When time to fill, I hook up a hose and pop the cover open, fill then close. When done, I drain the hose and put it up. If it's really cold like sub zero, I carry a 5 gallon bucket out and fill from that as the hose would freeze before I could get them all filled and get it drained.

Last winter we had a 2 week period where temps at night were 15-20 below zero and the buckets never froze. I did have several nipples freeze up by morning, but rubbing them with my fingers melted the ice and they were good through the day. Since the chickens don't drink at night, that worked just fine. You can see a small skim of ice across the top of the open bucket. That happened because I tripped a circuit breaker and didn't know it. After re-setting it, no more ice. I discovered I couldn't run 4 heaters off 1 circuit...

Thanks for your post latestarter, I too live in Colorado, new to raising chickens, nice to see how others deal with the sub-zero temps we get here. I currently have a 4" pvc pipe waterer with a vertical nipple. Although I have a birdbath de-icer in the pipe and the water in the pipe isn't freezing the nipple seems to be and it hasn't even got cold here yet, lol. Got some horizontal nipples on order, should be here by end of week, will be making some adjustments.

 

[cabinchicky]

Perchie.girl, thank you for the support! I am just starting out in the field but yes the trades di need more people.Never stop learning. I am in my 40s and getting my feet wet. Dad tried to get me to learn machining in school and I fought it, duh me.