He did a great job and now has a taste for building. Oh, you are in SO much trouble! I see many new power tools in your husband's future
Actually, that is how I got many of mine. My step-father gave us a table saw as a wedding present 24 years ago since we were going to rehab a house. Wife was fine with that gift - what a woman! We bought cherry cabinets but I made all the door and window trim from rough cherry. Would have cost a
bundle to buy it pre-made, doing it myself more than paid for the tools and the wood, in fact LESS than painted pine with any sort of profile. Instead, we have beautiful natural cherry with interior window sills wide enough for cats to sit on
If the rock wool you have there is the same stuff they used to use here, ITCH ITCH ITCH. We had that in the attic of the house we redid. Fibrerglass feels like satin compared to it!
The girls aren't complaining about the bad reception because they are embarrassed to tell you they forgot to renew their contract
In my case, the people in charge are not very predictable time wise. The coop is in a barn and the photo sensor opens the coop at daylight. They have to 'suffer' hanging around in the barn alley and all the other areas (nothing but the 10 chickens in there) until someone opens the door to the barn so they can go outside. They generally choose to hang there when there is snow on the ground anyway and that is at least 3 months of the year. The photosensor closes the chicken door when it is so dark I can barely see (wouldn't mind if it were earlier) but the girls have put themselves on the roosts at least an hour earlier.
We originally got the PulletShut door last May when no one lived at the house because half of it was being totally rebuilt. My wife was having to drive the 25 miles every morning to open the coop and I would come by after (paid) work to work on the part of the house that wasn't totally gutted and close them in before heading to the other house. The auto door more than paid for itself in gas alone. There was no power to the barn during that time so I ran it on two 6V lantern batteries wired in series to get 12V. A pair lasts about 6 months so the door doesn't use much electricity and no question of problems during a power failure.
You can find the solar vents at any boat store/chandlery. They make some that are solar and have a battery so they can run day and night. They can get pretty expensive. I looked on Amazon and they don't have great reviews. Might be better to make something yourself with a vent fan, battery and solar panel.
Some of our chickens came up on the deck and looked in the door ONCE. They saw the cat on the inside getting all agitated over them. Never did it again!
Dogs are a LOT easier to house train than a chicken. I think that might be one big reason why you let the dogs in and not the chickens.
There is no need to put hardware cloth over the joists since you will have a solid wood floor. If a predator is going to chew through a sheet of plywood, it wouldn't be slowed down by hardware cloth. Use 1/2" hardware cloth where it is needed. 1/2" is usually 19 gauge wire, 1/4" is 23 gauge. With wire, the SMALLER the number the thicker the wire. So the 1/2" is stronger and nothing that is going to kill your birds can get through a 1/2" square opening. 1/4" would only be useful for ventilation that excludes larger bugs or sifting garden dirt to get out small rocks.
Looks like you need to hang the feeder! The chicken eating out of the top is showing you what height the tray should be
In general, a feeder hung with the tray about head high will be easy for them to reach and a lot cleaner since they won't be tossing shavings in as they scratch around on the floor.
I would suggest you close them all off until the girls start laying. You don't want them to say "Hey, nice place to sleep" before their instincts tell them what is it REALLY for.
Nice setup! It is great when one has enough space that the coop can be in a big run under cover.
