post your chicken coop pictures here!

[jetdog]

OSB? The interior wood?

Great looking coop and with a good cause, after last year's winter I would cover half the run to keep it dry and in the winter I would put clear corrugated roofing panels on to keep the snow out and let sunshine in, they will want to be outside more than in.

 

[Sylvester017]

yes white rock hens

Are yours pink or brown egg layers?

 

[Sylvester017]

Eggs don't roll all that much if there is even a small amount of nesting material around them. But I agree on having a board, at least 3" high across the front so the nest has "depth" and to keep shavings in. Chickens do scratch around in the boxes and the nest material will end up, at least partially, outside the box.

Bruce

Hi Bruce - Do your chickens lay Square eggs that they don't roll? We can't keep our eggs from rolling off the table, off the counter, around in the nestboxes! Your Square eggs may not roll but our Round ones do! In one day our hen's favourite nestbox gets eggs added and previous eggs get rolled out of the way by each subsequent hen. As for nesting material our OCD hens scratch every bit of straw away or out of the box to lay their egg on the hard flat bottom of the box - go figure? So the theory of nesting material holding the egg in place is moot. Guess it depends on the hens and nestbox placement but eggs DO roll when the hens push them out of the way

 

[vehve]

Hi Bruce - Do your chickens lay Square eggs that they don't roll? We can't keep our eggs from rolling off the table, off the counter, around in the nestboxes! Your Square eggs may not roll but our Round ones do! In one day our hen's favourite nestbox gets eggs added and previous eggs get rolled out of the way by each subsequent hen. As for nesting material our OCD hens scratch every bit of straw away or out of the box to lay their egg on the hard flat bottom of the box - go figure? So the theory of nesting material holding the egg in place is moot. Guess it depends on the hens and nestbox placement but eggs DO roll when the hens push them out of the way

Somewhere I saw the idea of using astroturf or some similar artificial lawn on the bottom, would be harder to scratch out.

 

[Pecanny]

Three weeks after the establishment of Fort Chicken, Colonel Red Rooster reports no coon attacks. All is well at Fort Chicken!!

 

[bruceha2000]

We finally finished our coop last weekend! Getting ready to move them all into it today. I am so proud of how hard my husband worked on this project.. and now that I know he can build things, his Honey-Do list just got longer!!

Is that a win for you and a lose for him? "Sorry guys, I can't, Katrina has 3 pages of stuff for me to do this weekend!"

Couple of questions.
- How will you keep rain from getting in the feeders? I presume caps on the top but the feed at the bottom can still get wet. Maybe cover that end of the run?
- Where is the roost? I like the high side triangular ventilation but since the coop isn't tall, I'm worried that a draft will be blowing over the birds at night.

Here is our coop and run, almost complete. The coop is 4x4 and was built by Coops for a Cause in NH. We built the run from a neighbors old, wooden swing set. It is approximately 9x12. We have to add roofing to 1/2 of the run and attach to the coop, and then the Hennies can move in. We have 4 chicks, 5 weeks old, but may wind up with 3, as I believe one is a rooster and we are not able to keep roosters in our town.

Standard problem: Roost is a 2x4 on edge not on the flat. Easy enough to fix but word has to get out. I get the impression there are more than a few people out there building coops that don't raise chickens or understand their physiology.

Also figure on a lot of poop on the board over the nests unless you put an angled board over it so the birds don't sit on it.
And (sorry) the birds won't necessarily sit on the roost facing the center of the coop so the poop board may get missed sometimes.

I'll let Sylvester tell you about rain and external nest box doors

Is it possible for you to contact Coops for a Cause and have them review coops here on BYC for "standards"?

And Felix is right about the chip board. It will rot if it isn't protected. We bought our current house from people that had recently rehabbed it. Pretty much everything they put in, we had to send to the dump, including the slate mudroom floor. Why? Because the expansion tank on the boiler had failed (WAY too soon given it was at most 10 years old) and while they had a bucket under the pipe, they apparently didn't empty it all that often. The chip board under the slate was totally rotted from being wet. It is pretty much impossible to save slate that has been epoxied down to the subfloor. The only thing that saved the original subfloor on which they put the chip board was the fact that it was a 19th century building with thick floor boards that weren't tight so the water that wasn't wicked into the chip board had somewhere to go other than into the old wood. In the end, we gutted the entire building. They didn't repair problems, they hid them under sheetrock.

Hi Bruce - Do your chickens lay Square eggs that they don't roll? We can't keep our eggs from rolling off the table, off the counter, around in the nestboxes! Your Square eggs may not roll but our Round ones do! In one day our hen's favourite nestbox gets eggs added and previous eggs get rolled out of the way by each subsequent hen. As for nesting material our OCD hens scratch every bit of straw away or out of the box to lay their egg on the hard flat bottom of the box - go figure? So the theory of nesting material holding the egg in place is moot. Guess it depends on the hens and nestbox placement but eggs DO roll when the hens push them out of the way

Well, not square but we do sometimes get ones that look like partially deflated balloons. Two this week in fact. Those won't roll anywhere!! I ate one just this morning that was laid yesterday. I thought I had a picture of one from before but I guess not. There was one the day before yesterday as well. I think someone's factory needs a reset because I got 3 white eggs yesterday, 1 under the roosts found when I opened the coop that was laid overnight and 2 later in the day. I only have 2 girls that lay white eggs and there were 2 white eggs the day before.

Interesting that your birds are the exact opposite of mine. They will scratch around, usually not all the way to the bottom of the box (I usually have at least 3" of pine shavings in them) but they don't toss them out. AND, not only do they NOT push any preexisting egg away, they will move it to the center of the nest where they are going to lay. Here are my boxes, as you can see there is no easy way for them to get the shavings out of the community box, not with that single egg shaped entrance.



This is the open box inside the coop before I put in the 2 dividers. You can see there is a fair bit of vertical depth.


Bruce

 

[vehve]

I'll let Sylvester tell you about rain and external nest box doors

Is it possible for you to contact Coops for a Cause and have them review coops here on BYC for "standards"?

And Felix is right about the chip board. It will rot if it isn't protected. We bought our current house from people that had recently rehabbed it. Pretty much everything they put in, we had to send to the dump, including the slate mudroom floor. Why? Because the expansion tank on the boiler had failed (WAY too soon given it was at most 10 years old) and while they had a bucket under the pipe, they apparently didn't empty it all that often. The chip board under the slate was totally rotted from being wet. It is pretty much impossible to save slate that has been epoxied down to the subfloor. The only thing that saved the original subfloor on which they put the chip board was the fact that it was a 19th century building with thick floor boards that weren't tight so the water that wasn't wicked into the chip board had somewhere to go other than into the old wood. In the end, we gutted the entire building. They didn't repair problems, they hid them under sheetrock.

Bruce

Sly is mighty worried about people getting their hair wet

I think the reason people place them that way, is that to a person who knows anything about structural integrity, placing a 2x4 flat side up is a big no-no. With a roost bar the stress won't be that much, so it doesn't matter, but in other uses it has a significant weight bearing effect.

I'd say the OSB almost disintegrates when wet instead of rotting. I hate it when people don't take pride in craftsmanship and just try to hide defects cheaply, I'd sue for fraud. My cousin bought a house a few years back, where water damage had been hidden in a similar way, the whole house ended up infested with mold. They had to gut it completely, and I think are still fighting to get their money back. The company had apparently done similar things and then filed for bankruptcy. There are some regulations in place here, you either have to use licensed contractors or document repairs when dealing with wet areas (bathrooms etc.), but the responsibility issues become difficult in cases involving bankruptcy.

In completely unrelated news, we got our first one of these today:

 

[bruceha2000]

Sly is mighty worried about people getting their hair wet

I think the reason people place them that way, is that to a person who knows anything about structural integrity, placing a 2x4 flat side up is a big no-no. With a roost bar the stress won't be that much, so it doesn't matter, but in other uses it has a significant weight bearing effect.

I'd say the OSB almost disintegrates when wet instead of rotting. I hate it when people don't take pride in craftsmanship and just try to hide defects cheaply, I'd sue for fraud. My cousin bought a house a few years back, where water damage had been hidden in a similar way, the whole house ended up infested with mold. They had to gut it completely, and I think are still fighting to get their money back. The company had apparently done similar things and then filed for bankruptcy. There are some regulations in place here, you either have to use licensed contractors or document repairs when dealing with wet areas (bathrooms etc.), but the responsibility issues become difficult in cases involving bankruptcy.

In completely unrelated news, we got our first one of these today:

Your first golf ball? CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I see you 'seeded' the nest with a real ball plus an imitation ball to give the golfer an idea of where to aim

Is that egg really as pink as it looks on my computer? If it is, what breed of chicken laid it? My daughter would LOVE pink eggs.

It is true that a long enough 2x4 on the flat would need some support in the center and perhaps you are correct in your guess as to why people put them in "wrong side up". Time for people to switch to 3" round fence rails. Besides being able to span a longer distance, I notice there is WAY less poop on the rail than on the parallel 2x4 roost.

The problem with suing is the lawyers cost over $200 per hour and the people being sued can just declare bankruptcy if you win, sticking you not only with the original expense of repair/replace but also an extremely large legal bill. I will just have to wait for Karma to kick their @sses, though I probably will never know if they get their just "rewards".

Bruce

 

[coop-er]

Three weeks after the establishment of Fort Chicken, Colonel Red Rooster reports no coon attacks. All is well at Fort Chicken!!

Om gosh I Love*Love*Love this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^so cute, tell Colonel Red Rooster "nice work"

 

[vehve]

Your first golf ball? CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I see you 'seeded' the nest with a real ball plus an imitation ball to give the golfer an idea of where to aim

Is that egg really as pink as it looks on my computer? If it is, what breed of chicken laid it? My daughter would LOVE pink eggs.

It is true that a long enough 2x4 on the flat would need some support in the center and perhaps you are correct in your guess as to why people put them in "wrong side up". Time for people to switch to 3" round fence rails. Besides being able to span a longer distance, I notice there is WAY less poop on the rail than on the parallel 2x4 roost.

The problem with suing is the lawyers cost over $200 per hour and the people being sued can just declare bankruptcy if you win, sticking you not only with the original expense of repair/replace but also an extremely large legal bill. I will just have to wait for Karma to kick their @sses, though I probably will never know if they get their just "rewards".

Bruce

Yeah, our legal system is a bit different. You usually don't end up with enormous lawyer bills to pay, but you don't get a million in damages for being too stupid to not slip on a wet floor or burning yourself on your coffee. (I have slight reservations against your country's legal system, and might have a bit stereotypical view of it

)

The hen that laid the egg is Veera, a Finnish Alho landrace. It is pretty pink, although their eggs can vary from almost white to pinkish, cream or light brown. Here are our Alho's, Veera is the one with most white, and her sisters are Viiru and Virpi. They should lay about 200 small to medium eggs annually. In the pictures the girls are maybe 19 weeks, now they're 22 weeks.