post your chicken coop pictures here!

[pmpkinchick]

Hi all you chickeneers -

Thanks for posting and re-inforcing our statements to use 1/2 inch hardwire to cover coops and forget that nasty waste of money poultry wire which is just folded into itself and not even interlinked so the slightest push on it makes it come apart and bend easier than a straw.  A couple mutts broke into our yard and mangled poultry wire with their teeth and claws - if not for a Good Samaritan neighbor I would've lost my flock.  Poultry wire is barely sufficient for keeping chickens INSIDE and certainly not for keeping predators OUTSIDE!!!

Hurray for all you hardwire-using chickeneers that realize the most expensive part of your coop/pen will be the secure hardwire !!!  Even if you don't see them the wildlife predators can sniff out chickens more than a mile away and so-o-o much better to be safe than sorry!!!  Can't afford the hardwire?  Then you can't afford the chickens either. 

Smiles - Syl

We learned the hard way. We ran out of the 1/2 in hardware cloth and used a piece of 1 1/2 in wire. The area was only about 12"x12" so we thought it would be ok for 1 night until we could get to the store the next day. We were sooooo wrong! Something grabbed 1 chick through the wire and tore it apart. Now all areas have hardware cloth sandwiched between pieces of wood. My DH felt so bad I came home from work 2 days later to find 5 new bantam brahmas in the brooder. He's the best DH ever!!

 

[gilcamp4]

well i got bored tonight, painting on new coop is just about finished so i got th paint and painted the camper coop, told dh i was going to paint the white to match the new coop, told him we can not have some chickens with new house and then have the poor live right next door, so if its not raining tomorrow i will go out and finish the painting

new coop before paint job after paint job
going to paint the white part to match new coop all in the rain

 

[Peggy O]

Looks good!

 

[bruceha2000]

Reducing tire pressure might help too. If you don't get enormous amounts of snow at a time, an ATV could work for you, some can be equipped with caterpillar tracks for better traction even. Or then you do it the old fashioned way, with a shovel

*Edit* Thought of an outside the box sort of idea. Are flamethrowers considered home protection/hunting weapons in the States?

I had the tires down to about 12 PSI. One rear actually had a bad leak last winter and even that didn't help as it got flatter while I worked.

The area I clear for cars is ~140' long, at least 1 car wide. Well, I guess I could 'just' do enough for the two cars to get in without being able to go around the circle. That would be ~30 feet 2 cars wide to make sure they didn't get blasted by the stuff the plow is shoving. Then there is shoveling the heavy banks the plow leaves.

And the 100+ feet down to the barn and if the oil or propane delivery guys are going to show up (generally unannounced) another 70' for each. That is a lot of shoveling! I had to use snowshoes to get to the barn a few days last winter, too much snow to dig out in one go. The wind blows between the 2 barns and deposits snow 4' deep. Unfortunately that is the part I couldn't possibly get back from if I went down more than about 10 '. The old rig did OK on the parking area, after a lot of battery jumping and false starts, usually took about 20 minutes to start it when it was near 10F or colder. And I had to leave it up in the parking area because it didn't really want to climb the grade (not really all that steep) from the barn even in forward.

This is the barn:

The garden tractor lives behind the first green diamond on the left. The door to the alley with coop is at the bottom past the blue barrel.

I suppose I COULD use a flamethrower but wouldn't I end up with a LOT of ice?? But then you were asking about using one for protection and hunting. I don't know, how would you get close enough to a deer to hit it with a flame thrower?

GORGEOUS build. The only thing I would change is having the coop at my back door. Not too fond of donning rain gear to treck across the yard to collect eggs during our gully-washer rainstorms. Ours is about 8 feet from the back sliding door - nothing like being lazy in our old age!

Eggs will keep for weeks without refrigeration. I think it is safe to wait until the gully washer is over

well i got bored tonight, painting on new coop is just about finished so i got th paint and painted the camper coop, told dh i was going to paint the white to match the new coop, told him we can not have some chickens with new house and then have the poor live right next door, so if its not raining tomorrow i will go out and finish the painting

new coop before paint job after paint job
going to paint the white part to match new coop all in the rain

You are very industrious!

Bruce

 

[bigmrg74]

I had the tires down to about 12 PSI. One rear actually had a bad leak last winter and even that didn't help as it got flatter while I worked.

The area I clear for cars is ~140' long, at least 1 car wide. Well, I guess I could 'just' do enough for the two cars to get in without being able to go around the circle. That would be ~30 feet 2 cars wide to make sure they didn't get blasted by the stuff the plow is shoving. Then there is shoveling the heavy banks the plow leaves.

And the 100+ feet down to the barn and if the oil or propane delivery guys are going to show up (generally unannounced) another 70' for each. That is a lot of shoveling! I had to use snowshoes to get to the barn a few days last winter, too much snow to dig out in one go. The wind blows between the 2 barns and deposits snow 4' deep. Unfortunately that is the part I couldn't possibly get back from if I went down more than about 10 '. The old rig did OK on the parking area, after a lot of battery jumping and false starts, usually took about 20 minutes to start it when it was near 10F or colder. And I had to leave it up in the parking area because it didn't really want to climb the grade (not really all that steep) from the barn even in forward.

This is the barn:

Clearly what you need is a car sized tractor with an enclosed cab and a front end loader on the front of it. I know I had warm thoughts about having one of those this winter. There was some issues at our farm and we lost our Ford 2120 that had the front end loader on it and we ended up getting another tractor that just wasn't as nice as what the 2120 is. Nor did it have the front end loader on it which really was a downer when we realized that we needed to beat back the drifts on our driveway because we couldn't push the snow any further against the frozen piles with just the tractor blade.

 

[mckees]

Here's our Hen Pen!

 

[chikmagnet69]

very nice...my wife would love the window planter!

 

[chikmagnet69]

 

[vehve]

I had the tires down to about 12 PSI. One rear actually had a bad leak last winter and even that didn't help as it got flatter while I worked.

The area I clear for cars is ~140' long, at least 1 car wide. Well, I guess I could 'just' do enough for the two cars to get in without being able to go around the circle. That would be ~30 feet 2 cars wide to make sure they didn't get blasted by the stuff the plow is shoving. Then there is shoveling the heavy banks the plow leaves.

And the 100+ feet down to the barn and if the oil or propane delivery guys are going to show up (generally unannounced) another 70' for each. That is a lot of shoveling! I had to use snowshoes to get to the barn a few days last winter, too much snow to dig out in one go. The wind blows between the 2 barns and deposits snow 4' deep. Unfortunately that is the part I couldn't possibly get back from if I went down more than about 10 '. The old rig did OK on the parking area, after a lot of battery jumping and false starts, usually took about 20 minutes to start it when it was near 10F or colder. And I had to leave it up in the parking area because it didn't really want to climb the grade (not really all that steep) from the barn even in forward.

This is the barn:

The garden tractor lives behind the first green diamond on the left. The door to the alley with coop is at the bottom past the blue barrel.

I suppose I COULD use a flamethrower but wouldn't I end up with a LOT of ice?? But then you were asking about using one for protection and hunting. I don't know, how would you get close enough to a deer to hit it with a flame thrower?

Bruce

Well, you'll just have to sell a couple of (thousand) eggs and get yourself a tractor with tracks or something.

You just have to burn until the water evaporates, that way you get no ice

You could mask yourself with some deer urine and wear a ghillie suit? And use a dog to herd the deer close to you (the dog could have a nice little Nomex suit)

-Felix

 

[iwiw60]

Looks NICE!!