Just remind him when he hears tell from his hunting crew of some 30 point buck that was hiding out by his hunting blind that he could have built the coop long ago back during the summer or even the early fall.my rooster is so dumb!!!!! It got below freezing last night here in lower AL so my husband decided to add a heat lamp to the coop.... Within moments my roo had put his butt (litteraly) on the lamp... Results..... A burnt tail!!! My husband has decided to forgo hunting this weekend just so he can get the bigger coop built and he is adding a new feature.... A cage to house the lamp and keep feather brains from it... Wish me luck..l been trying to build this new coop for ages... The smaller one will be pulled down from the stand, put on cinder blocks and converted into the dog house...
Pine shavings is the way to go inside the coop IMHO
This is so true! I have a 3-sided open wire coop that is only covered with a tarp at night. If chickens need warmth they will pile up next to each other. I only have 3 hens - they bicker in hot weather, but when the temps start getting low I'll find all 3 of them huddled together in one nestbox to keep warm and there's no bickering!
You actually did make me feel better for several reasons......the most important is that I have a malingerer also and really get depressed when I try to hard to help him in everything that is important or that matters to him. I'm 65 yrs and built my own coop myself this summer !!! The longer I worked on it without help....the more determined and .....we......angry I got! Every day it got hotter and so did I. I knew we both had our health issues....BUT,,,,,,I also had Rocky Mountain Spotted fever right during the middle of it! Then as before,,,,I may of had to do less at one time during the day,,,,but,,,,I GOT-R-DONE!!!!Pine shavings is the way to go inside the coop IMHO(since you plan to have a raised coop). There should not be an issue with low absorption and dust in the same sentence... If there is too much dust, then the litter is too dry.... add moisture (You'll be amazed at how much liquid you can add and not cause a problem). If there is too much moisture, you'll be smelling the ammonia, and it's time to add more shavings. The litter can NOT compost if it's "dry". There MUST be moisture for the composting to happen. You should NOT have to clean the shavings out weekly... why would you defeat the whole purpose of doing deep litter and composting in place? I am still building on the same shavings my chicks started with back in June... there is no smell, a bit too much dust, but since the temps are well below freezing, I can't realistically add moisture right now. The litter inside the coop, if leveled out would be approximately 10-12 inches deep right now. By spring time, I expect it will be in the 18" range. By late spring, I expect I'll remove about 1/2 of what's there and then let er' build back up again. I LOVE not having to be cleaning out a coop every week or every other week, or every month... etcOh, and as an aside, I don't restrict to just pine shavings... Since it was established, I have also used dead leaves, grass clippings (they like to eat it and it adds moisture, etc.
Actually, you WANT the birds to roost above the nest box level. If that's not happening, they will in all probability roost in them, which you do NOT want. I have my nest boxes ~18" off the floor (bottom of entry) with a perch bar outside them to make it easier for the birds to get in and out. All my roost beams are HIGHER than the top of the entry opening into the nest boxes. I do NOT want the birds roosting inside the nest boxes! They tend to poop a LOT while they are roosting, and I don't want the hassles of cleaning out poopy nest boxesThe key thing is nest boxes low, roosts HIGH! The higher you make them, the better your birds will like them. My nest boxes are external through a wall of the coop so they don't take up "floor space" inside the coop, and I can access them from outside. If I had to place them inside, I would probably make them ~ 24" off the floor to once again not use up floor space square footage.
My waterers are 5 gallon buckets with sealing lids ( with a small hole cut in the center for "breathing" and to allow the power line out for the water heater in the winter) and horizontal water nipples screwed into the sides about 1" from the bottom of the bucket. They are suspended from a rafter by wire, resting against a side partition. I can raise or lower their height from the litter very easily, and the chickens can move around under them with no problem, once again maximizing floor space/square footage. I have 4 separate enclosures with 8-10 chickens in each and one 5 gallon bucket in each enclosure. There are 2-3 nipples in each bucket (it's what I had avail when I made them). I can fill each bucket once to about 3" from the top and it lasts the birds anywhere from 1-2 weeks! That saves a LOT of work and cleaning! They can't scratch all sorts of debris into their water this way, and I don't have to water them daily! I've had zero problems with mold etc, and I bought sinking electric heaters for each bucket that keeps the water temp @ ~40 degrees F, automatically. Recent temps at below zero have caused a couple of the nipples to freeze up by morning, but when I go out to feed them, the heat from my fingers thaws them out pretty quickly and they are fine throughout the day.
Their food is fermented feed 2X per day when the temp isn't below freezing, so I use a simple trough created by sawing a 4" PVC pipe in half and bolting it to a couple of support legs to keep it stationary and from tipping. Now that temps are so low, I am feeding dry and using the same trough. Next spring I will build a dry food feeder box and mount it to the wall so I can fill it with a weeks worth of dry food and if I want to travel (or next winter), I can just fill it weekly and the birds can eat all they like. I already mounted vertical PVC pipe "feeders" for their grit and oyster shell, again to conserve floor space and be able to provide enough to need filling maybe once a month.
If you couldn't tell, I'm all about making things LESS labor intensive... Not that I'm lazy mind you, but I'm no spring chicken anymore myselfI try to find better, easier, simpler, less time consuming ways to do things if I can. The threads here on BYC have helped tremendously!
The following pictures are a little dated... the water buckets still have 2 small holes vice the now single hole with water heater installed, but it gives you the gist of it.
Hanging waterer and feed trough, as well as the pine shavings which at this point had been in there for about a month. The waterers have since been raised even higher as the birds are all now at POL and full sized. If they go broody and have chicksat some point, I will adjust accordingly. Next spring, I hope to have a water container outside the enclosure with pvc pipe going along the enclosure where the bucket now hangs then crossing over into the adjacent enclosure and back to the source with circulating water (heated in winter) and using the same horizontal nipple system. Then no more carrying buckets in and out of the enclosures!I'll simply run a hose from a nearby water source into the coop to fill the water container as/when needed.
Vertical "feeders" for grit and oyster shell. Placed between two wall studs, and "strapped" into place to hold them, they take up zero floor space. I intend to do the feeder box on the other side of the door between the two studs there. You can also see one (out of 4) open nest box on the left. This was before I covered the front openings with a wall with circular openings into each nest box. and added the perch to the extension you see sticking out the front. Maybe I'll even do some privacy curtains for them this coming spring
Anyway, hope the malingerer finally gets to work on that coop he's been promising for how many months now? Hope some of these ideas help you. Good luck whichever way you go!
Edited for spelling
