post your chicken coop pictures here!

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
I hear you... My planned coop is completely doable for me to build. With the exception of the roof. I am going to have to hire some one to build it. I can do the rafters from below I just havent been able to figure out how to get the Aluminum sheeting up there and secured from below.



deb

 

[Sylvester017]

Quote:
I've had my contractor for 6 years remodeling the house, backyard, and replacing the chainlink with a blockwall and privacy fencing. I learned to go with the flow whenever he didn't do exactly what I envisioned -- sometimes his way was different and sometimes it was outstanding. Hey, I'm too old to do it myself and would've cost me a fortune in individual subcontracts and this way the package deal was cheaper. Plus I get a bunch of leftovers for my smaller chicken projects! For example, here's about 12' leftover scaffolding boards that we made into a makeshift lean-to for the chickens to snooze/hide under.


He remodeled our kitchen - I wanted to add footage to the little cottage kitchen but money didn't permit and he did a decent job for the tight space he had to work with. Not exactly the roominess I envisioned but he did his best within our budget. All the money I wanted to put into expanding kitchen footage went instead into adding an attic to meet code standards and re-wire faulty electricity and re-plumb leaky galvanized pipes that ran through the cement foundation. Not where I wanted to put the money but his being an inspector he showed us the prudence of safety over aesthetics. It was a good thing because we passed inspection completely when taking out an RM.


As bad luck would have it our contractor broke his wrist on another project but still manages to send workers to continue projects on our house. Here's a nice ladder left behind that we've been using for several weeks and the workers don't mind our using it at all. One of the workers had recently acquired two chickens himself and loved having our 4 hens around during construction. We swapped a lot of chicken stories and one of the workers was kind enough to assemble our new Barn Coop since they had all the proper tools to do it for us!!!!

 

[peastix]

I LOVE it!!!! So cute!!!!

X 254!!! Gorgeous!!

 

[noble]

They look so cool. Mine is plane square 20x20 with 10x10 coverd all open. My old birds loved it. I'd let them out all day to free range and put them in in the evening. My old neighbor had altimeter's and I had 42 chickens I was losing 2 and 3 a week and couldn't figure out how. He sold his house and moved to his daughter's the new people who bought his house saw all my animals (which I never had any problems with ) and asked about the empty pen in the back. So I told them about the misterious missing chickens , the new owner said sorry to tell u but I had 23 hole plucked gutted chickens in the freezer when I bought the house. So there was my culprit. I see the old neighbor in town sometime's and I can't bring myself to say anything. I get new birds in two days. The old neighbor used to pick through my garden too. Lol my husband all ways said tell him something but I never could. I'll be old one day.

 

[gpeters3]

Maybe you should hire Tim "The Toolman" Taylor to help?

Re: your hired contractor.

I added 600 sqft to my ranch house and ran out of money so im finishing it with pocket money, one board at a time. I added 7' to the kitchen and a 24x24 upper floor as a master suite. Its not HDTV but we like it. Unfinished drywall everywhere and plywood floors kitchen and upstairs. Problem is im 70 and slowing down a little and im married which adds a whole new dimension to putting out fires (figuratively). I am also a caregiver for my wife and her mother as well as an unpaid babysitter assistant for her grandkids. Ill send along some pics of the addition later so you can see some of the issues i mentioned. (I hate this editor!!!!!!)

 

[bruceha2000]

I'll work on that tomorrow and Saturday finish the holes. (4 of them are for my wife's grape arbors at the end of the garden)

"paying" for the chicken run work?

Maybe you should hire Tim "The Toolman" Taylor to help?

I think I would hire Al, Tim always got in trouble with his "more power" attitude

Every time i have people help me with !arge projects i have things not done the way i want so i tend to work by myself as much as possible.

Yep. Had to hire out the repair of half this house (actually an entire building). The GC and I agreed on the 2 primary objectives:

1. Move the stairs in the original building back to where they were when it was built (pre Civil war post and beam) because where they are now is stupid and fix the floor in my daughter's bedroom upstairs in the original house so I don't need a 2x under one end of a 3' long dresser to make it level.
2. Make it so the first floor of the north building is at the same level as the original building so if we can't climb stairs we don't have to move.

He said 'yes', his head went up and down 'yes'. He wanted to start on the other building rather than moving the stairs first. Of course with a building that old, everything that came off revealed another problem. In the end only 5 of the original 8 posts, the top plates, most of the mid level long wall beams, the 5 sided ridge pole, 1 1/2 of the original cross beams between the first and second floor, some of the angle braces and most of the roof rafters remained.

Every time I asked about the other #1 priority, he said "yes, we will get to that, finish this first", his head went up and down 'yes'. Then when his part (the P&B) was done and the other carpenters were working on stuff his mouth said "we will have to gut that other building to fix it". Well, sorry, we had already spent WAY more than the original estimate. None left to do priority item #1.

And then there was the walk in shower. I didn't want to screw up the slope on the floor never having made a shower before so I hired someone. When he was done things looked good. The seat in the corner had a 1/8" slope toward the shower, the floor sloped to the drain. But he didn't wait long enough for the thinset to set up and shortly the 1/8" slope on the seat went toward the wall and the floor is essentially flat. We use a squeegee to move the water off the seat and from the walls to the drain so there isn't a thin film to sit and grow "stuff".

The classic line is true. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

 

[tail_feather]

In warm climates insulation is used to keep the heat out from the sun beating down on the exterior surfaces... The cross breeze created by those windows opposite each other at ground level can be very effective at cooling by themselves... But, I would encourage installing roof vents or gable vents to allow the trapped hot air up high to get out as well as the trapped ammonia gasses (ammonia gases are lighter then air) to get out...

Thanks for the suggestions I always welcome input. I built this three years ago and is actually about my tenth one to do. The windows are perfect because they are lower than the roost at night and it stays about 12 to 15 degrees lower inside during the summer and in the winter it stays about 15 degrees warmer than the outside temps at any given time due to their body heat and insulation. And the ventilation is automatic at the top on both ends. They seem to be more productive during the winter months because they are not totally frozen from the outside temps. Thank you for the insight though! Always welcome! Have an awesome day!

 

[tail_feather]

It's very pretty, but you insulated both the walls and the ceiling? In Alabama? I hope you added lots of ventilation. Those windows are too low to be effective. Chickens don't need to be protected from cold. As long as they are kept dry and have good air flow above roosting height, they can handle temps well below freezing.

Thanks for the suggestions I always welcome input. I built this three years ago and is actually about my tenth one to do. The windows are perfect because they are lower than the roost at night and it stays about 12 to 15 degrees lower inside during the summer and in the winter it stays about 15 degrees warmer than the outside temps at any given time due to their body heat and insulation. And the ventilation is automatic at the top on both ends. They seem to be more productive during the winter months because they are not totally frozen from the outside temps. Thank you for the insight though! Always welcome! Have an awesome day!

 

[Red Banks]

Thanks for the suggestions I always welcome input. I built this three years ago and is actually about my tenth one to do. The windows are perfect because they are lower than the roost at night and it stays about 12 to 15 degrees lower inside during the summer and in the winter it stays about 15 degrees warmer than the outside temps at any given time due to their body heat and insulation. And the ventilation is automatic at the top on both ends. They seem to be more productive during the winter months because they are not totally frozen from the outside temps. Thank you for the insight though! Always welcome! Have an awesome day!

If I remember correctly Huntsville gets pretty cold. Ice storms. It ain't Montgomery which this Florida gal thinks is the hottest city on earth!

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

It gets down in the teens and the negatives here this year we were only to get 2-3 inches and we got 21 inches in one snow fall