post your chicken coop pictures here!

[HarrisCoop]

 

[Sylvester017]

I don't yet. They have been on my wish list. Everytime it would seem I had a line on some eggs or even a couple of cockerels that were about 3 hours away, something happened and things fell through. The older I get the less I find myself willing to put up with drama with my animals. Right now I have two American Buff ganders that are taxing my limits of tolerance. So I have looked at these guys closely for about 2 years. I had my incubator fry a batch of eggs so I am reworking it over before trying any more shipped eggs. If I can get a good hatch of my Olive Eggers then I might be willing to risk some Breda eggs.

My Blue Wheaten Ameraucana (my avatar photo) is a very sweet bird but not a good layer and VERY noisy to the point I'm embarrassed with the neighbors. She is very loud. She is a lovely kind timid bird and we love her dearly - she is alert, predator wary, jittery, jumpy. She is non-retaliatory toward chickens that chest-bump her. She would rather flee than fight. As much as we love her, she is 3 yrs old now, I don't believe I will try another Am nor try EE either. They are not production birds - our girl might be lucky to lay 3 or 4 months out of the year. Our Breda on the other hand is a dynamo layer, not timid, not noisy, is outgoing, "pesty," curious, unafraid, and people-friendly and above all, non-combative toward the gentle littles like Silkies. My DH loves his Silkies but having the Breda this past year has impressed him to try more Breda. The Breda cockerel we had for a few weeks was a gem too. We gave him to a friend and he turned out to be her indoor-outdoor pet chicken - she rescues unwanted cockerels and hens and gives them forever homes on her farm. She is vegetarian so the birds will never be dinner on her table. Rare to find people with that kind of big heart!

 

[ChickenChaser43]

A work in progress.



Floor with Black Jack Rubr-Coat #57.

 

[sbobier]

Done enough for the girls to spend the night. Still need to finish the new feed and watering systems, the nesting boxes, and paint. Even so, the girls are happy to be out if the rubbermade box.

 

[beautifulpirate]

quote name="sbobier" url="/t/596294/post-your-chicken-coop-pictures-here/13050#post_16982294"]

Done enough for the girls to spend the night. Still need to finish the new feed and watering systems, the nesting boxes, and paint. Even so, the girls are happy to be out if the rubbermade box. [/quote]

When you paint, you'll need to remove the birds for a couple days. Their respiratory systems are much more fragile than ours and paint fumes can do a lot of damage.
ETA- I keep screwing up the quoting thing on my phone haha sorry.

 

[countryladyNH]

We are historical reenactors living in a little 240 yr. old house that has been a DIY labor of love to restore for over 17 years. We JUST got chickens for the first time---4 English buff orpingtons, and put up a coop. We have just finished building our own fence of trees we cut down, and have 'tricked out' our coop with period style hardware and 'leaded' windows to go with our old New Hampshire house. My husband thought our fence was reminiscent of the stockade fences at Plimoth Plantation, etc., and we had a piece of highly weathered 18thc. board, and a 17thc. 'Brit' flag---since we do that type of reenacting. Hubby has a degree in illustration and design, and is creative and quirky. He said the fence reminded him of an old fort...SO...what did we do???
Well, created one, of course! We made our flag pole from a tree we cut down, and hubby hand painted 'FORT ORPINGTON' in 17thc. font on the old board, which we affixed to the fence around our coop and run! We think it looks just grand with our home and the old-time lifestyle we live---(Yes, that is us in the avatar photo!)

HERE ARE A FEW PHOTOS OF OUR EFFORTS!

 

[bruceha2000]

My system will have plenty of water so that one nipple leaking should not be an issue and since i check them every day i can replace any leakers.

One failed nipple can drain the entire tank. 3 of 5 in my 3/4" pipe failed the evening before Thanksgiving in 2013. I have NO idea why but since the pipe was built into the bottom of the nest box I couldn't just replace the nipples and the girls had their 1 gallon waterer with a heat lamp over it (I know!!!) for the winter. But since you do check every day, such a calamity isn't a health problem for the chickens. It would, however, be convenient if these things would happen at say 10 AM on a nice day spring through fall rather than in winter (Yes, the end of November is winter in Vermont even though the calendar says it doesn't start for another month).

Quote:
15 years ago my Dad and stepmother went to Spain and visited some relatives (*). They still lived on the family farms from 100+ years ago and the house was ABOVE the barn. I don't know if barn odors got up into the house but the cows do provide a fair bit of "radiant floor" heat

* must be somewhat distant relatives since his father and 4 uncles had all emigrated from Spain to California (3 brothers) and Argentina (2 brothers) in the early 1900s. His mother abd her cousin also emigrated from Spain about the same time and she met my grandfather in CA.

...
I don't believe I will try another Am nor try EE either. They are not production birds - our girl might be lucky to lay 3 or 4 months out of the year. ...

I don't know about Ameraucana but my EEs are good layers. Not production "egg factory" leghorns or RIRs but they work. My almost 4 year old EE has never been a winter layer but has laid 48%+ of the days since her first egg, 598 eggs in 1242 days. 236 in her first year of laying. At the moment she is laying 3-4 a week and always around 70g-72g, i.e. USDA XL to Jumbo.

The new EEs (gotten because the one I have is such a good layer) have been laying since Nov (1), Dec (1) and Jan (1) and have laid 67%, 85% and 63% respectively. The one laying most is putting out solidly USDA Medium, the other two USDA Large pushing XL.

I am hoping the White Rocks will lay some in the winter, but I'll have to wait many months to find out since all pullets lay their FIRST winter

 

[Sylvester017]

Our new coup.

Looks sturdy! You have a lot of vegetation/trees for hiding predators. How is your pen foundation set up for keeping out digging critters? Chickens love to dig their dust bath holes near foundations too. We had to set our pen on paver stones so the chickens wouldn't undermine the pen foundation.

 

[MeepBeep]

As much as we love her, she is 3 yrs old now, I don't believe I will try another Am nor try EE either.  They are not production birds - our girl might be lucky to lay 3 or 4 months out of the year.

I personally hate the term EE as it doesn't really define anything... As far as most hatcheries are concerned it's simply became the 'trendy' way to sell barnyard mixes at inflated prices...

Anyway with that said, all the characteristics of a EE are dependent on the stock they came from and what is mixed into them, and that mix is a loaded gun full of alphabet soup... If yours is only laying 3-4 months a year, it's likely just due to the mix it came from... My barnyard mixes lay quite well all summer and all winter, and almost all of my mature layers are putting out large to jumbo eggs... They might not be 'production' birds but they are hardly slacking in the egg laying department...

 

[Sylvester017]

I don't know about Ameraucana but my EEs are good layers. Not production "egg factory" leghorns or RIRs but they work. My almost 4 year old EE has never been a winter layer but has laid 48%+ of the days since her first egg, 598 eggs in 1242 days. 236 in her first year of laying. At the moment she is laying 3-4 a week and always around 70g-72g, i.e. USDA XL to Jumbo.
Our Ameraucana has never been a prolific layer even in her pullet year. She lays XL eggs but not often. She stopped laying for almost 7 months last year, started laying for 2 months this year and stopped again. Noisy bird to the point the neighbor looks over the fence to see what's up with her. She's 3 yrs old but still we never expected such low output. Especially since we were spoiled with our 3 yr old White Leghorn that layed 4-5 eggs a week for several months until her next molt and our pullet Breda who lays great at 5-6 eggs weekly. Checked with our friends who have 3 and 4 yr old EEs and said their birds went for so many months without laying to the point they almost dispatched them.

The new EEs (gotten because the one I have is such a good layer) have been laying since Nov (1), Dec (1) and Jan (1) and have laid 67%, 85% and 63% respectively. The one laying most is putting out solidly USDA Medium, the other two USDA Large pushing XL.
I am hoping the White Rocks will lay some in the winter, but I'll have to wait many months to find out since all pullets lay their FIRST winter

First year pullets are usually good layers in any breed. However, our friends and we have deduced the Ams and EEs are all over the page for production from poor to acceptable. I love the Ams and EEs for their wonderful temperament and we keep our Am because she is so non-combative and respectful to our other gentle breeds. But feed is $$$ and I can't afford not to have a return in eggs - we have only 4 hens and a poor layer breed is too expensive to get more of. If I were zoned for more birds I would keep Ams or EEs for their great temperament and sometimes blue or green eggs but it's not worth it in our circumstance to feed non-productive breeds. Our two older Silkies have even out-produced our Am during the 3 years we've had her. Ams/EEs are great birds in so many ways but not enough in eggs for us. An egg-seller said her customers like the EE colored eggs but she found after the first year their production was too low to keep feeding them and had to be dispatched. She's switched to Turkens for her good-natured and reliable egg breed.