Sefi's Shoop Progress

[aart]

I don't know if this will help, but here's a picture of our setup.

It's not catching the roof runoff tho as your roof slants the other direction?

 

[thecatumbrella]

It's not catching the roof runoff tho as your roof slants the other direction?

The Omlet run has a really weak A-frame, so the grading does cause most of it to run towards the back. But the box does a great job preventing any front runoff from rolling back into their run. Somehow the plants survive any flooding (catmint, lavender, sedum, and mums)!

 

[Sefirothe]

I don't know if this will help, but here's a picture of our setup. The flower bed is only 16" deep and 6" tall. We end it right before the entry door.

View attachment 3704862

I love your pen! Something like that I might get in the future as an expansion to my current one. It’s by Omlet? How’s it hold up to snow?

The raised bed I was thinking of repurposing is 3’ x8’ and about a foot tall. If I ever have to replace a section of hardware cloth, it would be a bear to move. So…maybe not that exact flower bed.

 

[Sefirothe]

Not much more done lately. I got the door and the test furring strip stained. Gonna need to get more stain to do the rest of the furring strips.

We also started re-doing the pop door to add a lip to keep bedding in, and resize the opening to fit the Run Chicken door I got.

Still gotta haul mulch down to the pen and finish the flooring, dividing wall, install fan and roost in the interior of the shed.

 

[thecatumbrella]

I love your pen! Something like that I might get in the future as an expansion to my current one. It’s by Omlet? How’s it hold up to snow?

The raised bed I was thinking of repurposing is 3’ x8’ and about a foot tall. If I ever have to replace a section of hardware cloth, it would be a bear to move. So…maybe not that exact flower bed.

Thank you! It is the Omlet walk-in run. This will be our first winter with it, but I'll let you know how it goes. We regularly get heavy wet snow over here. I can tell you the tarp roof absolutely sucks in summer; heats the whole thing up. We had to add Reflectix underneath to counter it.

 

[Sefirothe]

Run Chicken auto pop door is installed and working as it should. Dad keeps mumbling something about building a cover over where the door sits when it’s open. If a chicken were to jump up and catch it, he’s worried it will bend the door and make the whole thing unusable. I told him he’s over thinking it. And I see where I get that trait from.

Linoleum flooring remnants are cut and laid out to relax before tacking it down. Dad started framing out the dividing wall and we got an old door repurposed and hung.

The poop board/roost will be 6 ft long and go against the length of the wall to the left above the pop door.

Still have to haul wood chips down to fill the run floor. Finish the dividing wall with OSB and hardware cloth.

Electric wiring will probably wait until spring. I can run an extension cord for now to power their water heater.


The girls are enjoying a sunny day today finally with a good dust bath in the sun.

And last but not least…yesterday it finally happened. Our first egg.

Pretty sure it was the white crested Polish. The other day since she can’t see so well, I went to nudge her out of my way when going in the pen to clean their poop off the coop roof and she squatted.

 

[thecatumbrella]

Our first egg.

Congrats! It feels like that day will never come, then it's all the more sweet when it does.

 

[Sefirothe]

Congrats! It feels like that day will never come, then it's all the more sweet when it does.

Seven months to the day just about since they hatched. Yea, definitely felt like it was never gonna happen!!

Edit to add: and of course I JUST switched them from layer pellets to an all flock since I figured they wouldn’t lay until spring. Ah well. They have oyster shell available at all times.

 

[Sefirothe]

Not a lot of progress in the last few days with the holidays and yet more rainy weather.

Wood chips are in the run. And they are staying drier than the wood chips outside of the run. Yay!

We started putting OSB sheets up on the inside walls. I thought it was over kill, Dad thought it would make cleaning easier. I am NOT going to paint them, I’ll consider them replaceable if needed (they are attached by screws so can be easily removed). No more painting thank you very much.

Started on the poop board supports too. Ran out of OSB tho, will need to get more. We’ll cover the rest of the wall behind the poop board. The top of the dividing wall I’ll staple some of the left over hardware cloth.

Now just need to finish the poop board/roost. Build a ramp for the roost and maybe the ridiculously high nest box. Add some PDZ and bedding in the coop and technically the girls could move in.

 

[Sefirothe]

More poop board progress. Got the wire up on the dividing wall. And found a use for the self adhesive linoleum floor tiles that we decided not to use in favor of a solid sheet of linoleum on the floor.

At least if I give up on chickens at some point in the future, the poop board might make a good work bench....after a thorough scrubbing of course.

Someone else started laying, got this nice minty green egg when I checked the nest box this morning. Either the Olive Egger or the Green Queen. Next to the egg from the white crested black polish, who's been steadily laying a medium egg every other day since she started last week.