The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[Tbird84]

@The Moonshiner , as promised, pictures of the new Leghorns....well, at least the Buffs. The blacks absolutely did not cooperate. Apparently they are convinced the camera will steal their souls.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Sweet. Buff looks so good on a leghorn. Never been a fan of buff colored breeds but with the leghorns it been one of my favorites.
How's your blacks size wise? Mine have always seemed a bit smaller then my other colors
I'm gonna do a lot of mixing with barred for a bit then seperate them back apart when/if I get more size with them.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tbird84]

Sweet. Buff looks so good on a leghorn. Never been a fan of buff colored breeds but with the leghorns it been one of my favorites.
How's your blacks size wise? Mine have always seemed a bit smaller then my other colors
I'm gonna do a lot of mixing with barred for a bit then seperate them back apart when/if I get more size with them.
Thanks for sharing.

They do seem a bit smaller than the buffs. Granted, I have not weighed them. I was wondering what could be done to increase the size, outside of selection. Gosh, I'd love to have barred at some point. Funny how I went from not wanting any Leghorns to having mostly Leghorns.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I started a project yesterday.
I'm in desperate need of some new breeder pens. Well with things as they are right now I could spend some money on materials or skip it and spend my money on chick food so I could hatch more chicks. Of course id rather hatch more chicks but that puts me back to needing breeder pens.
What's a hillbilly genius to do? Then it came to me. I'll just build some pens out of some junk or freebee stuff I can find. Go back to my roots. As a kid back in the day I had some real ramshackle pens because I had to make due with what I could find or build with scrap materials.
My first project is gonna be a few small pens for one or two hens in each and rotating roosters.
I have some scrap pallets from a couple years or so ago when I bought feed by the pallet.
I also had some pretty cheap looking 2x4s that really weren't nice enough to use on much that I got from a neighbor that was gonna burn them.
Anyways I'll copy and paste this to my thread and take some pics along the way and see how it turns out.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I started a project yesterday.
I'm in desperate need of some new breeder pens. Well with things as they are right now I could spend some money on materials or skip it and spend my money on chick food so I could hatch more chicks. Of course id rather hatch more chicks but that puts me back to needing breeder pens.
What's a hillbilly genius to do? Then it came to me. I'll just build some pens out of some junk or freebee stuff I can find. Go back to my roots. As a kid back in the day I had some real ramshackle pens because I had to make due with what I could find or build with scrap materials.
My first project is gonna be a few small pens for one or two hens in each and rotating roosters.
I have some scrap pallets from a couple years or so ago when I bought feed by the pallet.
I also had some pretty cheap looking 2x4s that really weren't nice enough to use on much that I got from a neighbor that was gonna burn them.
Anyways I'll copy and paste this to my thread and take some pics along the way and see how it turns out.

Sounds like a plan! I use scraps to make mobile pens and put them in my poultry netting. Of course I breed heavier chickens (Cornish) so I don't need to keep them in a lidded pen. I have a few EEs that like to pen hop and clean up feed, but that isn't a big issue since I can tell their eggs from my breeders'.

 

[Chicken Heel]

Sounds like a plan! I use scraps to make mobile pens and put them in my poultry netting. Of course I breed heavier chickens (Cornish) so I don't need to keep them in a lidded pen. I have a few EEs that like to pen hop and clean up feed, but that isn't a big issue since I can tell their eggs from my breeders'.
View attachment 2136131

Love those beautiful Cornish.

 

[Redhead Rae]

Love those beautiful Cornish.

Thanks! I love them too and they are right tasty if they don't meet my standards.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Here's where i started. This will be one of the floors. I got about 10' of space to work with so I used two full pallets and a partial one. I cut off the edges that ran past the stud part of the pallet and removed the slats from the bottom side.
Then I nailed 2x4s to pallet studs to hold them together.

The back wall will be the barn wall so ive got one going in place. I had to knotch out for that cross member. Right now its setting on a crossboard of the barn and I'm adding 2x4s up and down against the wall and will add to front corners. You can see I had to use two 2x4s along the front so it's sagging and being propped up on the corners at the moment.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Now I've got 2x4s on the four corners. Back two are attched to barns crossboards and front two are in holes I dug down a little was just to steady them more.
Plan is to add another floor above that one so I'll have three levels and two pens per level.
Was planning to add another below but havent decided if I really need to or just let that pen be a dirt floor.
Looks like each pen will be 3 1/2' x 5'. Surely that will be enough for one or two hens and a rooster added one or two days a week.

 

[The Moonshiner]

Got the second floor in place. That wasn't much fun.
Also discovering when using old pallets and not the best 2x4s all attached to a barn wall things aren't so easy to get perfectly level and square. Oh well its level and almost square. Need to get some support in the middle of the front but first have to decide if bottom is getting a floor or not. Thinking not. Less work that way.
Went through some old freebee paint I had and my son picked out the ugliest one so that'll be perfect.
Had a few boards painted yesterday and will do some tomorrow. Coat of paint and strategically placing boards so best sides show is helping out.