The NFC B-Day Chat Thread

Pics
Date sort Score sort
rjohns39 said:
KD, it's amazing what you can learn when you start digging and challenging "conventional wisdom".... As for the hoop or cattle panel coop,it's my new favorite. No bedding, no cleaning, just move it to new grass. That is a wonderful thing... Unfortunately, "move it to new grass" requires a chainsaw at my place and dry conditions. I'll eventually get there just one weekend at a time. Oh, and just a safety note... Chainsaws and slippery wet hills don't go well together.
Click to expand...


That's very true! I used the MHP for raising my chicks and although they were my first chicks, I don't think I could EVER use a heat lamp!! They were so QUIET compared to store chicks! And they feathered out so fast (once we got them out of the bathroom and into the garage that is lol)

Most people still use heat lamps or seem to think that chicks are such fragile things and that if you don't follow the 95, 90, 85, thing they will die... personally I think more chicks die from being stuffed in a Rubbermaid tote or feed trought with a 250 watt red heat blaring down on them and no good escape... whoops, sorry. :oops:

I have yet to test that theory though but seriously, chicks are not as fragile as they seem.

I also just saw tons of Craigslist ads for coops being like "can hold up to 20 chickens!" For a coop that's 4x6 or 4x8 and most I saw were raised off the ground too so not that tall/much room inside. Yeah.... no. Just causw you or your grandparents may have stuffed 20 or 30 chickens in that thing or you free range them doesn't make it right or humane...

Sorry, I am apparently in a ranting mood tonight. :oops:

Anyway, I do want to build a hoop coop.

I just saw this one. Thoughts?? It looks AMAZING to me, as in super sturdy and stuff, and wouls hold the snow, but it also looks like more wood than i have seen and like it would be super expensive to build???

There is a full material list right at the beginning.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/permanent-hoop-coop-guide.47818/
 
rjohns39 said:
Cap, just remember that for the first 8 weeks they're sole mission is to find a more inventive way to commit suicide. I find that week old chicks make great mentors for day old poults. The survival rate goes way up!

ETA: No square corners in the brooder... Round them all.
Click to expand...
I put my Tolbunts in with the turkey polts. Why no corners? I built a round one once for quail.
 
Click on “My Coop” under my avatar, Kelsey. My hoop build starts about halfway down. Cheap, sturdy, so easy to build even Ken and I, at our ages and with our disabilities, put it together in a weekend. Now that I don’t have chickens anymore, the coop will be our garden shed and the run our greenhouse, so not one wasted penny. Repurposing at its finest. Easy to add on to. The only wood in ours is the door we used to get in. We firmly believe that because there was no framing, it was better able to flex with the weather and our super strong winds instead of fighting them.

We loved it and I wouldn’t change a thing about it - Well, except make the people door wider to accommodate Kendra’s wheelchair. Here it is in winter.

FF16FA69-CB54-4AF3-9EC4-25498F4E1E8A.jpeg
 
Just catching up before I fall into bed early.

@Teila congrats on your team win!

@JaeG where are you?

@KDOGG331 the Bell Book is really helpful, so if you want to try canning, do like @rjohns39 recommends and pick up a copy. It was easy enough to follow I did some canning when we had our little farm in north FL.

@Blooie I'd forgotten you had a hoop coop. I've wondered how one would hold up in our WY weather and now I know!

@CapricornFarm your beans are looking good. Are they bush beans or pole beans?
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom