Tin Shelter Building Steps for Peafowl

[zazouse]

I am excited for you. Looks like you got plenty of help there

 

[MinxFox]

Another side covered in tin going up.


All 3 sides will end up having a board going across. This photo also shows the amount of screws used. I guess when you are working on it yourself you will get a feel for how many you need. I didn't really get to do anything so I can't say! I just tossed things to people on the roof mostly.


So here is a good idea...You get two long boards next to each other, but you don't nail them down. You use these two boards to sit on while you work on adding the tin to the roof. You can slide the boards around, etc.


Here is Allen and Jasper sitting on the boards working on the roof.


The roof is almost complete!




Annnnd...The roof is done! Inside the shelter you can see a diagonal support in the corner. I don't think that is permanent I can't remember if Allen left it there or not.


While all of this construction was going on, Alto and Frosty were calling often. I hadn't heard them call much but today they definitely called a lot. Allen kept calling back to them. Here is a loving moment between Snow White and her mother Ice.




Starting the final bit of tin on the nearest side. This side will not be fully covered in tin.




My Dad standing inside the shelter.


The interior. I had to think a lot about how high was too high for the higher roost. I am not sure how tall green peafowl are especially counting their crest and I don't want their beautiful tall crests to get messed up. I hope this will give them enough headroom, but they can always roost on the lower one and they will for sure have plenty of room on that one.


A wooden pole was added to the bottom of the tin. This side will have to be fenced in.


Ta da!


The side - once again still need to add the fencing.




inside


The pen from the back.


The finished shelter!

 

[MinxFox]

I am excited for you. Looks like you got plenty of help there

I am really excited for you too!
I am excited to finish this pen. The hardest part is over and now just a few more things need to be done. The hardest thing left is probably going to be putting up the netting, but I think I will be able to figure that out. I have copied down a lot of people's techniques and advise for raising up netting.

 

[KsKingBee]

Yea for you!

 

[zazouse]

I am really excited for you too!
I am excited to finish this pen. The hardest part is over and now just a few more things need to be done. The hardest thing left is probably going to be putting up the netting, but I think I will be able to figure that out. I have copied down a lot of people's techniques and advise for raising up netting.

Yea anytime i build something it is a learning experience, folks on here have some great pens and ideas.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Minx,,great progress! It always helps when you have lots of help. My old butt does a solo act here most of the time,unless wifey comes out to lend a hand on easy things. Raising the netting is easy if you have help but when I put my 50'x50' net it was all by myself so don't think it's impossible to do.

 

[MinxFox]

Thanks FBC. The only reason I had help was because we were paying Allen and Jasper to build this shelter. I had no idea how to go about building a shelter, so it helped to see the pros do it. They are in the construction business. Normally what happens is when I have time to work on things, no one else has time or they are tired, etc. Then when I am busy and can't work on stuff, everyone else can help.

I try to figure out how to do things on my own if I can. I am getting better at it and can lift and move most things without help. My roosts kept having issues and after talking to Blue Creek about how the cross style perches were not working for me, we came up with a different design and so somehow I was able to make a new roost and put it in the ground by myself. I think I was previously having trouble doing things like that by myself because I was using bad wood and bad nails. My Papa was good at building things, but he was very cheep and would use old, rusty, bent nails and wood that was bad quality so it would rot quickly if used outside. This caused many problems for me. I thought I was a weakling whenever I tried hammering a nail into some wood and couldn't get it to go all the way in, but finally I figured out it was because I was using horrible nails! Now that I found a stash of good nails, I no longer get extremely frustrated and overly exert myself just trying to get one nail to go in. My Dad grew up learning this mentality of using un-treated wood that wouldn't last, so he has just recently realized that he should be using treated wood on his shooting houses so that he doesn't have to replace them so often - which will save money in the long run.

Today we were supposed to work more on the pen but my Dad is sore from yesterday's shelter build and my boyfriend is sore from work. My boyfriend was born with a clubbed foot (he had surgery to fix it) but it still gives him trouble. All of the standing and moving he does for his job at Cracker Barrel usually has him limping after work. Also he hasn't been getting very good sleep lately. Thus the reasoning why I normally try to do things on my own, but of course I love help because then everything takes less time.

Very impressive that you got the netting up by yourself!

 

[KsKingBee]

Minx,,great progress! It always helps when you have lots of help. My old butt does a solo act here most of the time,unless wifey comes out to lend a hand on easy things. Raising the netting is easy if you have help but when I put my 50'x50' net it was all by myself so don't think it's impossible to do.

I know what you mean when it comes to building pens and coops. I was VERY happy when DW took mercy on me in the middle of putting the netting up.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Alea,,it's very possible my netting was easy to put up by myself because of the amount of cables and wires I had running in all possible directions on top of my posts. My netting (50x50) came in a box,and since it was square I wasn't concerned as to it's length-width being correct,and my overall pen size was 48x48. I unrolled it so it looked like a long log then used a stepladder and set it just inside the first set of poles. I had to move the stepladder about 6 times to get this accomplished. It is important before you lift the netting up,to be sure it will unroll correctly,,meaning as the netting is being unrolled towards the other end,that whats being "unrolled" is on the bottom, not the top.

I then used a long 2"x2" board about 10 feet long,and started at one end and pushed upwards on the back side of the roll. I'd go about 5' per "push" and then move down the roll and keep pushing it upwards,causing it to slowly unroll. It might have taken me 1/2 an hour to do. then I secured one side with zip ties, then began pulling the net on the opposite side until I had about 2 ft of overhang . I then stretched the opposite two sides until again,I had about 2' extra netting hanging over one side. I used a skinny scrap of boards,about 3/4" by 1" to "roll" the excess up on,then used drywall screws to secure the wound up extra netting along the tops of the posts. Depending on how high your netting is off the ground and how much wire you have to hold it up,you may need some help doing this.

I too have had trouble with roosts inside my pens. I have sakreted a 4"x4" post in each pen with 2' of the post in the ground,leaving the top of the post about 4'-5' above ground. I then took a 2"x6" board between 4'-6' long(depending on how many birds was going to be inside the pen) and centered this board atop the 4"x4" post. I initially used a 3/8" by 6" lag screw and two 16 penny nails to hold this top perch board with. But after some time when one bird would land on the very end of the perch it would work the lag screw loose. So I then made two braces,attached to the pole,and then under the perch, to the extent of only about 1' on each end of the perch was past the brace. Now the perches don't move and since bracing them I havn't had to repair them anymore.

 

[MinxFox]

My Dad is going to look for some thick UV resistant cord to use to hold up the netting. We will use eyelet screws to string the cord through. I am not sure when the netting will go up. Counting me we should have 3 to 4 people to put up the netting so it shouldn't be that bad except for getting the netting over the blueberry bush without snagging.

I think Thursday is when we will make new roosts and put them up. The stress from the birds flying up and flying down from the roost definitely wiggles the screws, the wood, and the whole perch and even with bracing I have had issues. That is why I just scrapped the cross roost idea. Also adding quickcrete to the base of the roost post(s) helps stable it. Of course all of them were not made using treated wood so that is another bad issue. The other day I walked in and found the horizontal part of the roost where the birds perch had cracked completely in half and was lying in pieces on the ground. The wood looks okay on the outside, but on the inside it is completely hollow. I think not using treated wood is a horrible idea and was definitely a bad mistake. We didn't know any better but now we certainly do. Anyways, this particular roost was in a bad location as it was too close to the fencing so it was rubbing the netting always re-opening a giant hole in the netting that I kept patching, so we probably won't replace this one. They still have 2 more perches not including the inside ones.

We are also thinking about making a simple platform up high in the new shelter. The nest boxes were not a big hit with the peahens, so we are not going to make something like that. We are going to get some plywood and put a lip on the edge of it. Then I can put hay on the platform. We are going to put this platform up high inside the shelter. This way during the winter if the green peas feel like being warmer they can sleep on the platform in the hay. Also, they can nest up there. I know Reinhold uses high nest boxes for his green peahens and they use them. For this platform I don't really care if they want to nest here or not, it will mainly just be like a comfy sleeping loft for the green peas. It was my Dad's idea so credit goes to him for this fun idea. I really hope the peas make use of it.