TWEAK MY COOP~Tweaks on the Cheap

[Blooie]

You've outdone yourself, Miss Bee!

 

[aart]

Nice!!

What is the log building?

 

[RoseMarie1]

She sure has Blooie. I sure hope she's ok and not too sore or in pain. GOOD JOB Bee!!!

 

[Beekissed]

Nice!!

What is the log building?

Aart, that's a log shed my Dad built 20 yrs ago for storing equipment, tools and sundry. We couldn't do without that shed here...it's big, sturdy and is multipurpose/functional.

 

[Beekissed]

Am so loving this coop tweak result...that sliding door is so easy to operate, both screen doors are letting in so much light and air to that space....more so than the pallets I had for a wall there previously. The extra space is also just wonderful.

Tomorrow I start the finishing touches there by opening my pop door~it too will be a slider instead of hinged. I'll be able to open and close it from a distance, so no bending over or even having to go in the pen or the attached run to operate that door.

Then I'll work on creating the privacy for my nesting sites, which will be dug into the floor of the pen in each of three corners and then I'll create a faux corner along one wall for the final nesting site. The fourth corner is where the door opens and it holds the hanging nipple bucket for the waterer for this pen.

The sawhorse is working wonderfully for the free standing roost and I'll add the other sawhorse when the hens are turned into the breeding pen.

When the hens are through with that pen for brooding the chicks, that space will be turned back into the dog/chicken lounging and watering spot~with the screen doors and saw horse being removed and set up to act as dehydrators for crops~ until fall harvest of pumpkins and apples, when the pen will be turned into a combination hay and crop storage in one half and the dog's winter lounging spot in the other. Then those screen doors will be covered in plastic and become the lids for a couple of cold frames in the garden. In the spring, the doors will return to the pen and it will become a breeding pen once again.

A very, very versatile pen indeed.

 

[Beekissed]

Just finished the temporary run and the slider pop door on the breeding pen. Just have to create my nesting sites and such and I'll finally be done with this coop tweak. Can ya believe it?

Temp run is just deer netting and such, not using wire on this. Easy to put up, easy to take down again when I'm no longer needing a run on that pen. The pop door was all scrap lumber and such, made it a guillotine type door that I can open while standing outside the pen and run. I like those kind of pop doors as you don't have to latch them closed...when they are closed, they are closed and no bird is pushing those things open again.

Dooley is really hating this penned life. His sire was started out in pens and runs so when he was penned for breeding he almost seemed to prefer it...maybe he felt safer in a pen. Dooley has been free to come and go since he was a week or so old, so not being able to be out there with his girls is unpleasant to him. I had the same problem when I first penned some of my free range hens for breeding...one of them wouldn't stop pacing and she stopped laying altogether while in the breeding pen, but resumed when let out on range once again.

I'm hoping these new pullets will follow my best hen, Beulah Mae's, example and settle into the penned life for breeding and brooding, at least. That won't be long, then they will be running the legs off their little ones out on range once again.

 

[Beekissed]

Got to looking at the coop this evening and started feeling that old pull....towards.....coop tweaking.

I need to do many improvements to the current design so as to improve bedding installation and removal and to remove the windows on the back portion....those are a pain and didn't hold up to wear. Will also remove the "lap siding" feature in that back portion as well....it serves no purpose. In that back portion, on one side, I'll build a hatch door for an easier way to get my cart in and out of the roosting area.

Then...since I dug up some nice, treated 4x4s out of Dad's old lumber pile, I'm thinking about getting the boys out here to lever my coop up so I can place those 4x4s under the frame and raise my coop a bit. That extra 4 in. could really give me more head space and room to build deeper litter.

Then, my plastic underlining to the tarps is shot, needs replacing. I'm thinking about replacing it with bubble wrap if I can get it for a decent price. I think that would really cushion those wires, sparing my tarp, and provide extra insulation from the heat and the cold.

I'm also thinking of another little addition. I have some metal roof cap here left over from Mom's new roof installation and I'm thinking of adding it to the top of the hoops to act as sort of a cupola type ventilation as an addition to my existing venting up there.

While I have everything stripped off the coop, I'm going to strip off the old, green plastic mesh and replace it with the smaller, black plastic mesh I have so much of here, left over from when we used to fence in the garden and such.

Also getting a new clear tarp this year that's big enough to cover the entire coop. I'm repurposing the smaller clear tarp that was on it for the past two winters into framed out "windows" that will be used on my son's screened in back porch in the winter months. That will keep him from having to staple up huge lengths of plastic there every year.

Also need to fix various hardware on the nest box access doors, cut a hole in the corners of my feeder trough, change roost bars a bit and change the framing inside the coop to allow for easier use of the pitchfork in there.

While I have everything stripped off the coop, I'll likely scrub down the nest boxes and such, as per my yearly sprucing of the coop. I'll likely think of more things I need to change before fall, but there's definitely room for improvement.

 

[knjinnm]

So did you get through the recent floods OK?

 

[Beekissed]

Sure did....I live up on a ridge, so no chance of flooding here. Our area didn't get floods like other areas did, which is a little unusual.

 

[Beekissed]

I noticed my girls on the nests are panting a lot today...I may have to remove a few boards along the sides of those boxes to let in airflow. Might frame out that wood so that I can hinge it and open it up for "summer" nests and close it for winter time. Always nice to have things that are adaptable to different needs.

Today is all about the coop tweak. I'm removing the back "windows", all the back "siding", all the roosts for a reconfiguration and replacing/revamping the bracing back there. Also removing some support hinges on the very back window so it can be opened up much, much further.

Also hope to get hinges replaced on my single nest box entry where Ben ruined the old ones in his egg stealing days.

I had a thought about this hoop coop that had not occurred to me before....for all those folks who live where they get fowl mite infestations, a cattle panel hoop coop is the ideal coop. Very little wood to treat, so easy to eradicate the problem....when the whole coop is wood there are just too many cracks and crevices wherein they can hide and breed and even escape any insecticidal treatments being sprayed.