UPDATE: Pics URL on post #24: Journal of a newbie coop builder

[Whitewater]

7 June 2010

FINALLY got the latches and the door pulls installed on the coop tonight. Unfortunately that's ALL I got done due to two 'helpful' 8 year old neighbor girls who saw me outside and promptly plied me with questions for a solid 45 minutes. In desperation I set them to weeding my garden, hoping they'd dislike the work and bugger off, but no, they turned out to be weeding fiends -- even at one point accidentally uprooting one of my heirloom zucchini sprouts (the only one that came up, by the way . . . *grrrr*). I finally shook them off with a promise to let them come see the dogs and the garden again on Thursday -- here's hoping their parents forbid it, but I probably won't have any such luck. I re-planted the zucchini, but I think I'd better plant 2 more seeds of the same, just to be safe.

Yes, I am a curmudgeon. Yes, I dislike children immensely, though by typical kid standards these two weren't bad. They were polite and respectful and didn't try to yank my chain, which is why I tolerated them.

I *was* going to put the rungs on the ramp today and install the ramp, but it's gotten dark, so that will have to wait. I suppose I could cut and stain the rungs later this evening, but it's getting late and I still have to get to the grocery store. Dangit.

Oh well.

LOL, talked to Animal Control today (I went in person) and the officer was surprised (and pleased) that I didn't already have the chickens. Apparently most people, upon hearing that their permit is approved, go ape . . . um, get really excited and get their chickens right away, before their coop gets inspected. For obvious reasons I'm not doing that. The coop hasn't even got a roof! And with at least two incredibly curious 8 year olds around, there's no way I'm installing chickens in our backyard without padlocks -- which I still have to buy. Think I'm going to do that tonight, actually -- there's no reason not to and one of the children let it slip that her brother has been having grand adventures IN MY HEIRLOOM VEGETABLE GARDEN tromping around looking for grasshoppers, despite the fence.

If they have no respect for people's property *now*, I think the chickens will be too great a temptation. Padlocks. (And as for my garden, I guess I'm going to have to fence off even my access with a lockable gate of some sort, and hang up a No Trespassing sign).

In the meantime, the AC guy said they want to see EVERYTHING as though the chickens were already in residence, and that we can go get them and install them in their coop the minute the inspection is over, as long as everything checks out, which it will I'm sure. That will be good news for our poor hobby farmers! They want the chickens safe, and frankly I wouldn't mind having our chickens here early.

Oh yeah, and the personal trainer at the Y I go to reiterated tonight that he'd be happy to buy eggs from me, I still think that's funny. He asked when I would get eggs and I said 'August' just to be safe, the birds are a mere 13 weeks old right now, even if they do start laying phenomenally early, that would still be 5 weeks from now, and I suspect that they won't be over-achievers!

He said he would wait

We may get the coop finished tomorrow, depends on when Hubby gets home and how much I get done during the day.


Whitewater (still irritated about the grasshopper hunter . . . )

 

[crazy chook]

Pesky Kids - An electric fence would go nicely around the vegetable patch!

 

[kfchickenlady]

the secret to dealing with children is REDIRECTING their attention. This post was too funny, I could just picture it, sorry about your plants tho....

almost there, eh?

 

[kfchickenlady]

Quote:
good neighbor fence?

 

[Whitewater]

8 June 2010

Didn't get any work done on the coop today. Had to work, then to psychologist for Aspberger's diagnosis, and WHILE I was being assessed (and yes, I have it, it's official), my brother was being rushed to the ER with crushed fingers . . . so I spent the evening at the hospital with Hubby and Best Friend E and Mom's best friend (our parents are a 12 hour drive away in Michigan for the summer) playing Mom's Representative.

Got home about an hour ago. Bro's surgery went ok, lost two fingertips, please see my posts in the Friends and Family section for details.

Hubby and I are taking the day off tomorrow to help bro, if he needs anything, but Hubby still wants to do coop work tomorrow and hopefully get it done -- I suspect that he's going to quite literally work his stress out with power tools!

Wish I had the same outlet. I spent most of the night talking to friends, either live and in person or via phone.


Whitewater

 

[kfchickenlady]

friends are very good to have! Cant wait to see pics of the coop with the chickens in it!!!! I have 3 or 4 australorp chicks, one is supposed to be a SLW, but not sure which...you will love them!

 

[Whitewater]

9 june 2010

WE FINISHED OUR COOP! Well, everything but re-attaching the indoor roost, in their hen house, and how we're going to do THAT I just don't know. I'm sure Hubby will have some sort of brilliant brain wave and figure it out. The problem is that we can't reach the . . . oh, I just figured it out. We're going to have to attach it from the outside. . .

*sigh*

But aside from the roost, we are DONE. We got the roof up and completely installed, and the ramp installed (complete with 'stairs') and put the nest boxes back in (on the floor, which is also back in and complete), we cut, stained, and installed the last support 2x4 (underneath the floor), we sewed up the hardware cloth with various strands of wire (mostly copper wire, we just used what we had) and JUST when I was going to take pictures of everything we accomplished. . . my camera died.

So you're only going to get 4 new pictures today, sorry. The link is still: http://community.webshots.com/album/577727046doZyzb if you need it again. The pictures are mostly of us putting the roof on, and they're at the very end. I am going to have to get a new camera, I wish it was something as simple as used-up batteries or a corrupted card, but no, there's a mechanical, non-fixable problem with the lens, it can't expand or retract anymore. I have lived with this problem for about a year, my camera is 5 years old, possibly older, and I had learned how to fix it etc manually, but tonight my camera quit responding to me altogether, so, time for a new one. Ebay has a nice Kodak c182 (12 pixels, my other one is only 5!) for quite a decent price, but I won't be able to pay for it until I get my next paycheck . . . in 10 days. . . , so sit tight folks, as soon as I either get the new camera or figure out some way to upload pics with another device, you'll have more to look at. Just, not right now!

Anyhow . . .

It took about 5 hours to finish everything tonight, and today the devil was definitely in the details. It was very much a "Ok, what do we have to do first, in order to get everything to work?" kind of evening. Felt to me a bit like building something out of Legos, gotta get the 1st thing right so that you can do the next thing, etc. There was a lot of figuring out and measuring and "if X, then Y" going on tonight!

Believe it or not the roof was the easiest part of the whole procedure, even though it took the longest. Those SunTuf panels are pretty much idiot proof. They're really easy to set up, and if I could have afforded to buy yet another one, for more overhang, I would have. It's ok, there is overhang, but I would have liked a bit more to either side. You'll see what I mean in the pictures. Here's hoping they stand up to prairie-type wind and weather! I know nothing will stand up to a tornado, but I personally would like it if I didn't have to replace them due to hail putting holes right through. The manufacturer says "indestructable" -- I guess we'll find out! They do look nice, though.

The roost is just a heavily painted 2x4, set on its face, so that the chickens won't freeze their poor feet off during the winter. Problem is, it stretches diagonally across the rear of the coop and is 18" off the floor of the hen house, so when you have a 19" floor piece -- things just don't work.

As for the henhouse, well . . .

There's not a whole lot of room in there, even though it's a full 18 square feet, for 3 birds, which makes me worry a little. On the other hand, come wintertime I suppose they'll be grateful that they're not in a huge drafty box, rattling around like 2 beans in a 5 gallon bucket. Anyway, there's room for a nice big roost, 2 nest boxes, a feeder, a waterer and the hole in the floor so they can access their run whenever they want to, so I guess it's not that bad. The hen house is quite well ventilated, I am pleased about that. And when it gets REALLY cold, there's plenty of room to block off most of the rather open top with our lovely thick plywood panels.

I am VERY happy with the idea that they can go in and out of their hen house and run whenever they want to, that they don't have to wait for us to open a door. Or close them in at night, come to think of it.

The only time we'll shoo them back into their coop/run is if we give them roaming time in our backyard, and then I have to go somewhere, on errands or whatnot. And even then they'll still have their run and house, just not the whole yard. Seems like a reasonable plan to me. Their run is a full 35 square feet, completely enclosed and predator proofed as well as we're able.

I am also relieved that the coop/run looks MUCH better with the roof on. Not sure why it does, but it does.

Sometime this week, if it doesn't rain (it's supposed to rain all the way to Sunday, *grrr*) I am going to go to our city brush/yard waste lot (free brush, branches, mulch, and compost!) and find a nice log to sit up vertically, and act as a perch in their run -- they can play King of the Hill -- and hopefully a nice big branch to use as a run roost. Also will clean up the site (the last thing we need is for the chickens to swallow a screw, or a small plastic bag . . . ), and put the cinder blocks in the run, ready for the run waterer and feeder. We will get smaller feeders etc for inside their house, but the red/clear plastic ones will go in the run, up on 8x8x16" cinder blocks. Oh, and I'll also clean up the garage and turn it back into our *garage*, instead of our building workshop! LOL! I'll be happy to be able to park my car in there again.

You know, the other thing that turned out to be a blessing in disguise is the fact that the human run door opens *out*. It gives a whole lot more usable room in the run. And if the chickens do give me the bum's rush when I open the door, where are they going to go? Our entire property is only .13 acres, the backyard is half of that . . . they just aren't going to go far. If we'd built our coop on 10 wooded acres, yeah, I would have gone with a door that opened in

This weekend we will go and actually buy their supplies (food, and pine shavings, etc), and put bedding in the house (and two sealed fake plastic eggs filled with PlayDoh in the nest boxes!), and put the feed in the aluminum cans in the garage, and so on, so that when Animal Control comes over, they'll be able to view our entire set up, just as though the chickens were already there. We won't actually fill the feeder or the waterers until the chickens come to take up residence.

And hopefully next week sometime we will welcome 3 14 week old Black Australorp pullets to our family

Total cost for the roof panels was $110 (including their proprietary spacers), and the hardware ran about $50 (for door pulls and washers and all) . . . thanks to the coffee can full of used screws of all sorts which my BIL gifted us that one day -- that can saved our budget, we probably used a good $30 more worth of screws, if we would have had to buy them new. I am also thankful for Craigslist and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, without which I doubt we would have been able to afford this at all. The only stuff we bought new was the washers, a few odd sized screws, and the poly roof panels. Everything else was free, secondhand/gently used, or a 2nd run -- which was still good enough for our use, like the hardware cloth and the door.

IIRC, the total sum on my 1st post without all the stuff I mentioned above was $195. So, . . . total for the coop, $355, call it $375 because I'm sure there's stuff I've missed/forgotten along the way. Oh, and let's not forget the 40ish hours of labor total for Hubby and self -- which I won't put a price on, we were donating it all

Not bad, all things considered. Does the $25 license fee count?

And we paid $15/chicken, so $45 for the livestock. Think that's it for total start-up costs.

Hubby has told me he won't even entertain the idea of picking up a hammer for the next 2 years, after this monster project. No matter how small the project! LOL! Good thing I'm handy

If I had to do it over again I would have followed the progress in The Garden Coop's plans. Once we got halfway through, I realized that there was indeed a method to their madness! And life would have been a lot easier if we'd done their step by step instead of doing it our way. Probably would have shaved off a goodly number of hours of labor.

Still some little things left to do, and specific things to buy, but we are DONE BUILDING. Thank God, I dunno how much more Hubby and I could take!



Whitewater

 

[Whitewater]

Hubby fixed my camera (he's got the magic touch!) so I can take more pictures of our finished coop -- as soon as there's some sun, that is! Might not be for a few days, though, weather forecast is pretty stormy.


Whitewater

 

[kfchickenlady]

FINALLY! You guys should be celebrating!

 

[Whitewater]

11 June 2010

I am pleased to report that we had quite a stormy early morning today and our hen house remained completely, totally, 110% bone dry. Yay!

The run got a bit damp (the rain was coming in sideways) but that's really excellent, the rain was coming down in sideways sheets . . . so most of the run got protected pretty well, I am quite confident in our build!

On the other hand, the ground is so waterlogged around here that there's a mushroom growing in the run . . . I'm going to get on hands and knees a bit later to dig it up. The chickens will probably try to eat it, and I have no idea if it's poisonous or not!

Tomorrow we go buy their supplies and set it all up, then get inspected on Sunday the 13th, then get our pullets on Tues the 15th (and yes, by the time they get back to our house, it will be dusk, so less stressful on the poor little things).

Can't wait!

PS -- More pics are up at my webshots page!

Whitewater