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

[Whitewater]

2 June 2010


Well, we didn't get as far as we wanted to today, but considering that it SHOULD have been pouring out rain and wasn't, we got more accomplished than we thought we would.

We cut two 7' 2x8's (on the diagonal, no less, with a cordless circular saw!! Our saw rocks, just FYI) into 4 pieces and only had to use 3 of them for rafters, which is nice, because if we ever have to replace a rafter, we'll have the board all ready.

They didn't have to be stained or anything, they were already finished, which was also nice. These boards were in the rafters of our garage and they, like the plywood and OSB that we used for the hen house floor, were part of a waterbed in a former life, LOL! Just goes to show how you can save with a bit of creative re-purposing.

We got all of them cut, up, and screwed in tonight before the sun went down. Unfortunately, getting the screws to work with us was a MAJOR PITA and by the end of it, both of us were ready to drop. So we nixed the idea of cutting the purlins tonight and decided to do all of it on Saturday, if it doesn't rain.

Tomorrow I'm going to go drop $75 on 3 SunTuf panels and their spacers, sigh, I really wish we could have gotten away with 3 panels instead of 4, but hey, if we do wind up only needing 3, I can go back to HD and return whatever we don't use.

The roof is going a lot easier than it looked, from reading the plans. I think Saturday is going to be terribly difficult and probably take up most of the day, but Hubby feels like I do, we both just want it DONE and I think he's willing to go the distance to get the coop finished ASAP -- not because Animal Control asked us but because neither of us want to have to deal with it anymore!!

It's going to wind up looking like a rough-and-ready, rustic sort of affair. Our coop isn't going to win any beauty contests, that's for sure, but it's sturdy and pretty darn predator-proof, which is all we can really ask for our first time building one of these things.

Oh -- I took pictures of us getting the rafter's done: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/577727046doZyzb page 2.


Whitewater

 

[kfchickenlady]

great job! Hang in there, youre almost done! It looks nice IMO.

 

[Whitewater]

5 June 2010

Well, I'm glad you like it, kfc, I still see all its flaws, but now with the roof going up, it actually looks much better, so . . .


YAY! Hubby and I have reached the point where we can schedule a date for Animal Control to come inspect our set-up, which should be sometime between June 14 and June 18. Thank goodness

It rained almost all day today (we would have finished everything today if it hadn't been raining, probably) and when it stopped raining and I saw the sun come out, I was actually in the middle of making strawberry jam (from our own organic strawberry patch!) and we didn't get out there until about an hour later, which still gave us three hours tonight. If you've ever made any home made jam or jelly you know you can't just stop halfway through! But we still got plenty done, considering that I hadn't planned on getting ANYTHING done today because of the rain!

In our three good hours tonight, we cut a 2x4 in half to make 2 of 4 roof purlins, and got them up on top of the rafters and screwed down. Then we got the next 2x4 up on the sawhorses but alas and alack, our circular saw (we don't have a real ripping saw) started having trouble about a quarter of the way in, turned out that the battery was running down. We tried to put the battery on the charger but it was too warm -- and stayed too warm for a full hour. It's charging now.

In the meantime we cut out the hole in the hen house floor for the chickens to access their run and discovered that yet another piece of the former water bed frame was just exactly the right size (almost to the inch, we felt quite grateful for that!) to make the ramp down into the run. And through sheer luck, I'd bought the exact type of hinges that we needed from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, so we can attach the ramp to the hole without any issues whatsoever. More of those nice black ones, LOL, nobody will ever see them but the chickens!

This week, when Hubby is at work, I will buy and install all the door latches and padlocks and whatnot. Then, he says we'll finish the roof sometime this week, go buy the feeders and the shavings and so on on Saturday the 12th, and have AC come on over any time after that.

I am so pleased -- there IS an end in sight, praise the Lawd!

We overheard two of our neighbors talking while working on the coop tonight -- seems as though she was telling the chicken-hater that she'd given us her permission and that she didn't agree with him, that she didn't think anything bad would come of it. The chicken hater was apparently either actually considering what she had to say or just being a nice gentleman, I didn't hear him disagreeing with her. She also seemed quite impressed that we were building such a sturdy coop, I dunno what she was thinking we would put our chickens in -- a cardboard box??? But obviously she was having horrific visions of something that wouldn't be suitable at all . . . but you see, when planning our coop, I knew it would be visible to most of our neighbors, if only partly, so I wanted to make sure it didn't look hideous and that it blended in with the rest of the architecture around here, which it does for the most part.

As the coop gets finished, I suspect that since it doesn't look all that bad, that it's nipped her fears in the bud.

The other thing she said was that she "hoped the chickens wouldn't be an annoyance", and quite frankly, I doubt she'll even notice when we get them, she's a full 2 houses over from us and I'm sorry, hens/pullets are just not *that* noisy. Certainly the ones on the farm where our chickens are currently living -- they were so quiet if you got ten feet away you couldn't hear them at all. And she lives next door to the pack of hooligans who run (or bike) up and down our alley, screeching at the top of their 8 year old lungs, I can't believe she'd hear chickens over those kids!

As for poop, if she can't smell it when our dog's poo is freshly laid, she won't be able to smell the chicken's leavings, I'm pretty sure. Anyhow, once a week for the summer we'll clean out the hen house and run like you would a cat box, then in the winter we'll do the deep litter method -- and use plenty of Stall Dry at all times -- so the poop from 3 hens ought to be manageable. All poop goes into the compost pile!

Oh -- and one of the personal trainers at the Y wants to buy some eggs from me, even though we aren't going to have any for a while. I laughed about that in the car on my way home, we don't even have the chickens yet and somebody already wants to buy eggs! I dunno, it struck me as funny somehow.

I guess that takes care of what we'll do with the extras . . . we really don't use that many eggs around here, maybe a dozen a week at best. But if people at my YMCA want to buy eggs from me, more power to 'em!


Whitewater

 

[kfchickenlady]

that all sounds great whitewater!!!

I am curious though, if you dont want eggs, are the chickens for pets? I have many pets here, so I would totally get that!

 

[Whitewater]

Oh, we eat eggs

But around here even a basic 'organic' (but not free range or pastured or anything else good) egg is almost $5/dozen, and the price goes up from there if you want a really GOOD egg . . . which I can't afford. I was buying eggs for a while (I boil them, then have a boiled egg as a snack as part of my healthy lifestyle) but had to stop because it got to be too much money, too big of a percentage of my food budget! Eggs, here, typically are not part of any urban farmer's market, that's mostly just flowers and veggies, occasional hand-made jewelry, herbs, some pottery, maybe some honey/soap if you're lucky and people came in from the farm to the market -- but very few eggs.

Raising hens for their eggs is much more economic for us, even with having to build a coop and all that. Coop's a one-time affair, eggs from chickens will, over the years, pay back the start up costs -- I'm not planning on this being just a one or two season temporary thing.

Hubby and I discussed and to me, the chickens are about 60% livestock/egg producers and 40% pets. His pet 'percentage' was even lower, at first, he didn't even want to name them! He's ok with it now, but it took holding an 8 week old youngster to get him to loosen up

I suspect also that we will start to eat more eggs once we have them around constantly. Price has been a huge issue, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea that eggs aren't the evil health demon that I was taught they were for most of my life. For most of my teen and adult life, eggs were forbidden fruit because of their high cholesterol levels -- the anti-egg hype was so pervasive that I accepted it without thinking.

Now that I'm a Food Rebel, and getting into whole foods and Michael Pollan etc and since I've discovered that my body actually functions much better without added chemicals and preservatives and coloring agents and so on, and since the health recommendations have backed off of their Eggs = Death stance, and since I won't have to pay $6/dozen for good eggs by having our own chickens -- I strongly suspect that eggs will become a staple of our diet.

So yeah, basically price and health brainwashing were the two primary factors in my non-egg life . . . up until now!

I like eggs. I can't eat egg whites unless they're totally incorporated into something (ie, lemon merangue pie is right out, but yellow cake is yummy!) -- I puke, I can't help it, my body does NOT like egg whites on their own; same thing with fake and short order eggs, has to be the real deal, yolks only -- but I really enjoy a good egg. I love Birds In a Nest (yolks only) and scrambled eggs (mostly yolks) and quiche, really, the anti-egg brainwashing has made me sad for many years because there's a world of yum out there with eggs as food and the Eggs = Death stance bars all of it.

I can't wait to make my own egg nog this holiday season! And just think how much better my zucchini bread will be! Among other things

And one of our dogs, the one with all the GI issues, absolutely LOVES boiled egg whites, she gets the whites, I eat the yolks, it all works out. She'll be thrilled to get egg whites more often!

No, I like eggs. Having chickens to produce my own eggs represents a massive shift for me, though, in many ways. It's a big huge hairy deal, as they used to say when I was a kid.



Whitewater (even if a person DOES like eggs, 3 Australorps can in theory produce 21 eggs every 7 days, average is 14 eggs/7 days . . . I don't care how much you like eggs, THAT many means you're going to have to get rid of some, somehow, somewhere along the way!

)

 

[kfchickenlady]

Cool! I like how youre sharing w/ your dog! Im now buying organic milk since my family drinks about 2 gallons a week or more, and I spend less on meat or something. They also eat a ton of eggs, and what better reason to justify having more pets?

Im toying with the idea of getting organic feed (Modesto Milling is not far) and selling organic eggs at a farmers market or thru word of mouth, well have to see. I would have to figure the profit margin first.

Anyway, good luck with your inspection (so ridiculous, they should go after ppl who let their unneutered animals run loose instead) and keep us posted!

KFCL

 

[crosbygroup]

Great posts! I can't wait to see the girls when you bring them home. They are going to love their new coop.

It seems like you live in an area that gets a lot of rain. Make sure the roof is leak proof and has a good overhang

 

[Whitewater]

Oh, I do hope they love their new coop . . . I just got an email today from the folks who are raising them, up on their hobby farm, and it wasn't good news, although not as bad as it could have been.

Their flock was attacked by a fox! Their chickens free-range totally, our 3 included, no fences, no nothing, just a secure coop to go to at night, but the fox attacked in broad daylight, according to the email I got.

They lost 7 of their birds (oh, I hope it wasn't the speckled sussex they have, or their huge golden/palomino colored rooster with all the feathers, he looked like a lion, so pretty, must have been 2 feet tall too . . . ) to the fox, and now they aren't letting their birds out anymore, not that the birds *want* to go out, from what they said, but still.

Our 3 Australorps were not among the fallen. Now, though, I wonder what their reaction will be to seeing our dogs . . .

Anyway . . .

The farm folks asked us if we can take our birds earlier than the 26th, like we planned, 'cause they figure our coop is more secure than what they can offer. I don't know if we can do that, much depends on the Animal Control people and when they can come out and get us inspected -- we *might* be able to take the birds on the 19th, if AC gives their verbal ok and they're ok with the birds moving in on the strength of that verbal ok, but I just don't know. I'm with you, kfc, seems to me that if people are responsible enough to successfully go through the permit process in the first place, and are responsible enough to be totally willing to be legal about it, then common sense would say that those people will also provide a good home for their birds and think about things like rodent-proofing and so on -- I don't think there's any need to inspect anybody's coop if they go through the legal process, but Minnesota does tend towards Big Brother-ness . . .

Personally I'd love to have the birds here now, but their coop isn't finished. There's no roof on it and the hen house is still open to the elements, even if we did put hardware cloth over it. And that's not fair to the birds. Besides, I also feel that they should stay there for a bit yet and try to get back some normalcy before they get whisked away right into another scary, traumatizing situation. I have known smaller birds, parakeets, to keel over and die from stress and fear, so I would be wary of putting our youngsters right into another stressful situation.

Speaking of the elements, yes, crosbygroup, you are totally right, we are getting a lot of rain! However, this is pretty atypical for us here in Central Minnesota . . . usually our precipitation happens in the form of *snow*. Last summer it was so dry I was out watering the garden every day, and since I planted out this year (in early April, we had an early spring too), well, I've only had to water once. It's astounding. This is the wettest summer I've seen yet, and I've lived here since 1992.

Yep, the roof does have some overhang on all 4 sides, it should be ok. We just have to get it up and on! And yes, we have weather proof caulking for the seams of the Sun Tuf panels, it's going to be as right and tight as we can get it. Like I said, here rain isn't the big issue -- snow is. And I don't want snow in the hen house!

As for organic feed, well, I don't know if we're going to go that route. If they eat bugs -- and they will -- the whole 'organic' thing goes right out the window, 'cause I have no way of knowing whether the bugs are organic themselves! LOL! So I figure there's no point in buying them organic feed when most of our table scraps aren't organic either, and the bugs they eat aren't organic . . . we do eat some organic stuff here, but not all!

So our eggs won't be organic, but they *will* be cage free, semi-free-range, omega-3 enhanced, cruelty-free eggs, which I think is a good trade-off.

There's a place about 15 minutes drive away that sells organic chicken feed but the place itself does not impress me with their attitude or their cleanliness, and the bag didn't have ANY information on it at all, it was just dingy yellow and off white, and said "ORGANIC CHICKEN FEED" on it . . . kind of dodgy, if you ask me.

We'll stick with Layena, oyster shell, flax seed, table scraps, and roaming my backyard eating bugs, dandelions, and other green stuff . . . all my research suggests that with this combo, they won't need organic feed.

Now I'm worried, it sounds like the hobby farmers are as traumatized as their birds . . . and there's nothing I can do to help.

They're really nice people, too.


Whitewater

 

[kfchickenlady]

too bad for the hobby farmers, the chickens you get will be so lucky, Im sure they will get over any stress quickly! That organic feed store sounds like maybe not so good....funny point about the bugs too!
Hope things go smoothly now. geez!
kfcl

 

[Whitewater]

My head is bloody but unbowed!


Whitewater