Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[fikeyismybaby]

Hi! I have a hen that is a banty golden neck d'uccle and is being picked on by my other hens and roosters! I have to sell her but she has problems walking ! She is super sweet and will make a great pet and will eat out of your hand! Please PM me if you are intrested. I can trade for

All chickens Bantams and show quality!Hens or hatching eggs Ameraucana bant., American game bant., Andalusian, Austrolorp, Bearded d'Anvers bant., Buckeye, Chantecler, Cornish, Dutch Bantam, Faverolle, Japanese bantam, Jersey Giant standard, La Fleche, Leghorn, Nankin, Orpington, Plymoth Rock, Polish, Rhode Islend Red, Rose Comb, Sebright, Serama, Silkie, Sussex, Wyandotte
Or $8

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Well, I got Elphaba's gut issue worked out and she is pooping normal. But she was still pulled in and not keeping up with the flock. She walked right up to me and wanted up. Picked her up and gave her a real good look over. She has mites. Dusted her with Permithyn(SP) dust big time. Dusted down the roosts and litter. Dusted the Silkies just in case. No one else appears to have them. Gonna dust her again tomorrow real good.

 

[FirewifeJess]

I forgot to tell y'all last night...after doing the second dose of Eprinex on the flock, I can officially report the ***I*** am perfectly dewormed and parasite free. Yup, spilled it on myself. Oops!

 

[TacomaFarms]

Well, I got Elphaba's gut issue worked out and she is pooping normal. But she was still pulled in and not keeping up with the flock. She walked right up to me and wanted up. Picked her up and gave her a real good look over. She has mites. Dusted her with Permithyn(SP) dust big time. Dusted down the roosts and litter. Dusted the Silkies just in case. No one else appears to have them. Gonna dust her again tomorrow real good.

Drats! Those dog gone bugs are just a pain in the ykw... Glad her gut issues are resolved though, that's good.

I have to promote the Sevin Concentrate for everyone this spring. It got rid of all visible bugs in my rabbit hutch overnight! It's 22.5% Carbaryl. I poured it in a cup and painted it on all interior surfaces, especially nooks and crannies (it looks like white wash when it dries, which is kinda neat). I checked Mr. Thumper and even his flea bites were healing up after 3 days, which means it helped with those pests too. I did not use the "Concentrate to Spray" it is just the concentrate.

 

[VelvettFog]

Thanks Dave! We also have a huge roll of 4"x2" welded wire! Thought it was too big to use? Oh, well! The common critters are yes, dog, racoon, opposum, and rats (eeeeeew, neighbor has an old trailer making the most perfect bramble covered shelter for all of the Secrets of Nimh

)

The coop is more of a tractor, and I will let them out in the mornin' and put them in the coop at night. The run is mostly for keeping the crackle spackle away from general foot traffic. Since the coop is turning out to be more like Ft. Knocks...I don't think I am entirely worried about vermin. There is no way for rats to get into the coop.

Funny you should say that about the fence boards...That's what the coop was supposed to be made outta!!! Then Pops wanted to go the extra fancy route....sigh....

I am 5'2" so 6' fence boards will have the height I need to get in and out, but will they be happy? Maybe they have a 7' minumun height requirement and they will go on egg strike if I don't give them what they want? I do have a table saw, so ripping them won't be an issue. I was thinking of halving them, they are 6" wide (I think?) do that'll make around a 3.5" x 3.5" x 6' post. I was also wondering about making a hoop for the top so I can get some added height for biggerins (and so the chickens won't strike). Is that just PVC, wire, and a tarp?

You've got answers!

4x2 welded wire is too big of an opening low to the ground. It will not keep baby birds in, nor will it stop a racoon from reaching through and eating your bird one handful at a time.

We also want to be sure we deter diggers, so we want a short apron around the run. What I do (Jess can show you a picture) is take a roll of 3' 1/2" hardware cloth and bend it at right angles so that the short "leg" of the L is about 12" and the long "leg" is about 24". I put the long leg "up" so it becomes the first 2 feet of wire on the run. (I think of a run as a really big cage. Cages are made of wire and supports [often thicker wire]. So this hardware cloth is the first two feet of wire around the bottom of your cage). We've done a good job of keeping the chicks in, and diggers out, and we've prevented the ground-level-chicken-rustler (grab 'em and run).

The above 2 feet we no longer worry about reach-throughs and any bird this tall is obviously bigger than the 4x2 opening of the welded wire, so it works great to keep out the rest of the furry folk. Should you feel you need to cover your run, I'd use the same welded wire - unless the only threat you are protecting against is airborne, then I'd use the string-and-cd method.

So - on to your specific build.

Your birds will be quite happy with enough room to stand up tall and flap their wings. Full strech !! In my opinion it is better if your birds choose not to try and fly while in the run. It is confined, they are extreamly clumsy in the air, that seems to me to be an injury waiting for a landing. So if you are happy with your run being 6 ft, so will your birds.

What I'd do is rip one board in half. Take one of the halfs and a full width board, and make a T, only you want the skinnier board to be the vertical part, and the wide board to be horizontal. Use screws, into pre-drilled holes that go through the wider board, into the edge of the skinner one (gosh I hope that makes it just unfuzzy enough that you can figure out what the heck I mean) This will give you a good strong 6' post that is easy to connect to. You can stand two of these upright and put a fence board across the top. Remember not to trust the standard "staple gun" when attaching wire. Either use a screw-and-washer, pneumatic staples, hand-driven fence staples or some other suitable, strong attachment. Racoons will test this.


That is the longest post I've ever made in my life. I can type only so many words a week. I just used up 90% of my quota.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Quote:
I have Sevin dust for the garden, but have heard you can make a liquid with the powder and paint that too. Is that what you did? If so, can you give me any more info on how much powder to how much water? I would like to paint the roosts tonight.

 

[TacomaFarms]

I forgot to tell y'all last night...after doing the second dose of Eprinex on the flock, I can officially report the ***I*** am perfectly dewormed and parasite free. Yup, spilled it on myself. Oops!

 

[TacomaFarms]

Quote:
I have Sevin dust for the garden, but have heard you can make a liquid with the powder and paint that too. Is that what you did? If so, can you give me any more info on how much powder to how much water? I would like to paint the roosts tonight.
I have the Sevin dust, that I use in the garden and on my rabbits, and have heard you can make the paint/paste as well, but the Sevin Dust powder is only 5% Carbaryl (bug killer), and I just happened to be at HD, and read the label of the Sevin Concentrate and it is 22.5%, so I took the Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor approach of the "Sevin 22,500" and painted that sh...tuff on there.

Now I will have to re-evaluate after a couple weeks since my Mr. Rabbit decided to lick it off the wall.

 

[CarolynF]

So.. I saw this picture -- and really liked the arbor -- so I decided to make my own. I went to my creek, felled a few black willow saplings and started working on my own. Here is the inspiration -- I'll be back later to post pictures of my progress.



Link to full size photo: http://www.grit.com/uploadedImages/GRT/articles/issues/2009-05-01/JerryPavia_018_Pavia_Thymus.jpg

Very Cool! Can't wait to see what you build!

Quote:
OH.. this is like Dinner Impossible. Yanno, Chef Robert gets 2 hrs to make a 5 course dinner for 300 folks. He gets a coleman camp stove, a cast iron skillet and 300 bucks -- 8 commercials later .. he's a smashing success

I can do that -- err.. .. at least smashing is easy.

I have questions - are you Radio Shack?

Big enough and Safe enough - are both relative. Size is almost always limited by money. I'm sure if I asked folks if they could have afforded a bigger run, would they have built it bigger - and we'd get a resounding YES! So I think for you, size is based on your current set of materials. Now that size has been established (sorta) let's talk about 'safe enough'.

What are we protecting your birds from? Chicken wire is designed to keep feathers in/out - but will NOT stop most animals that have fur. Must go to welded wire to get protection against the most common predator, the domestic canine. As Jessica said, what I did at her place was a hardware cloth apron, bent at right angles for about the first 2' of the run, extending about 18" out into the grass. The lawn will grow up quickly over the wire and it will disappear, but animals will not be able to dig under your fence. From the hardware cloth on up, I use 4"x2" welded wire. Use good fence staples, or a pneumatic staple gun to make sure Racoons dont just pull it down.

So - how to use the fence boards to make the supports. Hmmm.

Do you want to be able to stand up in the run? (You should say yes)

Using the boards to make a box to work as a post is probably a working idea. If a table saw is available, I'd probably rip the boards in thirds and stretch my materials even further. Make good use of angle bracing if you go with such an approach.

Another idea would be to purchase a few 2x4's for the primary supports, and use the boards, as is, for your bracing. Or better yet, build a coop out of the fence boards!

Dave

Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU for talking about chicken wire vs. dogs, and the digging issue!!! SO many people use chicken wire and feel they've made a safe pen, and it makes me worry for them. We used hex head screws and wide washers to secure the wire to the posts and I've been SUPER happy we did because we've changed the configuration twice in 2 years. It's so much easier to take these out rather than any kind of staple that sturdy enough for this job. Please note folks, if YOU can pull out a staple with relative ease, so can animals!

I like your idea of using the fence boards for a coop. I did something similar with 5/4" deck boards. I thought they were dry enough, but they'd been laying outdoors all winter and in May they were still damp. After building a coop wall, making sure they were very snug together, 2 months later there were sizeable gaps between them. My advice would be to lay them in the direct sun, off the ground ASAP to dry them super well!

 

[VelvettFog]

Quote:
I have Sevin dust for the garden, but have heard you can make a liquid with the powder and paint that too. Is that what you did? If so, can you give me any more info on how much powder to how much water? I would like to paint the roosts tonight.
I have the Sevin dust, that I use in the garden and on my rabbits, and have heard you can make the paint/paste as well, but the Sevin Dust powder is only 5% Carbaryl (bug killer), and I just happened to be at HD, and read the label of the Sevin Concentrate and it is 22.5%, so I took the Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor approach of the "Sevin 22,500" and painted that sh...tuff on there.

Now I will have to re-evaluate after a couple weeks since my Mr. Rabbit decided to lick it off the wall.

Hmmm.. the bottles I buy come with a different warning!!