Woooohooooo!!! Coop plans are changing!!

[PepsNick]

Wow, sounds great! First comes, the chickens, then comes more, and more, and more, and more, and then comes rehab.

 

[Jferlisi]

Your brooder doesn't have to be too big. Mine is 29'' by 41'' and it fits 8 little chicks in it fine. Also as for the roosting pole. I have found that it is better to have a longer one at a higher height that they can still jump to than about three smaller ones at three dif levels. I had mine at the start at two dif levels and they only wanted the top bar. WELL it was not long enough for nine of them to fit on it so i had seven squished chickens and my younger two where sleeping on top of the others (they are my trouble makers

), and of course they slept on top of my leghorns so my white birds started to get dirty. >> I had to change it up until i fixed my problem and all of them could fit happily, which i thought i would never be able to do with that bunch. Here is a pic of my final roosting bars until my eight others get big enough to start sleeping in with the big girls and boys.

You can see my little brood coop past them. Dont worry people i board it off when its cold out.

 

[kristim23]

Plans are coming along great! I drew up what I would like to have, too bad i can't get it on here for some checking out by you guys! The only thing I'm not sure of is should I seal the cement floor and block (only 2-3 courses, rest is wood), and how much venting I need. I read patandchicken's ventilation page, and will read it again, I guess. Still not sure on the power issue... the 12 volt solar unit costs 400.00, and at the moment that sounds better than digging a 50 ft trench in my yard! I would only need it for a lightbulb to give them more light in the winter, and a heater base for their water. Will have do more reading on that, too. The pop door I want is battery powered, I believe.

I'm going to have 4 nest boxes, and 16 ft of roost space with linoleum covered droppings boards, and 4x4 area for storage. That still gives me 7 sq ft each for 16 birds, I think.

Any more suggestions? Trust me, I want to get this right the first time!
Thanks again!!

 

[Intheswamp]

Quote:
I'm sorry, but a $400 solar setup just isn't going to do it...you'll end up with frozen water, especially since your in PA. A 50' trench is easy...hire a local teenager for *much* less than $400 and have a reliable source of energy/heat for your coop. But, if you just want to throw the $400 at it, well, go ahead.

Best wishes,
Ed

 

[kristim23]

Ed, trust me, I'd rather throw 400 at a lot of other things! Thanks for posting back- I really am completely clueless about this whole electricity thing. I'm just trying to find a good solution somewhere between making it easy on myself and DH (kids are 2yrs and 7 mos), and expense. AND, proving yet again that i have no sense of space or measuring, it is more like 100 ft from house to coop.

Thank goodness he's a carpenter!

I guess I'd better give up on my solar idea...now on to planning the run...10x20 is as far as I've gotten!
Thanks again!

 

[Intheswamp]

<chuckle> I hear you on the $400 part, me too. The problem with solar is that you have to have a bank of batteries large enough to carry you through the night and possibly for several days to a week or so depending on possible overcast/cloudy weather. Then there is a charge controller to add to the equation, monitoring of electrolyte levels and specific gravities, possibly an inverter, etc.,etc.,. It's much easier to walk into the coop and just flip a switch and swap a light bulb out every now and then.

Plus....you can run fans, lights, heat lamps (brooders), radios, etc.,.

100' shouldn't result in much of a voltage drop and should run small motors ok. 12/2 wire should do the job. You can use direct burial wire buried in the ground or either slide it in conduit/pvc for physical protection.

Mount your receptacles up out of the reach of your chickens.

Hook up a ground-fault-interupt (GFI) either at the breaker box or at the outlet box (preferably at the breaker box) and you should be good to go. GFI's can be purchases to fit inside your breaker box or either as an actual plug receptacle (like those plugs in hotel rooms around the lavatories that you sometimes have to press a button on to make them work).

The following was priced at lowes.com:
100' of 12/2uf (underground) $79.00
20amp Square-D GFI Breaker 38.00 (a GFCI receptacle would be around $15.00 if you go that route)
Misc. wire nuts, receptacles,... 20.00
Rough guesstimate............. $137.00 plus tax and any labor (burying wire?)

Best wishes,
Ed

Voltage drop per 100' of (paired) wire:

 

[Judy]

I wouldn't use an outside access egg setup if I had it because this is when I check on things. For feed I use two galvanized garbage cans. You really need them anyway to keep rats, etc. out, and the chickens don't bother them, so they just sit in the coop. I have a little shelf up high, and that is all the storage I need, though if I were building from scratch I would have made it a small cabinet. Even if I were to build a new coop tomorrow, I would not have a separate room for storage.

If you haven't read patandchickens' pages on ventilation and cold weather coops, that would be good a very good idea before you start modifying. I have power and water but do not heat the coop. The power is handy at times, like working in there at night, but it was simple for us, and I would not have bothered if it had not been. And yours does not need to be heated in PA, either, if it is well planned.

I have a similarly "oversize" coop and am so glad it isn't smaller. They are never crowded even if they are in during the day because of weather, etc. I also have an area sectioned off with chicken wire that I can use for a broody coop or injured chicken or whatever, big enough for me to take a couple or three steps in. This has definitely come in handy. Most of the time the door is propped open so it is extra space for them. There is also an unused pop door in it, so if I ever decide to breed a particular kind of bird, it would be simple enough to set up their own run and home.

 

[kristim23]

Ed, I can't tell you how much I appreciate all that info and help! Yeah, I didn't know ANYTHING about that! I really thought it (solar)would be much simpler/a little more expensive. Sounds like the opposite! Good news is, we are on the tail end of remodeling our entire house (yahoo!), and DH is one for buying in bulk, so it is likely that we have at least most of that stuff already! So, wire it is I guess!

BTW- the thought of a radio in a coop made me laugh- visions of dancing chickens!

 

[Intheswamp]

Quote:
<chuckle> A remember a tale about somebody leaving their radio sitting on a stool playing classical music. They left and went somewhere and when they returned all the chickens were standing around the radio like they were at a concert or something. I've read where several folks have stated it seems to calm the birds...or maybe it's just their imagination.

Best wishes,
Ed