Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Design ideas and building process

In case someone stumbles in here thinking about starting their own chicken operation I thought I'd put together some thoughts/notes on our experience. There's a Right Way, a Wrong Way, but we're gonna do things Our Way... (and so far, so good).

First Observation: In hindsight - this is all pretty straightforward and easy. GO FOR IT!

Books:

When we were getting into this whole chicken thing I read several books and one nice thing was none of them really contradicted another. The info is pretty much the same across all of them. I think I read and/or reread about 6 books and several How-To magazines, not to mention all the websites I could find...

The Storey book is considered by many to be the defacto standard, and I got to admit that it has lots of info in there, but I found it to be a bit dry...

Also liked "Raising Backyard Chickens" (or similar) and it was good, but in this case kind of lacking.

The one I like best and turn to most often is from the Dummies series "Raising Chickens for Dummies". Often times these books are written not just for dummies but for complete blithering idiots as well, but this book seems to cover all the bases quite nicely.

One gripe I DO have with this book is, despite having two chapters devoted to the subject, is a lack of any building plans whatsoever for either a coop or a run. One of the authors is owner of backyardchickens.com who sells coops and plans and book with that sort of thing... hmmm... I would think they could at least give owners of the book access to at least SOME plans don't you think??

The funny thing was that when we went and actually picked up our six chicks, that the feed store handed us a one page "instruction manual"... feed them, water them, protect them, keep them warm, watch out for them pasting up... that was IT!

Websites:

There is a LOT of information out there on the web about raising chickens... the aforementioned backyardchickens.com has some good stuff but there is a lot out there... read all you can but I think you'll find most of it is pretty consistent...

The bottom line: The words of advice from the feed store were true: Keep It Simple !!


The Coop:

I wouldn't recommend doing what we did, as you'll see....

I had originally planned on a budget of about $150 for building the entire coop and run. We had an old bookshelf in the garage w/ deep shelves and I thought I would slap some 4x8 sheets of plywood against it, put in some fencing and call it good... sort of a eight or twelve foot long "chicken tractor" which I'm sure you've heard of by now...

BUT our good friends Jeff and Joan hooked us up with their old coop that Jeff had built years ago... they liked it so much I believe they actually brought it with them when they moved out here from Montana...

Anyhoo, it's from a book and the design is called the "Ten Hen House" which I take to mean you could fit 10 hens in there... THAT I'm not so sure about but this thing is pretty decent size - 5 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet. The roof opens up (at least a third of it anyway) and I can get down in there with a broom for cleaning... if I drop something in there that's a problem, and reaching out and lifting a heavy feeder or water dispenser can be tough, but doable.

The coop has a large nest box section that we made sure we put on the exterior of the fencing for easy egg access when the time comes. It of course locks shut with a hasp and a caribiner for a lock. Good luck with THAT Mr. Racoon...





We decided to widen the entry way to the nest boxes and using that scrap I put in taller walls for more privacy.


The Run:

Using an existing fence as one side, we built the run by putting in four 4x4 treated posts (thanks a bunch for your help Les!!). We went something like a span of 8 feet, 5 feet, one for the door at 3 feet and finally the other corner post. The doorway is 3 feet wide.

Using 1/2 inch "hardware cloth" - think of it as a heavy duty mesh with 1/2 inch squares - we used it to go on the outside of the entire run. Depending on your predator threat you could get away with regular (and cheaper!!) good ol' chicken wire, but I wasn't willing to take that chance. Plus I think chicken wire in general looks like hell...

I really hate using a staple gun and (correctly) assuming that we'd change our minds a time or two on how to put this stuff together, we used screws and washers to drill into the posts and 2x4 supports to attach all the fencing. Works REALLY well and if you screw up or decide to try something else, just back out the screw and try again. Easy.

These were 1/4 by 1" washers. Sorry for the crappy pitcure but you get the idea:

Washer:



Not that we would, but in theory this whole thing can be disassembled into all its' pieces and taken with us if/when we move. No nails, staples (or duct tape!) were used in the construction...

For the roof I ran two 4 ft wide lengths and just over 16 ft long across the top. I happened to have from years ago a spool of 1/16" stainless steel aircraft grade cabling that I then used to thread the two halves together. I also used the cable to thread the roof onto the fencing along the edges and really tighten that thing down. That roof is rock solid.

Roof Attachment:



Rather than digging trenches and burying wire for digger protection, we used our friend Brandt's advice and just attached about 15" of chicken wire along the bottom and running outward from the run. The idea is that a predator will at first try and dig at the edge, run into the wire, start backing up to try again, hit more wire, and eventually give up. Or at least slow them down enough that it might take quite a while to get in and give us a chance to deal with the problem. That's the theory anyway...

"The book" has different ideas on what is considered the proper amount of space for each of your hens inside the coop and for outside - I've seen as low as 2 square feet up to 4 square feet. Personally I'd say the more the better but that might not be doable in everyone's situation. Outside areas are from 2.5 to 6 square feet.

So, looking at our coop and run - do we have enough room? (Too late now, but let's do the math).

If the coop floor is 5x4 that's 20 square feet. For 6 hens that just over 3 sq. ft. each. Not bad. They also have the nesting boxes and roost rails all the way across.

The outside run is 8 feet by 16 feet for a total of 128 square feet. Even if you subtract the footprint of the coop (not actually true since it is raised off the ground) it still maths out to 18 sq ft per girl... Plenty of room to run around!

The cost (so far) ?? Not including gas for trips to Jerry's (hardware center) - just over $500...

Free Range:

Although I think we have more than enough room in the 8x16 foot run, I really like the idea of allowing the girls to free range as much as possible. Originally we had thought we could let the girls run amok in the garden area but they weren't big enough, soon enough for that to happen.

Next year.... besides, ducks are probably better suited to that anyway.... (shhhh - don't tell the wife that ducks are next on the list!!).

Our backyard has some odd angles and curves, but it's big and for the most part is useless for anything but cultivating grass that in turn needs to be mowed... (Personally I'd plow the whole damn thing up and plant corn, but....).

Last weekend we picked up a 25' chunk of plastic poultry netting and I built them a 6x6 foot area to play in for their first foray into the outdoors - they REALLY seemed to love it. Don't forget to give them access to food and water when you do this! Warning - chickens can tear up ground in a hurry and that 6x6 plot is still obvious where they were...

Last night, my first night home from work, beer in hand, girls outside, I rigged up the fencing forming a big triangle running off the edge of the run. I could step in and out of it easily enough and at one point put my chair in there and sat down to put some of the girls in my lap to feed them some scratch... I almost started to cry - I've been looking forward to doing that for a LONG time and it was a special moment for me...

Matt in coop:


As time goes on we hope to use longer fencing and just set something up for where we want the girls to roam. My comfort level with having the girls outside free ranging isn't quite there yet and I've read that generally you want to be keeping an eye on them. So this is a practice best done when you are outside doing chores already.

Girls at Play:
Some things I would change or point out about the design and building of our coop and run...

Our coop is VERY solidly built - if you get locked into this thing by accident, you're gonna be there for a while unless you can yell and get someone to come unlock the door for you. But we realized that shortly after putting the door/latch on there and rigged up an emergency cable running inside that allows us to unlock the door.

Door latch:


That being said, another thing I'll add is a way to latch the door close behind me but without using the main latch i.e. so I can go in there and check on things w/o risking the girls getting out. I'm thinking just some sort of hook thingy attached to the door...

So next up is getting the door squared away a bit better... when Nic put the chicken wire on the ground in front of the door some dirt/rocks and such kinda got piled up and so now the door is a PITA to open and close - way too tight...

As I mentioned in a prior entry having quick access to the inside would be nice for giving the girls treats, so some sort of small door is in order...

When I move the water can out of the coop and into the run, I'll position it close to the side so I can fill it w/o having to go inside... or maybe not.. that might not work out based on the design of our waterer... hmmm... ;)

Also left to do is a 'cap' for the coop roof... the two pieces that form the roof have a seam down the middle and will allow water in... the cedar tree this thing is under does a pretty good job of protecting the coop but....

Will this never end?? :)

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

We are official Chicken Farmers!



Well we did it... put the girls outside last night for the first time, let them out first thing this morning... We put the heat lamp in there for comfort, but don't think it was necessary... Unlike last weekend when we had them running around in the back yard, this time they had a sort of "I'm not so sure about this" look about them as they first walked around their new run...

At this point it's all about the waiting - not planning on them to start laying until around late August, early September...

We did name them though (hope I get this right)...

Roll call:

Buff Orpingtons - Buffy (the vampire slayer) and Elvira
Rhode Island Reds - Margaret Thatcher and Pocahontas
Golden Sex-Linked - Mae West and Stella (the original chicken butt)..

Margaret seems to be the Uber-Girl...

I can think of some modifications or further coop challenges we still have... that coop/run is locked down central... we could house convicted felons in that thing... it would be nice to have a quick access method for tossing in food scraps and such... Also, a small covered area for the feed/water dishes would be nice... for now I'm just going to leave them inside the coop but would like to move them out of there...

Monday, May 23, 2011

Tonight's the night!!

Having been sickly for a while there we kind of got behind on our chicken building project... We've been making a big push to finish up the coop and run, and yesterday we did it... we even have an emergency latch release in case the door swings close and locks one of us in...

We let them run around in a 6x6 foot area we set up next to where we were working, and they seemed to just love it!





After work tonight we have two pieces of 2x4 to install in the door frame to use as a backstop, I'll fasten the chicken-wire roof to it, and we.... be.... done!!!





The girls are going out there tonight... plan is to go ahead and run a cord out there and bring along the heat lamp... the girls have been going without for over a week now but there first night our there it might be a comfort to them... or they couldn't care less - who knows...

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Why chickens?

I'm glad you asked... it isn't as though we are hurtin' for eggs around here - we have a friend that delivers farm fresh eggs to our doorstep once a week and for less that we could buy them in the store... Yes, in the winter time things taper off quite a bit but that should hold true for us and our own egg production.

Well, Nic and I talked long ago and decided that being more sustainable and being less reliant on others for our basic needs was going to be a priority in our future. No, we aren't the-sky-is-falling enviro's consumed w/ oil prices and such, but I am convinced that we NEED to be more self reliant. For example, what if one of us lost our jobs? What if instead of both being employed full time we could only muster up a couple of part time gigs? What would happen to our standard of living then?

So rather than trying to always be at the top of the food chain standard-of-living wise, the idea is to lower the standard, become responsible for more of our own basics, and live cheaper and simply as much off the land as we can reasonably manage. You've heard the term "hobby farm" before? That's kinda where we are going... a couple, three, four, five acres if we can get it, a simple house or yurt, some out buildings... keep it simple and affordable... so even if we do manage to keep going full throttle w/ our income (a situation I seriously doubt will last until retirement) then that's just more money into savings or other projects...

So the chicken thing, the garden thing (other than we both enjoy the homegrown food) are actually training for when we make the big push for self reliance... if we can do it ourselves, we SHOULD do it ourselves...

One of the things we need to learn how to do (among MANY other things) is to learn food preservation techniques, and also learn what foods/animals/veggies etc will work out well for us. Who knows - maybe it will all work out that Ducks are the way to go rather than chickens... they do lay more consistently than chickens do and don't worry so much about the weather, so...

Oh, and the 6 girls are doing just fine... moved them into a much bigger brooder and they are just lovin' it!!