Goings on.
You might have noticed the postings being a little thin around here. That's not because I haven't been doing anything, but quite the contrary. As I said earlier in the week the weekend was a busy one, and it hasn't slowed. I've been able to get a little work done each night on the chicken coop. It'll be a Cadillac of a coop when I'm done I think, a "Coop de ville" so to speak. So far I have finished the basic framing and completed the Nesting box addition to the end of the enclosure.
You can see that I made the coop to have the main hen house well off the ground. I plan to use the same basic method that I outlined in "Small-Scale Coop Care" to build a deep mulch in the bottom of the coop by slowly adding carbonaceous material (straw or sawdust) on top of each layer of manure and will slowly build up the depth of the base of the coop with a rich compost base. Having the hen house well off the ground will allow me to "uppen" the level of the floor and still give the birds enough room to mill about comfortably.
Here's what the nesting box looks like so far. I'm only making it a two birder, because I don't want to encourage bedding in them, only nesting for egg laying. The missing top to the box when finished will be able to be opened from outside to retrieve the eggs. I will be putting a roosting pole across the front of the box, and another in the center of the house and higher up. You may be able to see the metal brackets on the horizontal posts. These are there to allow me to use a removable tray for manure collection. The object of this is to work with the 1/2 inch wire mesh floor that I will be using (at least on half of the floor.) to allow me to close off the bottom in the winter to keep the warmth in while still having ease of cleaning. In the summer here it can get over 100 F regularly so this will allow me to remove the closed floor entirely in order to allow ventilation and breezes and will let the droppings fall to the deep mulch below.
Here is another view with the nesting box on the back wall where you can see fairly well the layout of the whole coop. The little square in the near wall will be the entrance, and the wall just to the left of it will be a large door that I'll be able to open for maintenance/cleaning. I should be able to get this done by the end of the weekend,if not sooner, then it'll be decorating time. I mean, if it's gonna be in A~'s yard it's gotta be relatively pretty right?
Hope you're all having a great week. Till tomorrow.
P~
You can see that I made the coop to have the main hen house well off the ground. I plan to use the same basic method that I outlined in "Small-Scale Coop Care" to build a deep mulch in the bottom of the coop by slowly adding carbonaceous material (straw or sawdust) on top of each layer of manure and will slowly build up the depth of the base of the coop with a rich compost base. Having the hen house well off the ground will allow me to "uppen" the level of the floor and still give the birds enough room to mill about comfortably.
Here's what the nesting box looks like so far. I'm only making it a two birder, because I don't want to encourage bedding in them, only nesting for egg laying. The missing top to the box when finished will be able to be opened from outside to retrieve the eggs. I will be putting a roosting pole across the front of the box, and another in the center of the house and higher up. You may be able to see the metal brackets on the horizontal posts. These are there to allow me to use a removable tray for manure collection. The object of this is to work with the 1/2 inch wire mesh floor that I will be using (at least on half of the floor.) to allow me to close off the bottom in the winter to keep the warmth in while still having ease of cleaning. In the summer here it can get over 100 F regularly so this will allow me to remove the closed floor entirely in order to allow ventilation and breezes and will let the droppings fall to the deep mulch below.
Here is another view with the nesting box on the back wall where you can see fairly well the layout of the whole coop. The little square in the near wall will be the entrance, and the wall just to the left of it will be a large door that I'll be able to open for maintenance/cleaning. I should be able to get this done by the end of the weekend,if not sooner, then it'll be decorating time. I mean, if it's gonna be in A~'s yard it's gotta be relatively pretty right?Hope you're all having a great week. Till tomorrow.
P~
4 comments:
Looks great! Can't wait to see it up and in action :)
That's awesome! I'd love to see photos of the finished product too! :)
Where did you find plans for this cute portable coop?
Robbyn / ferbit,
Thank's! I'll definitely put up some pics of the coop when it's finished. (hopefully by the end of the weekend.)
jeff s.,
I didn't get the plans anywhere, I came up with them on my own as a sort of hybridized version of a couple of others that I saw and liked. I may take the measurements of the final coop and draw them out so that sometime in the future I can offer them up to others.
P~
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