That house could pass as a Forks bed and breakfast.

Finished the nest boxes tonight!




The last two photos show the eggs ramps. There is a piece of straw keeping the egg from dropping.

(Yes Driftin', I will make sure I seal that air leak on the upper right of the roof on the nest box, and I know the roof of the nest box doesn't provide a good drip edge, but it is covered by a 3' overhang on the lee side of the usual weather direction. I dare a drop of water to get in there, dammit!)

Then I took some time to hang out with a few chicks afterwards.


The Barred Rocks are by far the friendliest, with a few of the Black Austrolorps warming up really fast. The meal worms I'm feeding them really help to develop a bond. (Look at me, a big strong guy talking about bonding. I feel a tear...)

Gonna work on the auto door tomorrow, and then a feeder and watering system that I can manage from outside of the coop, maybe even have the water fill off of the roof. Feeder will be made from 4" PVC and will go through the wall and be filled from outside. There will also be a home-made feeder under the coop (5 gallon bucket and planter base)

Very cool Andy ! ! Looks like you are getting it done just in time. Otherwise you will have chicken [censored] all over your new shop floor. .. . .

Like the external fill for the feed/water.

If you end up with 'lorp cockerels, you may end up eating them when they get bigger instead of letting them keep the hens "happy." Know of one that goes after my friend's kids and adults when they enter the pen for any reason. Damn thing is a puffed-up whirlwind of spurs and beak. He should have been dinner long ago....

Seriously tho', thanks for posting this up. It's too late for spring chicks, but I've drawn up some plans for a coop with some details for similar ways of keeping feeding and watering convenient--'specially when its raining. Your clucker architecture has given some perspective.

nothing beats a house full of hot chicks

One good way to handle a rooster is with a tennis racket. Let them know who is boss, not hurt them, but certainly rough them up a bit. Every time you step into a cage, intimdate them and let them know who is boss.

Any roosters that are identified will be culled out of respect to my neighbors. I believe that I got all pullets (girls), but in case any slipped through, they'll join the Cornish Cross in the freezer.

I really need to take a picture of of those meat birds I bought. Ugly suckers. I swear that the four I got 3 weeks ago are easily 2 pounds each, and they make the laying hen chicks look like runts. The six I bought last week are as big as the layin hen chicks. Butcher time for the first four is in 5 weeks, and they should dress out at 5-7 pounds. I'm getting another ten at the end April, so I should have the process down pretty good after a few batches have been raised and butchered.

Let us know if the chickens can run with their heads choppped off. I never did buy that.

I would say it's a cross between a run and the funky chicken dance

Got the automatic door installed tonight! Made the door out of some 1/4" lexan I had left over from another project, so it was cheap and is almost bullet proof. (No offers to test it, please.)

Fitting the door for function.


Made a lock bar that only allows the door to open when opened by the auto door system.


Installed the opener.


And the finished product.


Need to add roosts, poop boards, flooring (linoluem scrap), water and feeding system, and a ramp. That will complete the coop. I covered the drywall with some masonite. Should be much sturdier and peck proof.

Below is a picture of my Corish Cross meat chickens.

The two in the lower right are a week old. The four going from bottom left to right center are 3 weeks old. The biggest is all of 2 pounds. The chick in the top center is a gold sex link (gold comet), and it is also 3 weeks old. That gives you an aidea how quickly these Cornish Cross grow. I'll be getting 10 more once the original 10 are in the freezer.

[video:google]http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q233/mesoas/Chickens/?action=view&current=0401000714.flv[/video]

So much for "Up with the chickens."

I have raised about every type of livestock there is. If I were to raise anything else again it would be chickens. There is a real satisfaction to watching the chickens scratching around and nothing beats fresh free range eggs.

As noted, they will destroy a young garden, and the supply of C.S. seems to exceed my demand, but I do like chickens.

It is fun to watch ducks snarfing down slugs, but they make such a God awful mess of any water supply they quickly out lived their welcome around here.

Dave,

My wife grew up with a pet Peking duck, which was killed after a few years by a raccoon. I have free license to kill any raccoon, any time, anywhere. Yes, they love slugs. No duck for now.

So I moved in a few yards of crushed black rock yesterday to build a base about 6" deep.



Then I set my posts.


...and finally I dug my trenches to burry the wire fence.


I'll add a few more inches of black rock to bring it to 12" of depth. This material compacts like concrete after a few rains and some compaction.

Adding fence and building a door today. Well, time to get to work.

well happy Easter! Tell me why do they need a driveway?

Why? Because I like to overbuild things. Chickens dig and scratch in the earth. They are mini rototillers. That area of my yard has a lot of clay from when we dug these two 10'x4'x4' pits for the shop rain wells....

..and the topsoil has a fair amount of clay in it as well. Add scratching and digging and you get muddy chickens. I'm build a base, then adding 4-6" of sand on top to give them a dryer run.

Happy chicken lay more eggs.

Sure could have used some of KK's help yesterday digging trenches.

Dogfish:

That is the absolute taj mahal of chicken coops. Your chickens won’t be happy. They will be ecstatic!

Fence and door done. Need to add some hardware cloth. Just need the time to do it.

Damn that pup growed up fast.

6 months old next week. He's a pretty good dog, minds well, but still is a jumpy spaz around new folks and dogs.

We'll do a few quail after the chicks are in their new run. Maybe 10 or so is all. Father-in-law did maybe 5 or 6 runs of pheasants from 10-25 birds each. They need a fair amount of room or they really start hacking away at each other. Ringnecks were somewhat mean, but the Reeves he had was vicious. Killed 20 other pheasants in a single evening. MEAN. Might try a few pheasant next year, and maybe a turkey or two. We'll see.

Cool thing happened today. Over the past few weeks I've been hearing a grouse "drumming" near me as I worked on the coop. I look over to the log on the left of this photo

and I see some movement, and the grouse starts drumming away. Didn't catch it on film, unfortunately, as I was mesmerized by it. First time I ever saw it happen. I'll see if I can catch him in the act.