How We Move The Girls' Coop

If you thought my last photos were blurry, well, these are even more blurry! Sorry 'bout that. Nonetheless, I think you can make out how we move the coop based on this series of photos. We currently have a power cord running to the coop for the 75 watt red lamp to help keep it warm at night while our evening temps are still kinda cool and two of the chickens are not fully feathered.

Before moving the coop, we brought the wheel barrow up to one side and dropped a lower flap onto the wheel barrow.  Ultimately, after a variety of different styles of brooms and shovels, we decided to just use a hand broom and dust bin to clean out the shavings and pooh.  The pooh really isn't too bad with the shavings in the coop and since we also use food-grade DE (diatomaceous earth) in their shavings and food.  We sprinkle a tablespoon of DE in 2 cups of food, and liberally sprinkle DE over their coop shavings.  There are several benefits that we noted right away when we started doing this.  It was suggested by a vet, and after trying it, I believe in it!  It helps minimize mites/lice in their feathers when they have an opportunity to lay in it (or even dust bathe in it) and in their food, it helps with their digestive system, cuts down on intestinal worms and firms up their pooh, making it easier to clean up.

1. Placed the round pole under the front end of the coop base.
2. From the back, lift the coop by the nesting box and start pushing forward.
3. Have a second person in the waiting to move things out of the way.
4. Have that second person balance the front once the pole is near the half-way point.
5. The pole pops out the back after moving the coop the full length (8 feet).
6. The coop in its new location and the chickens can now rest for the night.

The advantages at this point of using this method to move the coop is that it involves very little lifting, the wheels can't get stuck in the mud (which we tend to have a bunch of that during the rainy seasons) and it doesn't involve a whole lot of muscle to move it the full distance. When we are done moving the coop, we can lay the pole along the side that has the most "dips and valleys" and fill in other low spots with cement pavers and heavy bricks.

End of the Month Update on the Little Miss Orloffs

The chickens are close to 2 months old now.  Blue and Red are still larger than Green and Orange. Blue and Red's faces are now filled with feathers and looking more mature, but Green and Orange are not too far behind now. Based on the lack of saddle feathers on any of them, I am assuming that they are all young ladies.

Earlier in the week we had torrential rains and 60 degree (F) weather making for a miserable muggy start to the week. By Thursday, things were drying out and warming up. Now the temps are in the 90s (F) and we were a bit worried with the extreme weather changes so quickly that the peeps would be having problems.  Yet, they seemed fine today.

With the design of the coop, the girls have plenty of shade all day long. The young un's are feasting on all types of ants, spiders and flies that haphazard into the pen/run.

Here are some pictures from today showing the way that we finished the ramp up into the coop as well as where we ultimately hung the feeder to keep it dry during the rain storms.

I apologize for the blurries.  A few turned out well enough that you can see the feathering on the faces of Blue and Red. The first two photos are of Green.  She tends to be the least camera shy. And, by the way, that "second eye" on the second picture is actually the ear hole to the right and slightly below her eye... LOL.  It is the way her feathers are coming in that makes her ear look almost like an eye :)  (My apologies for not cleaning the ramp before the photos.... But, it is a chicken coop, after all!)

Hawkeyed, Ramp Trained & Solsticed

We had three hawks (two full grown Red Tailed Hawks and one smaller [about half the size]) circling over the coop today!  We were out on our deck trying to rig up a portable greenhouse for the poor tomatoes when I spotted the first hawk with a wing span of about four feet across circling just above the tree line of the nursery trees (about 15 - 20 feet tall). One by one, the hawks circled for about three minutes before moving on once they realized that they had no easy access into the run and humans were nearby. The chickens were totally in view of the hawks, so I'm guessing that the peeps could also see those big soaring chicken eaters in the sky!

The chickadees have finally figured out the ramp.  After my "training" the other day, and then D did some additional training yesterday, they have it all figured out. When the rain storm hit us today, they wasted no time scurrying up the ramp and skooting into their nice warm nesting box to snuggle together.

There has been almost a half inch of intermittent rain early this morning and today. I noted a few saturation points in the coop along the base of the doors.  So I picked up some more rubber weatherization to add to the floor around the doors. Remember, the other day, the rain totally filled up the feeder with water (making a delightful soup) which wasn't too appealing to the chickens. The feeder is now hanging from the middle of the coop floor "joists" and despite the rain blowing in from a variety of different directions today, the feeder stayed dry. 

I must say, that it certainly does not feel like we are having 17 hours of daily sunlight this week. The cloud cover today has been so thick, it basically looks like the Sun already set an hour before actual sunset (in 10 minutes) and twilight is simply "no light" at this point. A very disappointing summer solstice. I just hope summer weather shows up soon!

Just Some Glitchy Chick Stuff

I don't think I remembered to mention last time that the chickies are exiting the coop via the ramp, but have not yet figured out that they can go back into the coop on the ramp. Hopefully, based on all that I have read, they will figure it out eventually.  

Also, the one thing in looking at the layout of the dual doors, we are going to have some "glitchy" issues when ever the coop is moved.  Since we are not moving the coop onto nice level ground with each move, the doors may not open well, overlap at the edges from time to time, and they can be pulled away from the frame by about two inches in the center, if there is some overlap issue going on. That's one reason why we think using cabinet magnets will help minimize some of the "gap" issues. What we are trying really hard to prevent is a rodent/weasel invasion into the coop itself. 

The ramp is glitchy too.  It rubs a bit on a support piece making it difficult to get it to rise all the way up.  D feels that he can cut the ramp off a little to get it to bypass that support piece.  

Another issue is the access opening for the run.  If a person needs to get into the run, there are no handles inside the frame of the detachable door to pull it into place from the inside to prevent a chick escape. I picked up a medium sized brass handle. L should be able to install that when it warms up.  Hoping that will do the trick. 

One of the good things that we did at the onset was to weatherize around the doors on the tops and sides plus put the "lip" on the bottom-edge of the upper door so that rain will run off over the bottom door.  It worked well during the rain storm last night. 

We cut a long branch off the oak tree for the chicks to use as a perch in the run.  They have yet to figure out how to use that.  We have not yet installed the roost in the coop.  They still huddle together under the light, so I don't think that a roosting area is needed.

At this point, instead of wheels, we are using a tall round (4" diam) wood fence post for the purpose moving the coop across the yard.  Think of it kind of like using a lever and a round fulcrum (a moving axle?). The post is placed length wise on the ground under the 2x4s of the coop's base and while the post is under the  base frame of the coop, using the nesting box to push the coop over it until the post pops out the back end of the coop. I'll try to take a photo the next time we move the coop. 

Last, but not least.  If you wonder where the inspiration came for the creation of the A-framed Coop de Run, D saw it on Ana White's blog.  She apparently built/had it built as an inexpensive temporary space until she could build the permanent structure.  The modifications that have been added to ours is a larger floor area, a very solid nesting box for two with outside access (this box can also be used to move the coop), and eight weatherized doors.  The floor space inside is about eight square feet with plenty of area for a couple of roosting bars (down the center) about four to five inches above the floor.  There is also space for feed and water inside the coop.  One other helpful feature is the ramp that can be pulled up at night. With the floor lower than the original plan, the ramp is not too steep. Instead of using dowels or rungs for traction on the ramp, we picked up some grip tape, like slip-resistant coating use for wheelchair ramps and on skateboards for a flat surface that's not slick, even in the rain. 

Noah? Where's That Ark?

The rain finally came late in the afternoon.... I mean R-A-I-N mixed with a smidgin of hail.  

It was getting really dark out about an hour before the sun goes down, and it was getting cold.  There was some sprinkling happening throughout the day, but we really didn't get the rain that had been forecast for the day.  On the other hand, with the darkness encroaching so quickly, I took the opportunity to try coaxing the peeps up the ramp with some egg yoke. It worked... after I just about crawled down the ramp topside down! Little peep was the bravest and once I got her going, she scurried up the ramp into the coop, with Blue and Green right on her tail. Red held back, half way up the ramp, waiting to see what I was going to do.... I closed up the top doors and talked to her through the screen for a few seconds, reminding her that the other three were going to finish up all that egg if she didn't hurry up.... She actually hesitated for just a moment longer then forged on up the ramp for her share of the egg delight. I pulled the ramp up into place, locked up all the doors and made certain that the light was on. 

Not more than 30 minutes later, the heavens opened up and we had about a half inch of rain in less than half an hour.  We were scrambling to get the tomatoes covered and were worried about the electrical cords that we have plugged in for the heat lamp. After the first deluge, hubby checked the electrical situation and I checked the coop.  I was happy to discover that the coop appeared to be all dry inside!!! At this point, I feel fairly certain that this design will work well for our weather. But time will tell.  I picked up some cabinet magnets that we plan on using to help secure the doors a bit better, as an addition to the heavy latches that we installed, in the event some varmit tries to pop open an edge of one of the doors. Also, we get some pretty strong winds out here, upwards of 75+ miles per hour in the fall and winter months. So hopefully, the magnets will help prevent the doors from "puffing up" with the wind gusts, as well.

On a different front though, we are going to have to rethink the food situation.  Their feeder totally filled up with water. Obviously, we will need some way to protect the trough from the rain. Back to the drawing board on that.

Chicks in the Run

The baby chickens are in the run today and already enjoying the worms, ants and bugs.  Since it is still cold here at night, we have put the lamp into their coop until they are all fully feathered. Picked up some standard water and feeder containers that we can hang in the run for now and the larger chicks have already figured out the ramp. The smaller chicks are less certain so we may need to get into the run to get them into the coop at night. For now, I think the finished coop will work and the next few projects will involve putting wheels onto the thing and getting some easier feeder and waterer situation set up.

Coop d'Etat

Today's Paint with final paint and finish tomorrow. Father must work on Father's Day to get his chicklets in their coopdom.

	The nesting outside, inside and from inside looking into the coop. The rest are of the coop from a variety of angles.

Getting Cooped Up

The guys are getting it done, bit by bit.  Right now, it is upside down as the "rot" treatment is soaking in. All of the outside frames and exposed wood will be painted.  I've taken some snaps of the coope-de-run while it is on its side in the driveway. I've tried to take a few pix at the "appropriate" angles, but that's hard to do, so bear with me there.

These first are from underneath the bottom of the floor... basically what the chickens would see if they look up. The rectangle hole in the floor is for the ramp which will fit up between the support railings and can be raised at night to secure the coop.

The nesting box(es) are on the outside with a partition to provide two laying box areas of approximately 12" x 12" floor space on each side of the partition. There is an access door/flap from the outside for retrieving eggs when that happens.

The doors into the main portion of the coop, itself, are on hinges and will flip up/down giving us access into the coop without having to open up the whole coop but still give us the ability to clean out the coop by using the lower doors as chutes. We get a lot of rain in our region, so the upper doors will help protect the coop from getting wet inside when lifting them up. 

Below is a side view, then a "flipped" view so that you can see the access into the lower run, under the coop.  The vent holes near the top of the coop have hardwire cloth on the inside.

And, below, is a "bird's eye" view from above the coop, looking into the inside on the half that has the ramp/trap door for the chickens to access the coop.

The wire on the run of the coop is actually double layered with a heavy gauge wire to help prevent larger predators like black bears or coyotes from ripping into the run, and then a smaller gauge hardwire cloth to keep out smaller predators, like raccoon and weasel.

So, that's what we have so far.

Chicken + Math = Water and Food

We are winding up the chicken coop and run. Should be done in a day or two. Now for the water and feed. I'll post photos of the coop when it is mostly done.

But, I've been thinking about the constant feeding and watering that needs to be done.  We are looking into creating an auto feeder and auto water using 4" or 3" (diameter) PVC pipe.  One can only purchase a 10-foot length of PVC pipe from the home improvement outlets, so I want to choose the right size and divide that in half for two 4 to 5 foot lengths. We are looking for a way to feed and water both in the coop and the run at the same time since the run is directly under the coop. But first we needed to know how much water a 3" and a 4" diameter pipe could hold.  The way to figure that out is to get the number of cubic inches per 12-inch long section of pipe would hold. There are 231 cubic inches per gallon.  Pi * radius" * radius" * 12" = cubic inches.  4" pipe would be 3.1416 * 2 * 2 * 12 = 150.8 ci while 3" pipe would be 3.1416 * 1.5 * 1.5 * 12 = 84.82 ci.  The ci divided by 231 ( 150.8 / 231 = .66 gal or 84.82 / 231 = .37 gal).  Nutshell is that a 3" diameter pipe will not provide nearly as much water as a 4" diameter pipe will provide.  A 5-foot section of 3" diameter would be approximately 1.85 gallons while a 5-foot section of 4" would provide approximately 3.3 gallons! That's a big difference.  (via Math Central)

I've been trying to research how much water to supply for "each" chicken.  Based on a variety of sites, each chicken (standard adult) will drink at least a pint of water per day (on average) and with four chickens, that would be about a half gallon per day up to gallon plus in the summer time.  On the other hand, with all the food and water inside of the coop/run tractor, that means that much more weight that will need to be moved per day. A gallon of water weighs almost 10 pounds per gallon, so that would be about 30 extra pounds for water and about 15 to 20 pounds for the food.  Plus, if we incorporate the two layers for the feeder and the water... that means that we will need to keep both nearly full every day.

Is your head spinning yet? That's how I felt after looking at all the numbers. I'm just saying that I never really realized that math comes into play when caring for a few chickens.

June Outdoor Adventure

This week has been especially warm outside.  On Saturday, I used the guinea pig's cage to let the chicks pick at the ground but that was pretty small.  Today, I set up a round pen of hardware cloth and let them play in the sunshine for a while. They really need a run!!!  Hopefully, we can get the coop and run done this weekend. In the meantime, Blue made an "escape" flight. But once she was out, she just looked at me all surprised.  I reached out and she came right to me.  Thankfully that wasn't Red making the escape.  She never would have "returned" without a chase and a net!