Coop!

(Still getting used to this new composing program.  I adapt slowly to things.  Painfully slowly lol.)

So, yesterday, I finally finished enough of the coop to house birds in it.  It's not perfect, and it's definitely not ready to go outside.  (Only half of it is finished, and it has no roof.)  But, I was concerned about the larger birds.  They're broilers, and they're prone to irritation of the stomach because they don't walk around as much as the smaller birds do.  They lie down a lot, and if they lie down in their own filth, the ammonia gives them rashes.

I've noticed all our broilers going bald on their stomachs and I've been concerned that they were over-crowded in the tub we originally had them housed in.  (They grew so fast!)  We've been trying to keep them clean, but pooping is like a twenty-four seven hobby for these guys.

So, yesterday, at about eight in the evening I finally finished the fourth removable door of the coop, which would enable me to secure the birds inside at night.  (It's not predator proof, but it will contain the chickens.)

My coop design has been rather interesting (to me at least) in that it is a hybrid coop/chicken tractor.  It's a complete coop in and of itself.  However, it is designed to be disassembled and relocated from time to time to give the chickens constant access to fresh, clean grass.  (Clean is a big thing with me.  Clean is healthy for them and not-stinky for me.)

Anyway, there are four "removable doors" on the coop that can be unlocked and then lifted off so that the coop is light and moveable.  Once the doors are in place, it's far too heavy to move.  The second part of the coop, which I'd like to start building today will be a chicken run/chicken tractor which the birds can be housed in while the main coop is being moved.  At some point I'd like to add an isolation pen on the other side for introducing new birds to the flock.  But that's not happening anytime soon.  I'll be happy if I can get the tractor/run up and working.

So far, our coops cost us about... seventy dollars?  The wood was free (thank you again to R. for negotiating to keep the junked lumber and wooden pallets, and to my in-laws for letting us have the wood).  The wire was a big ticket item because I bought hardware cloth instead of poultry fence (which is pretty useless at stopping anything other than poultry).  After that, there were the eye hooks, hinges and various odd bits of metal that held the thing together.  Those add up... ugh, and I need to buy more.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling.  Here's some pictures:

So here's a side view of the coop, with the little

chicken window for the birds to see out of. 

 Here's a view of removable doors one and two.  Made from pallet wood

which R. and I took turns sawing loose from the pallets they were nailed to.

Each of those two doors is hinged and locked in place, but they are relatively

easy to lift up and off the coop for cleaning and coop relocation.  Without

the four doors in place, the chicken coop is incredibly lightweight.

Here's a view from the chicken window in the first picture.  The demonic

red light is the heating lamp we put up to keep the chicks warm overnight.

You might be able to see the mesh floor of the coop.  I was rather concerned

when I first constructed this.  I didn't want it to be uncomfortable on their feet, but

I did like the cleanliness factor.  Most of the chicken poops drop through the mesh,

which means they won't be lying on their own filth.  I left the cardboard box in

there, though, so that if they were uncomfortable, they'd have somewhere soft to lay.  I

worried that the wire would also be hard on the broilers' stomachs, but I was

surprised to notice this morning that they seem to be regrowing a little of

their fuzz.  Maybe it's just my imagination.

And here (in case you were wondering why I don't simply clean the coop more

often if filth is an issue) is the reason frequent cleaning alone won't stop the filth.  We put

them in the new coop right before going to bed.  When we woke up in the morning, all

of this was lying under the coop, having fallen through the mesh.  And this is just

the stuff that made it through the mesh.  There's all the stuff in the box to consider.

And there's also all the stuff that didn't make it through the box.  The big puddles

are from the water feeder, which leaks occasionally, and then dribbled down to

make a nice, fetid poopy-soup.  And if they'd been in their tub, they would have

been sleeping in that.  Let me reiterate: they did this overnight.

So that is the update on my little poop factories-- er-- baby birds.  The coop is made.  The birds don't seem to hate it (that I can tell).  And now all I need to do is construct a roof and a chicken run/tractor.  Wish me luck.  (If anyone's even reading this... I don't think anyone's reading this.  Oh well.)