Our luck ran out. The recent cold spell lasted long enough that I had to turn on the electric heater in the coop. The temperatures were in the -20s, with the coldest recorded temperature being -29F. The fresh air coming in through the pipe that coils inside the biomeiler is still reading 32-37F, but the […]
Electric Heat Needed Read More »
We recently had a warm spell and, now, the floor of the coop is in need of fresh shavings. Are those things merely consecutive, or is there some causality? Hmm. If it has been cold outside and then warms up, soon after, the coop floor gets squishy. I use a hoe to pull the wettest
Getting the PEX pipes into the coop without drilling holes in the walls was the goal. My solution was to use my angle grinder to cut flaps in the wye fitting outside the coop and in the air duct inside the coop, before the intake fan. The cutting went pretty smoothly. Fortunately, the wye fitting
Biomeiler Attached to Coop Read More »
We use wood shavings from a local sawmill to cover the floor in the chicken coop. Our trailer has a 4’x8’ bed with 3.5’ walls and rear gate. The sawmill sells the shavings by volume. So, to make things easy, I marked the walls with stripes at 1’ and 2’ heights. Now, when I fill
One of the reasons for our purchase of the farm site is that the land is zoned for agriculture. Currently, our operation is based on land that is zoned for general commercial use or residential use. Keeping chickens on these lots is legal (we checked!), but people live nearby and we don’t want to be
The New Chicken Pen Read More »
The shelter in the larger section of the triangle pen was in need of repair. I pulled it away from the wall of the pen to remove the roof and was surprised to discover that the two sections of roof were in completely different conditions. Both halves of the roof were made from 1/4” plywood,
The Triangle Pen Shelter Read More »
Today, I finished partitioning the coop. I found a few pieces of fence and fastened them to the walls so that the pieces could be opened or closed in the middle of the coop. The fence was sagging a bit, but that was remedied by wiring a piece of lath in the center. The fence
Moving the Broiler Chicks Read More »
In order to partition the coop to keep the rooster separate from the broiler chicks, it was necessary to dig out some of the litter that accumulated during the winter. We use the deep bedding system. The portion of the coop that houses the adult birds has a floor area approximately 10’ by 11’.
Preparing the Coop For Partitioning Read More »