I'm feeling a little Chicken, but otherwise eggcellent...

[Zombie Axe]

Sorry for punage:D 2 years ago I planned on having chickens at the homestead...the only chicken that has showed up has the frozen kind ;)

I wanted them mostly for the eggs, but if the crap hits the fan, I will will also want some meat birds.

I have been trying to find a housing option that would house up 20 laying hens and a rooster. Right now 6 hens is all I plan on getting till later on the summer.

Some of the options like the Omlet USA Egg cube are only imported from England once a year and it didn't have the capacity I wanted but was moveable.

Another by Horizon was pretty sweet but the cost was expensive... Very turn key though.

I felt like a cat with no claws sliding down a slope of ice... in other words I was going NOWHERE!!!

I decided to change that and tonight I purchased the building you see above as a DIY kit from Lowes. This is the blurb from Lowes:

Floor kit included
Deluxe workshop package includes: 8' long workbench, 16 sq. ft. of pegboard, and two 8' long shelves
Includes window with shutters
Everything is pre-cut, nothing to saw
Easy to assemble with hammer, screwdriver, tape measure and level
2 x 3 construction provides strength and economy
Pre-assembled 5'4" W x 6'H double simplify assembly
Treated, factory-primed engineered wood siding
Heavy-duty, rust-resistant swivel hasp - add a padlock to secure your building’s contents
Continuous galvanized steel hinges resists door sagging
Treated floor joists, 24" on center with sturdy OSB decking
6’ high side walls; 8’ high peak
All nails, screws, hardware and simple, illustrated instructions are included
Paint and shingle to suit your decorative taste (paint and shingles sold separately)
10-year limited warranty




Of course it will be a Zombified (aka Zombie Modified) with a posts set in concrete as well as other upgrades.

This building will be easily turned into a nice Coop for the chicken with plenty of room for expansion if I need it.


So my fellow Xcolonists, this will be my project for the next little bit... and of course it wll make one heck of a picumentry.

I see a ton of blog entries as well as duplicates here :)

Stay tuned!

[Brosia]

make sure you take pictures at every stage of building!

[herbalpagan]

We used a shed similar in size to that one for our broiler chicks. I think for a half dozen layers, I'll probably go for something a bit smaller, but you idea is great! Good luck, I'll be watching for more pics.

[Vicious Ignernt]

ZA wrote "...Of course it will be a Zombified."

Attack Gamecocks? Gun ports? Secret grain compartments? Solar Incubators? Egg canons?

This will be really interesting...:D

Seriously, will there be a "one-way" door for the chickens? You know, like on a pigeon coop? They can get in to feed, but can't get back out? That is if you're gonna let some of them "free-range".

I've raised racing pigeons back when I was a teenager. I've been thinking about getting back into it. Funny isn't it, how squab is a delicacy in almost all parts of the world, except the US.

[Village Idiot]

That looks like a fun project! I'm drawing up plans (in my head so far) for a chicken tractor that'll hold maybe 4 birds. I just don't have the yard space for a flock of meat birds here, though I'd love to raise my own.

[Zombie Axe]

With the clocks moving toward more daylight in the evening this will be a great evening project...

They will be delivering the timber and boxes Sunday so will be starting it next week... just hope the OT at work does not kick in as I really want to complete it ASAP.

I have just about always finished a major project and thought to myself... CRAP!!! I should have taken pictures and documented that for future reference. This time it will be from the beginning :)

herbalpagan... yes it is EXCESSIVE for 6 laying hens... however it is my goal to increase the flock as we gain experience. So it will definately be larger... If I screw up and wipe out the whole flock... then I don't want a larger body count... not gonna be a problem though...

Village Idiot... chicken tractors are awesome I plan on making a few to let the birds work over my raised beds in the fall :)

VI... the mods I will be doing are experimenting with moveable/expandable runs... I also want to install solar lighting, daylight solar powered ventelation fans and other things...

So stay tuned!

[teach]

Solar lights and solar cooling, I may want to move in. Good luck with this project. I have always wanted chicks.

[Brosia]

dang, your chicken coop will be nice enough for people to move into!

[SandHillsHillbilly]

Sounds like a nice hi-tech low budget chicken coop. I too am interested in seeing the moods you make for chickens. We are in the thought process of doing the same thing. Eggs and chickens are a tradable item in tough times.

[Zombie Axe]

Sounds like a nice hi-tech low budget chicken coop. I too am interested in seeing the moods you make for chickens. We are in the thought process of doing the same thing. Eggs and chickens are a tradable item in tough times.

EXACTLY or is that EGGACTLY??? :rolleyes::D:cool:

The solar cooling is gonna be more like a 15W panel hooked up to a 12V DC motor (electric radiator fan maybe) just to circulate air...

The lighting will be used in the winter to try and coax the hens to lay eggs by running a solar powered light/s... if this doesn't work (dunno if chickens will respond well to LED lighting I have a really bright one I use to light up my US flag @ night and got 3 of those as spares)) then I will try the grid tie...

It is gonna be some fun...

[Applejack]

Ideas for chicken coup, love the idea. Though we have a problem with whatever is killing chickens here. Guy that works at market and his father has farm land just lost over 100 chickens to fox.. Don't know if he had them free range or not. That is a lot of chickens. He had about a 160 all together. That is not far from us at all but we can have no more than 4 to 6 chickens in a neighborhood. They just started letting us have them about 2 or 3 years ago. Lady across from my driveway had 4 of them and we think a possum got them. I want to raise some but will have to bury some fencing under ground to keep animals from digging under coup.

[RICHFL]

A couple of ideas for you.

Heat - chickens need a set temperature if too hot they will die if too cold they will die....... Answer temp gauge with heat lamps.

Place to roam - .....Answer put them into a A frame wire structure during the day and house in the coop at night.

Storage - You need room for storage of feed, straw, and water.
Answer is use the upper part as a storage attic.

[Cedar]

Make sure they can roost high too.

Cedar

[Applejack]

Thanks for the advice on this. Putting the feed up into a loft is a good idea. Will need some help to get this one done. So on back burner for now. But am trying to get plans together for it. Have been thinking about this one for a while. We have more front yard than back yard so trying to figure out best place as I would like to increase size of garden a bit as well.

[CountryGuy]

AJ, Look into a light weight chicken tractor you can move around your yard. Can build very light with mainly PVC pipe and a little wood and build in a small coop, or at evening move it to your coop and let them go from the tractor to it and shut them in for the night. The tractor will let them free range getting extra goodies and letting them scratch and it will all help improve your grounds fertility. If you want to keep them in the tractor (or if you have a separate coop); to help with critter prevention you can ring the outside with electro tape or netting connected to a small solar powered fence charger something in a 25 mile range. Any critter getting close - ZAP! Coon, possum or whatever tries to get in and u light them up and they'll split. next moring open the coop to let them into the tractor and move the tractor to a new spot in the yard.

Check Google and youtube and you'll see a lot of designs around this. I'm planning building one this winter to use in the spring. I wanted to get something in place this fall so chickens would be laying by spring but to much stuff has come up. Now I'm looking at doing courtnix quail as you can put these 4 to 5 per 2'x2' cage so you can put a small rack in your garage with say 6 to 8 cages and have say 24 to 30+ birds. They start laying eggs at 6 weeks rather than 26 weeks for a chicken. Once u get your system down you can cull your roosters (after 6 weeks) and meat birds at like 8 to 12 weeks and just get a rotation going of hatching out new batch. You do need to use a high protein game bird feed mix in the 26-27% range but if you have say 12 layers you might expect 7-8 eggs per day with about 3 eggs equaling a large chicken egg. So not bad in less than 2 months.