All Cooped Up: Part 2

As I said in my previous post, I started trying to salvage an old work shop and convert it into a home for my new poultry flock.  With the bird flu devastating poultry populations around the country and the ensuing pressures put on hatcheries, newly hatched chicks were in short supply, with no guarantees that they would be available when I was ready.  Thus, I bought some chicks when I got the chance.  This put me under added pressure to get the coop done.

Still, I was making progress toward removing all the old siding and replacing rotted studs when a storm hit and I got home to find the skeletal building leaning precariously.

What was I going to do?

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The building was leaning such that more wind could have left it pancake flat in the grass.  True to my luck, a quick check of weather reports said that another strong wind was on its way.

Dang it!

I rounded up some ropes and ratchet straps I’ve gathered up over the years.  I attached one from the upper southeast corner of the building to a big holly tree and another from the upper southwest corners to one of the big 6×6 posts which supports the deck beside our above-ground swimming pool.  With a lot of running back-and-forth with a spirit level I ratcheted the building back up into almost perfect square.

It was good that I got that done when I did because the predicted big wind came up almost as soon as I completed it.  Luckily it blew the same direction as the previous one.  My ratchet straps held and didn’t change the square of the building at all.  To show you how lucky that was, I could grab one of the studs in the wall and move the whole building several inches.

Yeah, lucky.

I got into my scrap lumber pile and found some old one-by cypress lumber from my remodel of the old barn on the farm Mom, Dad, and I had bought when I was in high school.  Yes, I’ve kept that lumber around for about twenty years now.

Anyway, I used some of that old one-by lumber to attach diagonal braces inside the soon-to-be chicken coop and increased the strength of the building immensely. 

The old barn isn’t the only scrap wood I’ve hung onto.  When Annie, my sister Chickie, and I were cleaning up Mom’s house to sell, I tore out some shelves Dad had built in the basement sewing room.  He’d built them of 1x12s and 1x4s.  I could see the 1x12s becoming book shelves in my future studio but the 1x4s were perfect for my current project.

Of course, all the studs are vertical in the building.  Well, steel siding is commonly mounted vertically too.  To attach vertical sheets of steel on vertical studs requires the application of furring strips which, coincidentally in this situation, can be made of 1x4s.  My research showed that there are some guidelines but no set spacing for the attachment of furring strips.  Since the back wall is eight feet tall (six feet from the sill which rests on concrete pillars) I decided to put a furring strip on the sill, another three feet up from that, and a third three more feet up, at the top of the wall.  On the two side walls, which started at six feet (not counting the pillars, of course) and angled up to eight feet, I repeated the three foot spacing but added a fourth along the angle of the roof.  The front roof, at ten feet tall looked to do just fine with three strips four feet apart.

Since the back (north) wall would not require me to cut any sheet metal, I started on that side.  I was working alone so I would place the sheet, hold it in place, and check its plumb with a level before putting a couple screws in to hold it in place until I put the rest of them in.  All this time before I got the first two screws in I was holding the sheet in place and not letting it move even a fraction of an inch. 

If all that sounds like it requires more than the two hands normal people are born with, you’d be right.  I’d hold the sheet, using my knee, butt, or elbow to keep it from moving as I positioned a screw and the driver, only to slip just before the screw could actually bite.  By the time I got the first two sheets attached I’d exercised my vocabulary more than Mom would have approved.

Before I had to go around town apologizing to all the mothers of small children for the audible education I’d given them, Annie came home and rescued us all.

That weekend she and I worked together to measure, cut, and fit every sheet of metal.  I held it up while she checked the plumb and placed the first couple screws.  With my indefatigable wife’s help I don’t exaggerate by saying we finished the coop in at least ¼ the time it would have taken me to do it by myself.  It would probably have taken much more than that…but that’s something I really don’t want to find out for sure.

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The coop itself was solid enough, but I still needed a good door before I could move the chickens in.  I’d hung on to the old door that was falling off the shed when we bought the place, even though it was barely in any shape you might consider salvageable…barely.  It was so old that it still had the old lock attached to it from its original days in someone’s house.  You know, the box-type door lock that requires a skeleton key to operate the mechanism.

There was a piece of ½-inch plywood in the old garage and some quick math told me it could help me salvage the old door. 

I cut the plywood down to cover the bottom 2/3 of the door, squared everything up and screwed it together.  Then I covered the remainder of the door with some 1/8-inch carpenters’ cloth and used scraps from the plywood to hold the hardware cloth on the door while also adding more strength and support.

Some reused hinges and some gate hooks I’d salvaged from somewhere years ago made hanging the door quick work.

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With the building itself basically complete, it was time to introduce the chickens, who had grown quite a bit.  The “couple weeks” I had intended to house them in the small cage had almost doubled due to factors beyond our control and the chicks were more crowded than I had ever wanted them to be.  I felt lucky to have avoided stress-related issues thus far and was eager to give them some room.

I caught the chicks one at a time and moved them to a waiting cardboard box as Annie stood by to prevent any excited bird from flying out to get a taste of even more freedom, albeit quite temporary.

Dogs being the voracious carnivores they are, they’re always eager to take advantage of a fortuitous circumstance to snatch a meal of escaped poultry.  I don’t mind sharing bones and bits of fat skin from fried chickens, but we aren’t to that point yet.  Thus my lovely wife’s temporary engagement as goalie.

Back at the new coop, Annie opened the folded flaps and we found the little birds somewhat shy about leaving the known safety of the box for the unknown freedom of the comparatively vast building.  Annie gently dumped them out and they quickly adapted to their new circumstances.

Think about that: from the incubator where they were hatched, then to the crowded quarters of a brooder and to my little cage.  My 13’x16’ coop was by far the most room they’ve ever had…and I want to give them even more.

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As far as the coop itself, it still needed a couple things to be complete…nest boxes and roosts.  Chickens evolved as a forest-dwelling bird, the red jungle fowl.  As a defense against predators they evolved to hide in trees at night so that they could relax a bit more and sleep without too much fear.  The ones who evaded predators passed on to their descendants the desire to nest in hollow trees or in hidden, elevated places.  That’s why our modern chickens want roosts and nest boxes.

The roosts were pretty easy to provide.  As I spoke of in an earlier post, I considered using tree branches attached to the walls of the coop.  Well, I gathered some branches and stored them with that in mind. 

Annie reminded me that she liked the way I made the roost in one of our previous coops.  I’d built it of scrap lumber and hinged it to the wall so that it could be folded out for use, and folded against the wall to make cleaning the coop easier.

Well, in my continuing effort to learn, I built a hinged one using scrap lumber and will also attach a branch to the wall and observe which the birds like better.  I’ll go with whichever one works best.

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As I said, the new coop began life as a run-down work shop.  While I was cleaning it out and discarding stuff that had aged beyond use, I made special notice of an old three-door kitchen cabinet that a previous owner had used to store parts and materials.  It had been repurposed before and it occurred to me that I could reuse it again.  I checked the measurements and found that it didn’t lack much to be perfect for a set of nest boxes.  It was still fairly solid, except that the back had rotted and been picked beyond use by the chickens who had claimed the tool shed before we bought the place.

I removed what was left of the back and mulled over what to replace it with.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I could just turn the cabinet around backwards and screw it to the wall, thus using the doors, which I was originally going to discard, as the new back. 

Bingo, two problems solved.

Two of the three shelves in the cabinet were each about an inch too close together and the third was about two inches farther from them than necessary.  Simple solution, I relocated the too-close-two.  Now all three are exactly the right distance apart for my Buff Orpingtons.  Widthwise the shelves were slightly wider than I absolutely needed to divide into boxes.  Not a big problem.  Better that than too small.  I made dividers and attached them to the shelves in such a way that each shelf was divided into four nest boxes. 

So the cabinet that some might have yanked out of the old tool shed and burned has been repurposed into 12 almost perfectly sized nest boxes.  On one of our trips to a lumber yard, I noticed some broken pieces of lathe (thin strips of wood about two-inches wide) lying around.  I asked the employee who was gathering the lumber we’d purchased what they were going to do with the lathe.  He said they were going to throw them away and I was free to gather all I wanted.  I did.  They were perfect for attaching across the front of the nest boxes to help keep nesting material and eggs in the nest boxes, so that’s what I did.

I added roosts made from scrap wood so that the hens can hop onto them, then step into the nest boxes.  The nest boxes were completed for a total cash outlay of…$0!  The wood was all scrap or free, like the cabinet.  The brads and screws I used did cost something when I first bought them for another project so that cost had already been recouped.  My time?  Well, I did it for fun so… yep, $0.

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As I’ve alluded to in the past, I had acquired some thirty-gallon food-grade plastic barrels with removable lids.  I had converted one of them to a chicken feeder by installing a large funnel, big-end-down, and attached by means of a length of all-thread rod with washers and nuts on each end.  That same rod passed through the bottom of the barrel.  I had cut the bottom couple inches off a larger (55-gallon) plastic barrel and attached it to the smaller by means of the same all-thread.  I had already drilled two-inch holes around the base of the smaller barrel so, when I poured chicken feed in the little barrel, it made its way around the upside down funnel and leaked out the holes, filling the space between it and the big barrel and offering easy access to the hungry chicks.

The other thirty-gallon barrel was fairly easy to make into a waterer by the use of four little spring-operated automatic watering cups which I bought off eBay for $13 total.  I just drilled four 1/8-inch holes halfway around the base of the barrel and inserted the threaded ends of the cups.  Then I reached inside the barrel and screwed on sealing caps.

When I poured enough water into the barrel to test the cups, one of them didn’t work right so I contacted the company and they gave me a partial refund.  I bought four more so I have three extras for possible replacements in the future.

With about thirty gallons of feed and an equal amount of water, Annie and I should be able to comfortably visit the grandkids for a few days on occasion, or even take a vacation without having to worry about our poultry going hungry or thirsty.

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We bought some 4’x4’ posts and 5’ tall 2”x4” welded wire.  I’ll install the posts and the wire soon and the chicks will be able to begin their adjustment to even more freedom and the wonders of eating grass, weeds, and bugs.  Experiments have already exposed them to those new foods and, believe me, they are enthusiastic about their upcoming opportunities.

That first pen will be about 13’x13’ and will be the initial step in the three-part process.  As I said earlier, I like to plan things out before I start, and that 13’x13’ will have three gates.  One will allow access to the pen and coop from the yard.  Another will open to another pen I will build behind the coop itself and the other will open to a larger pen behind my future studio.  That way I can alternate the pens the birds are using which will give the grass in them some time to recover between uses.  Thus the poultry should have access to greenery most of the year instead of denuding their pen and killing everything they like to eat, then scratching around in bare dirt.

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At the farm Mom, Dad, and I bought so long ago there was a mulberry tree that grew over the fence of the barnyard.  When Annie, the boys, and I moved back to Malden and brought our livestock with us, one of the critters was a white Welsh/appaloosa pony named Sunny (Sundance Bullet).  Each year the critters would eat every mulberry that dropped into their paddock.  Sunny was especially entertaining because, being white, the mulberry juice would stain his lips red.  The boys laughed at their horse wearing lipstick.

Anyway, that mulberry tree had grown up as a volunteer and the good food that the critters got from it cost us nothing.  However, one idea that memory gave me was invaluable.  I bought a couple year-old mulberry starts and planted one in what will be each of the two big chicken pens.  My theory is that the chickens will clean up the fallen fruit as it drops from the trees every year.

Again, free food!

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When those few things that remain are done, the chicken complex will be complete and shouldn’t require a lot of maintenance.  In the future we’ll add more fencing and, when we can teach the dogs not to kill poultry we will try true free range, with fencing to keep them out of the yard and away from the house.

Until then the poor birds will have to remain relatively cooped-up in their 13’x16’ coop and 10,000-plus square feet of grass, bugs, and mulberries…if you can call that cooped-up.

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