Now that we have light in the barn, there is no excuse for not working on getting our chicken coop built! Particularly now that the temperature has slowly increased…. notwithstanding a recent storm yielding measureable snow a couple of days ago. But that’s the winter/spring dance that we reluctantly participate in every year in the northeast!
As we told you a while ago, we visited a farming family, the Dougherty’s, in southeastern Ohio who were wonderful about sharing their best practices and have written an awesome book which is “must reading” for any small farmer/homesteader. During our visit, the Dougherty’s showed us their version of a laying hen “chicken tractor”. So using their basic design which makes this very cheap, light and easy to build, we fashioned a slightly larger version designed for 10-15 laying hens.
The idea, by the way, of a chicken “tractor” is a moveable coop with no bottom to it. So by moving it every one to two days we fertilize the pasture and regularly provide the hens with brand new forage filled with whatever delicious bugs and worms reside in that particular plot, all the while protecting them from any predators.
Below you can see the basic design features (a la Dougherty) consisting of 1×6 inch planks separated by 2×4 inch x 2 foot long risers to make a pen which is about 9×8 feet. The roofing is simply 10 foot long 3/4 inch electrical metal conduit (EMC) bent to about a 90 degree angle, slotted into 3 foot long 1 inch diameter EMC posts attached to the 1x6s and bent to leave about 1 foot as the recepticle for the roofing EMC.
With such a light design the trick was working out how to carry along the feed container with 30 pounds of layer pellets, and the water container weighing up to 40 pounds or so! Seen in the photo below, our solution for the feed was to place a small platform diagonally in the corner, with the added benefit of bracing that corner. This was ideal because the adjacent side was less rigid due to the necessity of incoporating a door space. The attachment to the roof is not bearing weight and is simply to hold the container in place on the platform.
For security, the vertical sides have 2 foot wide 1/2 inch hardware cloth attached via pneumatic stapler as you see below. This is very quick to install securely as long as you have sufficient staples!
Our solution for the water was a little innovative. We have found that the best waterer, with least opportunity for mess and consequent cleaning, is a 5 gallon bucket with 3-4 nipples underneath, similar to this. But the roofing structure held together with cable ties did not seem to be robust enough to support this weight. So after a lot of thinking, we decided to experiment with using a 10 foot long pole of 1 inch diameter black plumbing pipe through holes in 2×4 inch posts braced at each end of the coop. It is also tied into the much lighter roofing joists to further supplement the rigidity of the entire roof. The water bucket is attached via a robust metal chain as you see below. Time will tell if this is strong enough for the pupose!
Access to the coop is via a primitive door lined with hardware cloth that provides both predator security as well as bracing/rigidity. The door has a spring loaded hinge at the top so that it stays closed while we work changing feed/water etc. without having to latch and unlatch every time.
Previous stationary coops we have built contain nesting boxes built in place. These are really heavy, difficult to clean, and not suited to the portability of this coop. So we splurged on these two nesting boxes sold by Premier 1, a great company for all sorts of chicken and livestock fencing and supplies. They are plastic and really light and strong; mounted on a frame of 2x4s. With the optional attachment, they have the added benefit of supposedly rolling out the eggs into that covered plastic container underneath so they don’t get dirty. We are skeptical about whether this will really work and will report back on the efficacy of this innovation.
The next step is to secure the roof area against escape and predators. Hardware cloth is expensive and hard to work with so for this portion we (like the Dougherty’s) opted for good old chicken wire, attached via staples to the wood, and via cable ties to itself and to piping. Interestingly we calculated pretty well on the amount to purchase (50 feet long x 3 feet wide) as we had about a 1 foot square piece left over at the end!
Finally, we are going to cover the majority of the coop with Tyvek house wrap. This is durable material that is really cheap and therefore easy to replace if torn or worn out. It is waterproof, but breathable, which might help in the summer during high humidity heat. This is an experiment, which we will also let you know how it turns out.
The last step is to find some long tree branches to attach as night roosts, as chickens prefer to sleep while roosting.
Robin is finalizing some attachments to the chicken wire in the photograph below.
A wicked thought…. If the door “accidently” locked itself, perhaps we could experiment with the concept of “free-ranged” wives? While this may be consistent with what the rest of the world thinks of social arrangments in rural America, it is probably not worthwhile testing this idea. Instead of the “chicken house”, I would probably end up in the “dog house, and I’m not sure I would be given free range privileges!
Morning Star Meadows Farm 