building another bird pen

Michelle K linnane · Jun 21, 2009

Well here are a few pics of my new chukar and quail pen. It is based on 8ft 2 X4.

1) Design something easy to build.
Materials used all wood PT For 8 x8 section pens
6@ 20 ｽ inch 2 X 4
12@ 24 inche 45 % ends
10@ 8 X 2 X 4
1@ 8 X 2 X 6

aaaframea.jpg is a picture of the frame.

The floor of the pen is 2 feet off the ground. It is 8 foot high, 8 foot wide, 8 foot long. We built the pens modular style, by my barn to make it easy for electric and air compressor.

2) how do I move it once it is built?
I bought scheduled 80 pipe 6 inches to go over my tractor folks to move everything with. I have included the measurements. Once we had design it took two hours to build each section. We have built 5 sections. We wired the bottom of the pens with 1 ｽ wire as chukars and quail have small feet and it helps keeping anything from getting the pen.

3) Site prep for pens
I prepared the site for pens by mowing and then spraying weed killer to get all grass down this also helps with predators.

4) Wire I used and why?
The sides are a welded wire 1inch by ｽ 4 foot up. We will over lapped the wire on the out side of the pen as I had a roll 1 inch by 2 inch decided not to cut it just overlap. I am waiting for more 1 ｽ wire to come in so we can finish.

5) What to use on top?
I order 2 inch netting for the top and will use some metal pipe I have maybe to keep netting tight I have made up my mind yet about that. We have tinned two parts to give the birds cover and a catch area.

One part is completed isolated so I can have two different age groups of birds. In the big pen. I will tin the very end to provide a wind break. To help the wind from hitting the birds so hard, also we may tin part way up. But I will decide that later. But here is what we have done so far.

6) how to tie everything together
Once pens were built we moved them but placed wire on bottom first to keep from racking too much. The next step was to level pens, and lagged together. As you can see from photos we started to wire pen in but ran out one long piece. Will get more detailed photos of supports once it drys out and also after we install dead men on the walk way.
Picture 0621pic3a.jpg

Door does not appear to straight as we still have finished racking everything and also we
Plan tinning this part. But this is what we have done so far. Will post more when wire is in.
Michelle

hobie · Jun 24, 2009

Nice work! A lot more secure than my brother's coop.

Michelle K linnane · Jun 30, 2009

finally finished chukar pen and moved the 8 pheasants and 8 chukars in this pen. Also threw my road island red chickens in there so I only had pen of birds to feed and water. Now we can start to place the catch area in the pen I already have. Also need to disinfect the pen I already have. We are building an 8 x 32 on the end of the pens so the food is protected so we can leave about 150 lbs of food infront of the birds. I have 150 pheasants coming the third week of july. I just bought 2 250 gallon water tanks so we can set up nipple waters. With that much food in front of the birds and always fresh water they are not that much trouble. Will post some pictures of the new finished pen when I get a minute. Also will post pictures of the new pen and the small pole barn we are building.
michelle
stonewall boarding and game preserve

Tororider · Jun 30, 2009

Can't wait to see pictures with the birds in it. Nice work.

EddieWalker · Jun 30, 2009

Are the birds for training of dogs? or will you be selling them to a club?

Since you list a game preserve in your signature, will they be raised for hunting on your land?

I've been to a few clubs when I lived in California and shot chuckar and pheasant on them. Not allot by most standards, but enough to have a few meals during the year. Some birds just won't fly no matter what, while others take off like rockets. Everyone said that the birds the fly were raised in super large pens with room for the to fly in, while the ones that didn't fly were raised in pens that were too small for them to learn to fly.

Eddie

jimmyj · Jun 30, 2009

Great looking pens!

Do you ever have any problems with birds getting their feet attacked from below the floor? I ask because I cannot see if the netting goes all the way to the ground and a neighbor has had coons pull bird feet through the wire.

I don't know if you have varmint problems but a nifty thing we did for our pen (we have a nylon mesh top also and two of our neighbours have had varmints tear through the mesh and kill the birds) was to run one strand of electric fence wire around the side of the pen near the top so that if a varmint climbs up the wire it will get zapped (grounded by the welded wire) and fall down. Have never had a problem.

Michelle K linnane · Jul 7, 2009

Hi guys,

The first three are the newly finshed pen with BIRDS.
Here are some finished pictures of my last pen it has pheasants, chukars,
and some of road island red chickens everybody running around together.

The next 6 pic are new pen and partly built
The next couple of pictures is the newest pen and modifiying the one I built last year. I found out I need to cover their food and also have a better catch area when hunters comes and I am tired of being in the mud. So This time I laid down about 18 ton of number 2 followed by stone dust. the next 6 pictures is us spreading the stone dust.

The next two pictures
Just to get to the birds pens we had to dump about 36 tons of crusher run which nevers goes very far. But it did not completely finish my road back to my bird pens. But almost.

The next picture was the pen whcihc I completed last year and the new one is right beside it. And the next pictures is what we are adding one. I plan on having a tin shed there for catch area and to protect food it will be 8 X 16 for each pen so it will be 8 X 32 total.

As we finish framing I will add more pictures. When I am done I will have a chukar pen 8 by 40 feet long. and two pheasant pens 70 feet long by 16 feet wide and sheds attached to the pen 8 by 32 feet. Also some one gave me a shed which is 10 X 10 and I will use that to store my food. Last year I had a pond dug up pheasant pen and I just bought two 250 gallon water tanks I will use my trash pump to pump water in the holding tank and nipple waters for all the three pens water. NO MORE WATERS YES