Fatjay picks up chicks!

[fatjay]

Almost done the garage, but decided to pick up a new mini-project. Having had horses, chickens, goats, bees, and ducks, it's been years since I've had anything. But it feels like a good time to get back into it.

Picked up:

• 6 Cinnamon queen's which produce 260 large brown eggs a year
• 2 Easter eggers which produce 240 medium eggs a year, but they have many colors from blue to green to brown to white to pink
• 2 Starlight green eggers which produce 280 medium green eggs a year
• 2 Rhode Island Red's which produce 265 large brown eggs a year

Started with a bin and a screen over it. Put up string and got everything square, then drilled holes for posts. Then cut to level. Ran 2x8's across and made sure everything was level. Dumped concrete down the post holes and let them set. Put hardware cloth on the bottom, painted hte bottom of the plywood, and put the plywood on. Screwed joists up under to prevent flex.

Hit up facebook marketplace and found a $10 window. Anderson, double paned, 6mo old, can't argue with that. Visited the HD and spent $750 on plywood and 2x4's. I picked up pre-cut 92-5/8 cuts so I could make all the walls the same length, then just have the top plate alternate and join all at the top.

The chicks quickly outgrew the bucket I had them in, so I had to throw together something with a bit more space. Reused all the wood from the garage build and picked up $22 of green plastic mesh. And they're really happy in that for now.

Got all the walls together with man door, chicken door, window framed, and egg boxes.

For fathers day, the children reluctantly helped me put the walls, they were on hte heavy side. Pinned one bottom corner, then pinned the second top plates to get all the walls up. Got plumb and screwed everything together. My @)#(&0)* nail gun quit loading on me, and I couldn't find 34 degree nails for my backup nail gun in a store, so I wanted to kill myself screwing everything in.

I learned math and got my trusses cut. I'll hammer them with the ties when it's not after hours. But damn, I love my garage for having space to do this in.

 

[scaredychicken]

That is a LOT of expertly done work. Good job, the chickens will be happy.

This is typically my brooder for the chicks for the first month ... set up in the garage, for convenient monitoring
- empty cardboard watermelon / potato bin (free) with base, placed on a Tarp
- old hockey stick across the top to hold the heat lamp
- sawdust, waterer, feeder, heatlamp (as needed)
- plastic mesh to cover over the bin, to avoid escapees

all the best with your feathered babies <3

when it wears out, I get another free replacement, before they (Walmart, Grocery Store) send the bin to the crusher

 

[rScotty]

Remember that a coop needs a good strong door that closes and locks at night....every night. Same for shutters on the windows. Keeps critters out.
rScotty

 

[bullbreaker]

Thanks for posting and sharing cool project-etc !
I knew even before opening your thread it wasn't about picking up the " other kind of Chick's " !
That's a good way to get in a heap of trouble and an azz whipping in court !
Keep thread going as the ethical "chick's " produce ! lol

 

[scaredychicken]

Everybody needs this shirt

 

[fatjay]

Remember that a coop needs a good strong door that closes and locks at night....every night. Same for shutters on the windows. Keeps critters out.
rScotty

A friend of mine is heavily recommending the omlet automatic chicken door. There's a dozen $200 automatic chicken doors, but i'm leaning towards the omlet unless I hear otherwise.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife and I started out with about the same number of birds, and a similar mix. The coop was 10x20 and for the first few months, it seemed big enough for all of them. But then everything changed, and the Rhode Islands became aggressive to the other birds. Great layers, but super mean once they mature.

We where kind of scared to open up the coop and let them free range, but once we made the decision to do so, everything changed. The Rhode Islands calmed down and stopped attacking the other birds. We think that they need lots of open space to be happy. We did lose some birds to coyotes, but that was my fault because I didn't have the yard fenced in, and I underestimated how aggressive the coyotes would be during the day.

We're at around100 birds now with 3 coops, and selling a dozen eggs for $5, along with feeding about 2 dozen a day to our dogs. People love the different colors of the eggs. Most of the people that we sell them to, are repeat customers, they buy 2 to 4 dozen at a time, and tell us that they taste better then store bought eggs, which is why they keep buying them from us.

 

[scaredychicken]

EddieWalker - I can relate to most of that.

We currently have a mixed flock of about 60 birds. 3 broody hens with 12 eggs, 10 more eggs in the incubator. we'll see how the nest couple of weeks work out. Our customers just love our mix & match eggs. We are charging $5.50 Cdn right now.

I would give a discount if the customers would request eggs by referring to them as Cackle Berries, Butt Nuggets, or even the IKEA breakfast (you build it yourself)

 

[fatjay]

Interesting, it seems easter eggers so far are the more aggressive ones so far, but they're only 3 weeks at this point. I don't plan to sell eggs at this point, we go through 6-8 eggs a day ourselves, and I'm sure my parents will stop by to pick up eggs as well. My goal was just to solidify another food source. I'm still at the mercy of the feed store for chicken feed though.

 

[fatjay]

Got all the trusses cut, nailed the first one and put it up to make sure it fit. Looks solid, so I went back nail the rest at which point my wife came out and said I needed to take the kid to her friends house, then her to the grocery store, and while we're out we may as well stop by home depot. So by the time we got home it was to nail more for fear of angering the neighbors.