RD & Gwyn's In-Town Homestead

[reddawnspokane]

Great looking work so far.

[nichevo]

Wow Gwyn, you've made amazing progress! You'll have that coop done in no time. Maybe instead of construction fencing, you need crime tape

[junior125]

I give the fence a week

[Gwynmael]

junior

Since we put it up on the South bed, they "mostly" leave it alone. They keep sticking their heads under it, so we tightened it up and that stopped them.

[W.Lynn]

If you'd just have the sense to let them dig in your prime diggy-boxes, and put your boring ol' veggies somewhere boring, all would be well. Just ask them.

[AD]

Whose the guy in the PINK shirt?

[RD]

Whose the guy in the PINK shirt?

It's peach color, and that person is my father.


RD

[Gwynmael]

Otherwise known as Papa.

Some photos from today.

Here's our swamp. We had several heavy rounds of thunderstorms last night, temporarily turned it back into a lake; it had drained by the time I started taking pictures. The square concrete pavers that lead up to the gate were completely underwater. RD had me rake half of the straw to the side to see if that would help the sun and wind dry it out quicker. ~results were mixed.
This is the worst trouble we've had with this area since we bought the house in 2000. RD reminded me that that area grew grass until we got Max. Now with three dogs it is very heavily traveled and wrestled in. It's going to require renting a trencher and putting in a french drain to remediate. ~sigh~



Coop progress completed today - the nesting boxes.
Have I said yet just how crappy the coop plan is that we started with?







Opening cut and installation.


Of course, all the dogs had to come investigate.
Raven and Max


Max


Tess


mounted


RD still has to figure out the correct pieces & cuts needed to create the "drop doors" for exterior egg retrieval. And what type of hinges he wants me to get.
That's as far as we got with it today. While we were both hoping to be much further along in the construction, considering our carpentry/building experience is close to nil and how much we've had to figure out/design ourselves, I think we're doing rather well. In all fairness -- RD said "Tell me what you want it to look like and I'll figure it out".

Tomorrow's agenda for the coop - I need to pick up some spray foam to fill one gap between the opening and the nesting boxes that is a skosh too big to use caulking; caulk the other seams around the nesting boxes; and start priming and painting inside and out of the coop.

That last part will be easier as there's no actual roof on it yet, just a temp piece laid on top so we could tarp to keep the rain out.

RD gets to go back to work tomorrow and it's expected to not get off until late, so he'll get a break from the coop. He says I worked him like a rented mule this weekend. That's okay, I worked myself like a rented mule this past week.

[Tex]

RD, you are doing a nice job on that coop.

Gwyn, you will be glad you went ahead and put in four nesting boxes. With livestock and food animals, it is always good to have more than what you think you will need.



Tex

[tk]

I would put a 3 or 4 inch strip at the bottom of both boxes then use a piano hinge attached to the doors and the strips.You can get it in a 4 foot strip and cut it to length with a hack saw. The strips will keep the nesting material from coming out when you open the door to get the eggs you only need enough room to get your hand under the hen. Watch what you use to fill in the gaps a chicken will peck the foam or the caulking out in no time.

I have 4 outside doors on mine

That's inside the coop of course this is when it was new . The boy had as many as 30 chickens in there .

The far left openings was their outside pen . I took the chicken coop out when the boy went to college and I needed more shop space but someday i'll get more
you will like the outside doors you can get eggs and never have to step in you know. I thought I had some pics of it when it was finished but I guess not.

[nichevo]

You sure that isn't a dog house for Tess? I'm pretty sure that is what she is thinking!

[tk]

found one of the outside.
shed 040.jpg

[Gwynmael]

Oh there's already a dog house, they pretty much only go in there if they smell a rabbit around it. Nope, she was just wanting to know what Daddy was doing.

They're going to hate it once the fence goes up. LOL

[Gwynmael]

tk - so the door is basically at the lower side of the middle of the height?

[tk]

yea the door should be mounted to open down and hinged at the bottom of the boxes.