3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

The coop was starting to look like something...
Loretta, (of course) did all the painting. Only the back half, the part against the garage will be covered. The coop is about 10'x12' and pretty tall, so there is a lot of room for nests and roosting areas. The place we picked is really great for the chickens. They have shelter from wind, rain and sun. Right in front of the coop is a large Buckeye tree where they can scrounge for food when they are free ranging.

 

[3RRL]

I had an old garden shed down in Rancho that I took down.
A large tree branch fell and crushed the roof, but I saved the sides and roll-up door. I was hoping to use the metal scrap for something some day. I used most of the metal shed to make the roof and the sides of the coop. Again, I used wood from the scrap pile to build the frames and nests. The roosts are made from left over railings from our deck. I was even able to use some of the chicken wire from the old garden fence. So this coop, excepting some 2x4's and some new chicken wire I had to buy to make up the difference, it is made from nearly 100% scrap materials. Of course I had to buy and mix concrete for the footings too. It all came out pretty neat looking. lol ... Even the chickens were cruising around when I was building it, checking it inside and out. Oh, and you can see the roof I put over the air conditioner unit last year. It is made from the same shed metal and matches now.
Rob-

 

[PAGUY]

Looking good, Rob and Loretta.

How many chickens do you plan on raising at one time?

PAGUY

 

[MtnViewRanch]

My question is, just how many eggs do the two of you eat? :confused3: :licking:

Rob, everything is looking GREAT as usual. :thumbsup:

 

[dcyrilc]

Of interest is some PVC pipe bending we did.
Instead of using 90 or 45 degree elbows, I used a heat gun to put bends in the PVC lines. I talked to a landscaper and he told me there is a lot less restriction when you make a gradual bend instead of using a fitting. So I tried it and it works pretty good. Below are some photos where I used the technique . It worked also when I had several lines that needed to get out of each other's way or over the concrete foundation posts too. This guy also told me to use poly pipe when connecting the pop-up sprinklers to the main PVC line. That way they can move freely without breaking when you drive over them with the tractor or whatever.
Rob-

Hi Rob,

Good to hear from you on what's happening at the house. I have some sprinkler parts at the ranch and will try to remember to get you some pix on how the poly works to remove tension from the PVC if the sprinkler is run over or hit. As I used to work road construction building traffic signals, I used to salvage all that stuff for use on the ranch rather than letting the GC throw it in the trash. Used to bring a lot of plants home too. I managed to salvage about 400ft of 12" PVC pipe for culverts off one job! It was from the old storm drainage system which was being replaced and moved to the new curb line. They were uncovering it with the trackhoe, and then using the thumb and bucket on the maching to pull the sections apart. They came out with absolutely no damage and as full length 13ft sticks! You can see the end of one of the piles on the left side of the drive in this pic. (White pipe)

 

[tommu56]

Rob the sprinkler risers Ive put the taps off to the side of the pipe and a elbow with a barb in the tee to another barb adapter then the riser that way you can tweak the riser height or nit use the riser just polly pipe to the head
If the riser or head gets hit bad enough you won't mess up the run of pipe just the 12" of poly .

tom

 

[dcyrilc]

Here's the picture Rob. The white cap is where the head would go. It's just like tommu56 is describing.

 

[3RRL]

Thanks guys, for the info on the sprinkler set up.
That will work for sure. Mine are already in but if I break one, I will use that method in the repair.

Regarding the chickens, we are trying to have 10 or 12.
We lost Buzz, the gray hen to what I think might have been a rattle snake bite about 3 months ago. She expired next to the old coop where I found her. The dogs had not touched her and I couldn't find any other reason why she died? We got 4 more chicks after that ... 3 Leghorns hens and one Cochin hen. Well, we lost 2 of that batch because Coco decided to eat them.

The story behind that is when we got Daisy, the new pup, Coco would horde all the dog food and she was getting fat. So I put her on a diet and she must have been hungry enough to go after the smaller new chicks. I figure it was my own fault by dieting her? She has gotten along with the older chickens for over a year now (see the many photos of them together in previous posts). She was also getting along great with the younger chicks when they were out of the coop free-ranging. So it came as a complete surprise to me when I saw her with a dead chicken in her mouth. Now we are re-introducing them and I feed Coco and Daisy separately. But we are keeping a close eye on them.

About 2 weeks ago, we got 6 more chicks.
Three of them are New Hampshire Reds and three are Aracanas. They are all hens. The Aracanas are also known as Easter eg chickens. They will have multi-colored eggs I am told. Anyway, if they all make it, we will have a total of 11 chickens. The fresh eggs are great. We will give the excess eggs to my ex and the kids down there.

 

[charlz]

I use black poly for the main run as well. Then just use clamp-on saddles for the short runs to the sprinklers. Poly will expand a bit if it gets frozen with water in it and unlikely to crack like PVC will. As the landscaping grows you might need to add or move sprinklers, with the poly main run it is easy to dig it up and clamp on a new saddle as needed.

 

[dcyrilc]

I use black poly for the main run as well. Then just use clamp-on saddles for the short runs to the sprinklers. Poly will expand a bit if it gets frozen with water in it and unlikely to crack like PVC will. As the landscaping grows you might need to add or move sprinklers, with the poly main run it is easy to dig it up and clamp on a new saddle as needed.

Charlz,

Since you're in the NW, I wanted to make you aware of the TBN PNW Picnic I'm trying to put together for this summer. http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/related-topics/170534-how-do-you-like-your.html

Sorry to jump the thread Rob. You're certianly invited too if you can make it up this way! I'm hoping to get the word out to as many people as possible.