3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

The place we decided to build the new chicken coop had plenty of challenges.
It is behind our garage where the land slopes off a lot, and there is also a small rock out cropping that will be inside the coop. We figured the chickens would like a little diversity inside their coop. It turned out to be very hard to build there. There was a lot of climbing around to get from one place to another, and worst of all, we could not get the tractors in there to move dirt or dig the footings. So we had to do it all by hand. Below are some photos which show the back of the garage area. We started out by making our own concrete beam supports using Folgers coffee cans. You can read the Folgers writing on the concrete supports. We also put in two of the same 3" drainage lines in the lower corners of the coop. In some of the photos you can see the proximity to the home.
Rob-

[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-

[red]

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-

[/quote]

Rob why the roof over the A/C?

I put my unit under my back deck with 5 + ft of clearance and got a lot of crap from my brother (A/C mechanic) about enough clearance for the air from the fan.

How many chickens will you be up too? Was told after a year they start to get too tough for good eating. We get fresh eggs from a guy that works with my wife and what a difference in taste! -Ed

[3RRL]

I put the roof over the air conditioner unit to keep leaves and debris out of the radiator fins.
Mostly it was to keep the unit in the shade during the 110° summer months. There is a lot of room on top of it, plus room all around and even behind where the garage wall is. So there is plenty of circulating ventilation. I even have a mister hose for it which helps cool it down during those months. It makes quite a difference, because the unit will only cool x degrees cooler (like 30 or 40 degrees) than what itself is. The cooler I can keep that unit, the cooler the air conditioning can get inside the home.

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.

[red]

Rob-

Thanks for the explanation as usual it makes complete sense!

Here's an article on Eggs Myths
green.yahoo.com/blog/the_conscious_consumer/132/four-myths-about-eggs.html

Still think the brown eggs taste better!

[Rich Waugh]

When I lived in Phoenix we had, like almost everyone, central air conditioning. I put a "head cooler" on our roof-mounted AC unit, basically an evaporative cooler that cooled the compressor head and condensing coils. Our neighbors across the street had an identical house (old subdivision tract homes) but without the head cooler - our electric bill was just half of what theirs was for the same degree of comfort inside. Well worth it!

Scientific reports notwithstanding, I think brown eggs taste better, too! Works for me.

Rich

[3RRL]

Ditto for the brown eggs tasting better.
Your example Rich, of using the "head cooler" for you air conditioning is much like my prehistoric way of keeping my unit cooler. It works twice as good with a lot less electrical use to keep the home comfortable. Even though in our case the electricity if "free", there is only so much of it we make each day. So we monitor usage like crazy, and do what we can to use it wisely and sparingly when we can.
Rob-

[roy697]

I was going over some of your projects on this thread & PhotoBucket will not let me in to your video, I was wanting to see the box blade pushing. I may be trying that soon with Franky.

[3RRL]

Sept 1, 2010 12:58:17 GMT -5 roy697 said:

I was going over some of your projects on this thread & PhotoBucket will not let me in to your video, I was wanting to see the box blade pushing. I may be trying that soon with Franky.

Hmmm, that's odd???
I will post a couple for you right now Roy. There should also have been several photos of pushing in reverse while I was building the barn pad. BTW, I saw your quonset hut thread and saw that you are going to try snapping turtle. Be careful with them suckers for sure.
Here are the videos below...
Rob-

[roy697]

Thanks for the new posting. Those clips worked just fine. Had some problems this trip so I did not get to do to much.
Photo Bucket ask me to sign in with the older postings but then still will not let me see them.
Any how the fish were biting. My son used the word HAMMER. Found some kinds that I didn't know were in the pond, did not get time to go for the turtles. How ever my son did hit a turtle while casting, yes there are a lot of them in the pond. They seem to very curious, after a few minutes of casting they start to appear all over the place. I did not see the big monsters that I saw last time.