What's everybody doing today?

[The Lazy L]

Alexandra has been on me for years to build her a chicken coop. We have a little storage building behind the house that has a shed roof on the back of it. I thought that would be a good place for her coop. So I decided tonight after work I would start working on it for her, what I didn’t know the roof was rotten. So I rebuilt the roof framed up the coop added blocks under the framing put up the wire and all I have left to do is a wainscot of siding and build a door. This old man is wore out!

View attachment 82640View attachment 82641View attachment 82642View attachment 82643View attachment 82644

Suggestion. Run 1/2” hardware cloth down and out 12” or so. Prevents dogs and other varmits from digging under the wall for a chicken dinner.

 

[Amish Heart]

Run the hardware cloth on the ground, too. We build our runs like Fort Knox. We use chain link as a base, then add 1/4 over it, and a foot on the ground to avoid diggers trying to get in. Yep what Lazy L said. And I put big ol blocks of cement on the ground hardware cloth, just because I have lots of it.

 

[hashbrown]

If you have snakes you need 1/4" hardware cloth, for raccoons and such you need 1/2" to 1".

It will have siding up the first 3 feet.

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

The siding is a really good thing but you still need the anti dig wire. Chickens are also good at digging their way out.

If you suffer from coons, weasels and the like, you also need to use 1/4" or less, hardware cloth. A coon can reach through anything bigger and take their heads right off and squirrels can get in and eat the feed.

Use fencing staples with barbs to hold the wire in place. Regular staples will get ripped out. When it comes to keeping chickens alive, you need to build better than Fort Knox.

Welcome to the chicken wars.

 

[TeeJ]

It will have siding up the first 3 feet.

IMHO, depending where you live, especially if you have territorial dogs that will scare the critters off (and not bug your flock), it might be enough. My 1st coop was chicken wire, the morning after I came out and found what looked like the scene from a horror movie with a headless chicken still running around in the coop it was upgraded to 1/4" wire mesh. Super glad the kids didn't volunteer to help out that day...

 

[Amish Heart]

I learned the hard way that raccoons will climb above the hardware cloth and pull chickens through chain link. Finding beheaded chickens is such a waste.

 

[TeeJ]

I learned the hard way that raccoons will climb above the hardware cloth and pull chickens through chain link. Finding beheaded chickens is such a waste.

Of course, there's that one hen that is a giant jerk and always escapes the coop when you remove the feeder to clean it and can't be caught by 3 adults in less than an hour, and is the one you suspect is eating eggs. The night you tell her "fine you want to be eaten by the racoons, I'll see you in hell" and leave her out overnight. That's the night she decides to roost on the roof rack of your SUV and crap all down the side while the racoons scratch up the paint trying to climb up to her and try and eat your satellite radio antenna. Good times. Chickens are still worth it, even after all that - you just have to lean which ones need to go to freezer camp earlier than the rest.

 

[Amish Heart]

Ha Ha. That chicken would go in the pot. Or the grinder. I've been grinding meat lately. Egg eaters, too. My favorite cousin lives in the little house next to her daughter and family. The son in law has the worst luck with chickens, I don't know what he does. He starts out with 50-100 and only has a few come fall, so no eggs for the winter. I trade him eggs for raw milk, we have too many eggs. He had a problem with eggs disappearing and found it was one of the barn cats who was the eggs eater. He had an old horse trailer out in pasture with a wire grate bottom. He kept the chickens there, and just towed it by the tractor to different locations. One year he told me he was tired of his chickens getting picked off by hawks, so he ordered 200 roosters and 100 pullets. Now that didn't work out well. I took a walk out to the pasture to have a look and 100 hens were hiding under the horse trailer while the 200 roosters circled it.

 

[Neb]

Alexandra has been on me for years to build her a chicken coop. We have a little storage building behind the house that has a shed roof on the back of it. I thought that would be a good place for her coop. So I decided tonight after work I would start working on it for her, what I didn’t know the roof was rotten. So I rebuilt the roof framed up the coop added blocks under the framing put up the wire and all I have left to do is a wainscot of siding and build a door. This old man is wore out!

View attachment 82640View attachment 82641View attachment 82642View attachment 82643View attachment 82644

Wow!

You build things that don't start with pumping dozens of cubic yards of concrete ? I am impressed.

Judging by 5he dog pile that precedes this post, dealing with the diggers, coons and snakes.

Q
Is that picture if the Mrs driving screws with the impact driver staged or are you using torx screws

God knows my brother would be lecturing me if he heard me striping out Philips screws.

Adding wainscoting over top of the wire mesh sounds great! It will look really classy.

Looking forward to an update.

Ben

 

[Peanut]

@hashbrown I've also had raccoons reach through and kill chickens. I finally changed the set up so the roosting poles do not reach or touch the coop walls/fencing.

Before, when a pole touched the fencing seems like one hen will always sit on the end against the fence or wall. If a raccoon can get his paw through a little gap that hen is dead.

Didn't do much today, feed the critters, did some laundry.

 

[Double R]

How’s your steer doing @Peanut?

 

[Peanut]

He's doing okay, not skinny anymore and he has grown taller. Wished he'd come back quicker and bigger but he's destined to be a little orphan. Haven't seen any sign of liver flukes, checked every day since you mentioned them.

 

[Double R]

That’s great @Peanut. We found 2 in the liver of the cow we just butchered. I guess we’re back to that again here. They were pretty small so at least no real damage has been done. Fecals haven’t even shown eggs yet. Back to the protocols for us.

 

[viking]

@viking - Yup! That's where Dad got his seed! We pretty much exclusively order from Territorial. I'm not much into greens but that's pretty impressive about the Siberian Kale. We grow Swiss Chard because we get more cuttings from it than spinach and tastes pretty much nearly the same. I noticed very little difference between the two. I'm not sure if we've ever really tried kale. Next year I want to try bok choy again. Last year we got hot weather too fast and it bolted v.v

We were given seed tops from Swiss chard the former neighbor on our east side was growing, it's amazing how well it grows, the stalks are like thin celery and cooks tender. We've had volunteer chard growing ever since I first planted some in our garden. In the fall I just let it go to seed, it's really been amazing considering when I tried to plant Swiss chard years ago it was earthy, bitter and tough. I don't think my friend knew what kind of chard it was, all I know is it's the best we've ever grown. I'm going to try and save much more seed from them this coming year.

 

[Terri9630]

I thought about hardware cloth maybe I should do that on the inside now.

Use a wire that a dog cant tear through. I use cattle panels along the lower half and also on the ground to keep dogs from digging under.

 

[viking]

Use a wire that a dog cant tear through. I use cattle panels along the lower half and also on the ground to keep dogs from digging under.

A few years ago I was taking care of a special breed of tom turkey that my friends' daughter had given her, I had the tom turkey in a chicken tractor down in our lower field, that tractor was surrounded by 1" chicken wire covered by welded horse fencing, which I figured could stop most creatures, however a large dog (coyote?) pulled all the wires apart making a very large hole, it got inside and nearly killed the turkey, it was in such bad condition I had to put it down. The footprints from that canine were large. Anyway, I kind of figured that if I had to really stop creatures like that, I might have to use pig wire, kind of spooky to think that there is an animal around that could go through what I thought was a secure chicken tractor.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Hey @hashbrown , I'm sorry I'm late to the discussion on your beautiful chicken coop, but looking at the photograph it does not look like you have any slope on your roof, did you consider water run off or any kind of snow loading?

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today we are going to the wife's foot doctor, the swelling is down but it is still clearly infected or angry (red and swelled up).

People don't realize how quickly infections can get out of control. We had a diabetic friend who kept getting infections, first they removed a toe, then another, then a foot, then another; over a period of 15 years it just ate him away. He passed last year due to complications after a surgery.

 

[Bacpacker]

Good looking start on the coop HB. I agree with the others, run hardware cloth a foot outside the fence on the ground. And run it outside the chicken wire with a gap as well. Seal all openings even up at the eaves. Them coons will get in places you'd never consider.

 

[Pearl]

Today is "take the 90 year olds to lunch" day! You never what's going to happen with those two, lol!! After last month's lunch I might need to put a warning sign on the restaurant door for the men coming in!

 

[Amish Heart]

I totally understand the 90 yr old thing. Tomorrow is moving mom. She will forget that she is moving when we come to pack and move her, and we'll have to start from square one. We will meet her new neighbors, and everyone will forget everyone by the next day. I did not do any prepacking because that would confuse her. Just did alot of cleaning out the past few weeks. So moving a one bedroom apartment can't be that bad, right?
Today is house cleaning and a bunch of cooking to be ready for tomorrow, so we have some meals ready since we'll be busy all day with mom. The twins get home this evening from Branson, and my nephew, his wife, and daughter arrive this evening. The weather is ick, was snowing earlier, but not sticking since it's too warm. It rained lightly all night, too, so it's muck boots time for morning animal chores.

 

[Katie Müller]

We have fox problems around here. We tried to really secure the chickens in fencing and the little devil somehow found a way in. Eleven dead chickens in a single morning. We just let them run loose now. Better losing one chicken at a time then eleven in a single go. The hunter got one fox; dad got the other and we know there's one more.

We're going to get fencing up and around the property this summer to try and deter the fox.

Today my sister and I are going to hit Wal-Mart. I'm waiting for the Humira nurse to call me at 9:30 to tell me how to inject myself with the meds. . .even though this is the third week I've been doing it and I already know how. So I have to play pretend on the phone and act like I'm shooting myself up with the meds when I already did it like an hour ago.

Going to be nice today so I might do more yard work.

 

[phideaux]

I thought about hardware cloth maybe I should do that on the inside now.

Raccoons are your worst nightmare

I ended up using a hot wire to keep them out.

Lots of fun, lots of work.
But the fresh eggs are with it

Jim

 

[UrbanHunter]

Just finished at the doctors office including x-rays. The toe was infected (he cut the skin at the end and squeezed a bunch of pink puss out) but the x-ray indicates that the infection was not in the bone, so we are good with just topical creams, a week of antibiotics, and then go back in 2 weeks. Now that we are relaxed a little we are going to have a light brunch and then I'm off to stand in line at the pharmacy.

It is a beautiful day out and who knows before it's over I may find my way to HD or just go work in the garden, life is good.

 

[Katie Müller]

Opossums will kill chickens too. We lost a chicken and couldn't figure out what the heck had happened. She was bleeding and in a corner, like she was trying to get away. A few days later I was on the swing-set, the dog started barking, I looked over and there's a opossum just strolling towards the chicken coop. Dad got that one, too. He got two raccoons one year. Mom had to keep one treed until he and I got home from cleaning. If she left it would have escaped, so she stayed there watching it with the dog barking at it, until dad could get the gun.

Critters. The adventures of farmers, right?

@UrbanHunter - I'm glad you're wife is doing okay! I worked in a surgeons office so I know how bad those infections can get. I've seen some escalate very quickly from toe, to foot to below the knee amputation to above the knee amputations; and mortality rates for above-the-knee are much much higher. Scary stuff. I'm glad she's fine and you got prompt care.

 

[snappy1]

Glad the doc has the infection under control @UrbanHunter ! That's scary!

My main focus today is pressure canning about 24 quarts of dog food.

Walk and walk dogs.

I will be going to lunch with a friend if the timing works out (while the canner is cooling, not canning).

Also reworking my garden plan as I have enlarged it by 15 square feet.

Have to put up a new rain gauge.

 

[zannej]

The chickenwire with the round holes will let snakes in too-- but they won't always fit back out after consuming eggs or chicks. We found that out when we checked a brooder box and found a chickensnake with several lumps that were formerly chicks inside its belly. It got its head cut off and we put smaller mesh over the boxes. The fences we didn't want dug under we would dig down a bit and run the metal fencing with about 1/2" square holes and pour some quickrete and add water. That type of wire was used up the side of the larger fencing and we had barbed wire on top. That worked pretty well to keep critters in/out.

Mom woke up and wanted food but wanted something we didn't have ingredients for (she didn't put them on the list) and argued with me for 20min about how I should have been able to read her mind. My back was hurting too much to make the stuff she wanted anyway. Finally found something she would eat if I cooked it for her. She had me get tv dinners but didn't want to eat any of them. Today will suck on meal prep bc she always wants something more complicated on Fridays since she won't eat meat (if she remembers its Friday).

I've been meaning to get off my a$$ and let the puppies out. Gonna have to clean up after them when I go in I'm sure. Hopefully they will play outside for awhile. I'll see if I can find their toys.

I'll have to see if my hedge trimmer will work on wet weeds since it poured last night.

 

[The Lazy L]

Well this morning I was going to hitch the trailer up to:

Load up my 8' step ladder.

Pickup an unwanted upholstered chair and haul it to SIL.

Parsonage bathroom drywall ceiling has a very noticeable soft spot. Use my step ladder to gain attic access to see if the soft spot was caused by a roof leak BEFORE the newly installed steel roof. If no current roof leak then remove the blown insulation away from the drywall area to be patched. Then Sunday at church let our resident patching expert know the ceiling is ready for his wizardry.

Called the SIL to see if she'll be home. She's home but her yard maybe too soft for me to back the trailer up to her door. And she needs to rearrange her living room to make room for the chair. No problem, later.

I'll go do the parsonage ceiling...until i'm reminded the Pastor is on vacation his week. No access to the parsonage. No problem, later.

Now I'm wondering if He's telling me that I need to stay home today or something more important is coming my way?

 

[zannej]

Lazy L, sometimes it works out that way. Hopefully you can get stuff done later. I hate when the ground gets to soft to do stuff on. My friend's driveway would get like that before he had gravel added. His grandfather would drive up on the lawn though and got stuck and put huge ruts in the lawn. But now the old man just rolls up on the street and lays on the horn blocking the entire driveway instead of pulling in. I think its bc he isn't a good enough driver to maneuver anymore.

I'm going to eat something before I go out and mess with the weeds outside. Need to find the scissors to cut some plastic tie that blocks the trigger. I think its one of those gizmos where I have to simultaneously hold down a button and the trigger but I'll see.

Just heard a puppy yelping in the kitchen and a cat ran in with his tail puffed. Puppies are afraid of the kitties- even the 5lb one (who is our 2nd oldest cat and has attitude-- the bigger cats are afraid of her). She smacked one of the bigger cats in the face and then smacked his balls when he was running away. He's terrified of her.

 

[phideaux]

I can't think of anything I hate more than muddin drywall.

So far that's been my day.

Taking a break now.
Rained this morning , Eli didn't know what is was when he went out.
Plus the wind is really blowing hard, almost blowed him away.

Guess I'll rest a while watching NCAA tournament.
My HS plays at 5 pm , elite 8.

Late to eat today ...fish dinner at 4 pm.

Jim