Ameraucana Breeders Club

The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Housing, Health & Hatching => Topic started by: Beth C on November 20, 2010, 09:50:13 AM

Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Beth C on November 20, 2010, 09:50:13 AM
Last year I had all of my blacks in a large run, and when I ran into the odd color popping up, I didn\'t know which hen it came from, so, after reading your various tracking systems, I\'ve decided to put pairs & trios in individual pens this year. I\'m sure this has been ask before but I couldn\'t seem to find it: what size breeding pen would I need to accommodate up to 3 birds (LF)?

And any words of wisdom on materials, construction, things to avoid, etc. will be greatly appreciated. My ideas always look good on paper, but once I have them together I quickly find out what I should have done differently. Well, maybe not so quickly. I put everything together with screws instead of nails, because it\'s generally takes at least 3 tries to get it right... ;)
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: faith valley on November 20, 2010, 10:11:13 AM
We only do bantams now, but did have largefowl for several years.  My husband designed a breeding pen that was wonderful for the largefowl; luckily it was adaptable for the bantams so we could just tweek it when we got out of the large birds.

We would house 4 largefowl in this pen or several bantams.

http://faithvalleywaterfowl.com/chicken_tractor.html

Patty
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on November 20, 2010, 11:12:06 AM
Quote
what size breeding pen

For LF I would start with a minimum of 2 square feet per bird.  The coops (pens) pictured below are about 2 feet deep and between 32 and 36 inches wide.  They are designed for one LF hen each and a cock that visits every few days.  I use LED rope lights (red or white) on a timer set for 16 hours of light per day.  
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Beth C on November 20, 2010, 05:41:23 PM
Patty: Love your tractor design! I\'ve always wanted one, but the horses & goats would make short work of it I\'m afraid.  :(

John: The bottom one is exactly what I need. I can\'t tell in the picture, does it have pull out trays? You said the cock only visits - do you house them together when they\'re not with the hens? I kept mine together last winter and they did ok, but wasn\'t sure if they\'d get along during breeding season. It would sure make life easier.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on November 20, 2010, 06:14:03 PM
It is about 6\' high and 8\' long.  The coops are about 2\' high.
No pull out trays and these are only used during the breeding season.  Once a week we remove each hen and clean her coop using a plastic feed scooper and 5 gallon bucket.  I use wood shavings in these so they clean out easily and quickly.  I just don\'t like bending to clean the lower coops, so my son generally gets to do those.
If the cocks don\'t abuse the hens you can keep the pair together.  Last year I had 4 silver hens in the other unit and rotated the same cock over them all so he paid a 24 hour visit to each every 4th day.  I also have some other small coops to house individual cocks and just put them in with hens a couple times per week.  
In my larger coops/pens I leave the cocks in with 7 or more hens continually.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Beth C on November 21, 2010, 09:25:13 AM
Quote
I just don\'t like bending to clean the lower coops, so my son generally gets to do those.


Ah, sounds like the perfect job for a 5 year old! ;)

Thanks for the pics - they\'re real close to what I was thinking of, and it helps a lot to have the finished product to look at.

One concern I have is heat building up. It gets hot very early here. I\'ll probably construct them with as much wire as possible for ventilation - any other ideas?
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on November 21, 2010, 03:05:55 PM
The chicken barn has an exhaust fan in the gable on the east side to draw out the heat as needed.  A thermostat turns it on and off and I usually have it set to kick in at 85 to 90 degrees.
Lots of 2 by 4 welded wire is great, but you need about a 6\" board across the bottom front to stop the birds from \"scratching\" all the wood shavings out of the coops.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 04:33:16 PM
I'm not hatching chicks yet like some of you, but I took advantage of the mid weather over the past few days to setup all my breeding pens.  This is 6 to 8 weeks sooner than usual for me and I plan to hatch a month sooner than usual.  Here are a couple photos.  This is a new unit similar to the one I posted a photo of above.
Even though I use LED rope lights in some indoor coops I've decided to also use those old 7 watt Christmas lights that have been stored in the basement for years. 
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 04:39:39 PM
I\'ve gotten rid of some old bantam coops and built some new LF breeding coops.  That gives me 37 different breeding coops between all the Ameraucanas and Chanteclers for 2011.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Guest on January 01, 2011, 04:55:02 PM
Quote from: John
I\'m not hatching chicks yet like some of you, but I took advantage of the mid weather over the past few days to setup all my breeding pens.  This is 6 to 8 weeks sooner than usual for me and I plan to hatch a month sooner than usual.  Here are a couple photos.  This is a new unit similar to the one I post a photo of above.
Even though I use LED rope lights in some indoor coops I\'ve decided to also use those old 7 watt Christmas lights that have been stored in the basement for year.  

I really like this set up and I have the perfect place I could build one.  Do you by chance have a building sketch for a mediocre carpenter like myself.  Or could you email me a ton of pictures so I could try to reproduce it.  What is the total dimension of this unit and what are the individual pen sizes.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Beth C on January 01, 2011, 05:13:59 PM
I would love to have a copy as well - I really love your design and I\'m fairly sure anything I come up with on my own won\'t do it justice.

I haven\'t hatched anything, either. I got 3 eggs from my wheatens, none fertile. I do have a few test eggs in my incubator, mutt red thing X black cock bird - should be interesting. But wanted to test the bator and besides, anything that lays a fertile egg w/o lights on the winter solstice deserves to reproduce. ;)
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: QUADCH on January 01, 2011, 05:16:34 PM
Quote from: John
I plan to hatch a month sooner than usual.    


YEA!
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Cloverleaf Farm on January 01, 2011, 05:47:11 PM
Quote from: John
Even though I use LED rope lights in some indoor coops I\'ve decided to also use those old 7 watt Christmas lights that have been stored in the basement for year.  


I just ordered some solar powered Christmas lights for my coops.  They aren\'t here yet, but they were only $20 per strand of 50 mini lights with the solar panel.  Can\'t wait to put them in!! Electricity to the coops is a problem here in this old house, hopefully this will be a great solution!
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 06:56:00 PM
I don\'t have a drawing, but here are some photos and a materials list.
(8) 8\' 2 by 4s
(4) 6\' 2 by 4s for the legs
(2) 8\' 1 by 6 boards (actually 3/4\" x 5 1/2\")
(4) sheets of 7/16\" OSB
A bunch of screws, some wire for the front and misc. stuff.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Guest on January 01, 2011, 07:25:17 PM
Is the front 1x2 fencing?  What do you use around the openings...looks like white plastic?  Also do you bulk order all your bunny feeders if so where?  The only bunny feeders I have found local have sieves in the bottom.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 07:27:34 PM
Here are a few more photos.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 07:37:15 PM
I used 1 by 2 welded wire for the fronts with 2 by 4 wire for the doors.
The feeders, latches, Plastic Edge Protector, etc. are from Cutler\'s Supply.   http://cutlersupply.com/
The feeders are 7\" long and there is a discount by buying 6 at a time.  I also add some wire inside the feeders to try to keep the birds knocking it out.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Guest on January 01, 2011, 07:41:58 PM
Thank You SOOOO much for all your help.  Could you snap a couple photos of the inside and I think that should about do it.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 01, 2011, 07:59:03 PM
You can see I notched the 4 legs to recess the 8\' 2 by 4s into (front and back, 3 places each).  
The 1 by 6s were used across the front of both rows of coops to keep the wood shavings from being scratched out.
Each section is about 24\" high.
The unit is 6\' 7/16\" high including the OSB on top and 8\' 7/8\" long including the 7/16\" OSB on each end.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: Beth C on January 01, 2011, 10:05:56 PM
What did you use to attach the wire to the wood? Some look like they have fence staples, but others look like they had some kind of tab that hooks around the wire then gets screwed into the wood.
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 02, 2011, 12:46:30 PM
Quote
some kind of tab that hooks around the wire

The plastic \"hooks\" with nails are phone cable clips/fasteners (see photo) and I used them as hinges on the wire doors so they open and close.

The staples are really for electrical wire.  I prefer them over fence post staples for fastening wire to coops and pens.
 
I also used some short drywall screws w/fender washers to fasten the welded wire to the 1 by 6 pine boards because the staples were too long.  The screws w/washers could have even been used instead of staples on the 2 by 4s.  
Title: Breeding pen size & construction
Post by: John on January 11, 2011, 03:59:36 PM
Quote
Could you snap a couple photos of the inside

I used a couple zip ties to fasten some 1 by 2 welded wire in the feeders, with the center opened to 2 by 2.  This helps keep the feed in the feeders.
The second shot is looking up at the ceiling so you can see the LED rope lights.