Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Ameraucana Marketplace => Topic started by: Jean on October 27, 2007, 12:40:09 PM
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Woo Hoo! I am getting a new chicken facility! My husband is getting me a 16\' by 48\' building. I have planned to have five- 8 by 10 foot inside coops and another coop that will be 8 by 16 for layers to try and support my chicken habit...
The alley way will be six foot wide to accomodate wheel barrows, supplies, feed, etc. It will have a cement floor with a drain hole in each coop in case I need to do a wash down and sterilizing. I will also have two sets of double entry doors. We are also thinking of putting a pellet stove in for heat. It gets pretty cold up here in the winter.
Do any of you have any suggestions of things you would like in your coop or think someone should have? This is a major investment for us and I want to get it as \"right\" as possible. They will not begin construction for another couple weeks so I can work on any modifications on the floor plan until then.
Thanks,
Jean
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Wow...you must have been a good girl this year!
Here are some rambling suggestions:
Maybe put heat coils in the concrete floor to be hooked to a nearby wood/pellet furnace/boiler if needed in the future. I would prefer radiant heat from the floor over forced air.
Put lots of windows on the south side for natural light. Avoid skylights that will heat the building in the summer.
Use a shingled roof with a vented ridge cap. Many alternate about 3 pieces of solid soffiting with one piece or perforated, but I recommend all perforated soffiting along the entire two sides where the trusses rest. Use solid soffiting on the two gable ends. Have a large exhaust fan in the gable on the east side that operates from a thermostat to pull the heat out in the summer.
Have some lights that work off switches located by the entrances as normal, but also have some fixtures over the coop areas that operate off a timer to be used during the breeding season.
Maybe consider having the floor drains in the \"ally way\" just outside the coops so they don\'t get plugged with straw or shavings. Slope the concrete floor so that water spilled in the coops would find the drains.
How about a frost proof hydrant and possibly a utility sink inside near a floor drain.
Use pressure treated lumber for floor plates for all interior walls. Use 7/16\" OSB for the bottom 4\' of interior coop walls and 2x4 welded wire from there on up. The 2x4 welded wire can be stapled to the bottom of the trusses also (unless you ceiling). Also use a 6\" or higher base board, made from pressure treated lumber, around the inside of each coop to prevent rotting the OSB from manure.
Position roosts so birds can\'t fight each other thru the wire from coop to coop.
No matter what you do you will wish you had done some things differently when you are finished.
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The South side of the building should have a good roof overhang to block the high angle summer sunlght, yet allow the low angle winter sunlight through those windows John recommended.
The roof shingles should be as light a color as possible to reflect the summer sunlight. I would also recommend insulating the roof if at all possible.
I would consider extra vents to allow air flow in when that fan comes on. They should have a cover for winter time.
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Some things I put in our (yet unfinished) Ultimate Horse Barn: very small, heated, well-insulated Bathroom (will tie into house septic system), with sink, water heater, and storage for \"freezeables\" (meds, soaps, etc.); lockable tack room - yours could be for any valuables you want to lock up; feed room, well insulated (frozen sweet feed is a rock), but unheated, just off the main aisleway; wash rack with floor drain (floor drain is actually a box to catch the big stuff, with a removeable cover to clean it out); inside and outside wash racks have hot and cold running water from the bathroom. I insulated as much as I could (4 inches in the walls for the horse stalls; 6 inches in the roof and interior rooms walls). I even built wooden sliding doors with foam insuation in them. Vinyl siding over everything I could, to keep the outside maintenance-free. We built double-pane windows out of pre-cut plexiglass and 2x4s, hinged at the top for ventilation, then corregated clear PVC over that to protect it from UV radiation. Interior is painted gloss white to relect light and keep the spiders from gaining an advantage. All electrical is in either metal conduit, grey PVC conduit (where it goes underground), or in flexible conduit. I will put in more conduit than I think I need, because I will always find a use for it. The biggest thing is to picture the finished product before you pour concrete; think about wall anchors, plumbing, electrical, and how/where it comes out of the floor. Think about how you would repair or replace things - example: put the indoor hydrant inside a 6 or 8 inch pipe, so that when/if you have to replace it, you are not tearing out concrete, but just moving some dirt or rocks. Rich.
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My chicken barn isn\'t insulated or heated. Each of the 5 flock style coops has an opening thru the wall for the birds to go outside into penned in areas. I feed the the birds inside the coops, but water them outside in the pens so I don\'t have a problem with wet bedding from the water.
The access holes for the birds to go in and out help provide air flow in the summer when the exhaust fan kicks in, but they also let in the cold winter temps. If your building is sealed, insulated and heated you may want to consider an automatic watering system.
Here are a couple photos of my chicken barn...
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Thanks for the ideas. We have already decided where to put the windows as we are out in the middle of a valley with no shade. The south end and west end of our house gets so hot we decided not to put any windows on those ends of the coop.
Our building is basically going to be a pole barn/steel building. We found some materials on the Farmtek site to use for the walls. You can just spray them off to clean.
Most of these things we will have to do after the building is up, even the concrete gets poured after it is up.
I\'m really excited about this! Finally all the chickens, chicks and supplies will be in one location!
I feel myself being tempted by the brown red variety............
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If you are not using a metal kit building, consider giveing your roof a 2 ft over hang. If you do this, you can have windows on anyside for vetilation as the angle of the sun is overhead during the hot part of the year and as it cools and you want sun coming in, the sun angle lowers to shine in. (We are energystar certified builders and can use this technique even in Arkansas without heating up). It also keeps rain from splashing back and erroding your foundation. We used a metal roof with one light panel for each roost but we have to cover the ceiling joist with additional panels during the winter to cut down on the draft.
Good luck with Farmtek. We bought one of their hoophouses and nothing worked right. In the end, I was gratefull my husband knows how to scab things together.
(...I absolutely love my brown-reds I got this spring...)
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My brother put up a 24 by 40 (I think) poultry building this year and went with the 24\" overhangs as suggested.
A year or so ago his neighbor bought a FarmTek building and I remember hearing of problems with it. I don\'t recall what they were, so I won\'t say more about it.
I think we\'ve got some good ideas here and suggestions for consideration for anyone planning a poultry building.
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An update on my building...... not too happy.
They have been working for two weeks and the building is still not up. We have a roof, windows and some insulation.
It was supposed to be completed in less than a week. Lots of problems with the workers to just show up. Yesterday they came got all of their equipment out, put it all away and left. What the?????
Here\'s a pic of what we have so far.
Jean
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Almost done with the shell.... still needs concrete floor poured.
Jean
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Looking good :D
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We are trying to finish the inside of at least one of the coops as we are going to have severe weather in a couple days.
I was wondering if anyone had any pictures of any neat ideas for roosts. We currently use the ladder style, but no one wants to use the bottom two rungs, so there is alot of wasted space.
Also does anyone have any nest box ideas. I can\'t afford the metal ones and am just looking for new ideas.
Also, my walls are only 8 foot tall, is this tall enough or should we get some netting as we are not putting a \"lid\" on each section for air circulation.
We didn\'t get the materials I wanted to put on the walls, oh well, my other houses have had no problems with just using OSB.
Thanks alot, I hope everyone has a prosperous year! Happy Hatching!!!!!
Jean
PS I did bite the bullet and order those brown reds. :o I guess I won\'t be tearing down my old buildings.
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Jean, if you put enclosed dropping boards under the roosts, your birds will have more \"clean\" floor space. This is a project I\'m going to tackle here whenever I get a round tuit.
Seems like those tuits are hard to come by lately. Anyway, the roost does not have to be too high, as long as it is higher than the nests, as they will always seek out the highest spot to sit overnight. I suspect you will want to use some type of netting between the high point of the pens and the ceiling for that reason. I always have a pullet or two or three that want to fly out of mine. Good luck with your project; hope it meets all your expectations.
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I have 2 by 4 welded wire stapled to the bottom side of the trusses in the coops. This still allows air to circulate.
Here are a couple old photos of nest boxes I made out of 5 gallon plastic pails and a photo of roosts.
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John,
What is the measurement between the rails on the roost? Don\'t want to put them too close or they will bump into each other while turning around. Are they 2X2\'s?
Those are nifty nest boxes! Looks like they are easy to clean and the chickens won\'t want to sit on top of them as they are probably slippery.
Michael, do you have any pictures of \"dropping boxes\"? I am having a hard time mentally picturing it.
Jean
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I used 2x4 roosts over the 8\' spans. They should be a chicken\'s length apart, so they could be closer together for bantams. Mine are about 14 to 16 inches apart, but probably should be about 18\" for large fowl The first one, near the wall could be half that amount, but not too close to the wall or the chickens might sit there picking at the OSB. You\'ll see a small piece of OSB at the end of my roosts to prevent the birds from fighting between coops.
The nest pails (\"boxes\") are screwed to the wall. Keep an inch or so clearance between them and between them and the support boards, on the sides, to allow dropping to drop thru. Some birds will go on top of these pails and this will avoid a pileup of droppings. There is a photo from the bottom of the nest pails to show there isn\'t a bottom board or support that they rest on. The side support boards are there to support the perch and board in front of the pails that holds the shavings and eggs in.
The last photo shows some small breeding coops that don\'t have birds in them yet. They work great for trios of bantams or single LF hens with a cock left in for a couple days each week.
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Jean,
We have droppings boards under our roosts, they need to be high enough for your tallest chicken to walk under plus an inch or 2 and large enough for all the droppings from the roost to land on them. I made a frame to cover the board from 2 by 4\'s which has wire on it for the droppings to fall through. I hinged it to the back wall and just lift and prop it up with a 8\" piece of scrap wood to clean under it. To clean the board I just take a hoe and scrape everything into a big bucket sitting under the edge. Our roosts are attached to the frame but when I do it again they will be above the frame or at least have more space between the wire and the roost. So the roost should be high enough to lift the wire. Our chickens jump onto the frame of the wire and then onto the roost. We did have to put a 2 by 3 under the center of the droppings board for support, it started to warp. The coops stays soooooo much cleaner.
We just built pine nest boxes too, but John\'s look so much simpler if you have the 5 gallon pails and less expensive even if you have to buy them.
John, how big are your small breeding coops?
Have fun,
Cindy D.
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My husband made roosts tonight like the ones in John\'s pictures. It is 8 foot long and I ended up putting in about half my birds tonight. (about 35) He will make another tomorrow night on the other wall.
The section we are finishing is for the layers, so alot of room up off the floor will make for more room to put more chickens in. As we finish the other sections I will sort them out for breeding.
I brought in my \"show hopefuls\" and my birds that are what I consider on my \"endangered species\" list. It is supposed to be around 14 degrees tonight and in the single digits next week.
Thanks everyone for your ideas. I appreciate it. Still have to build nest boxes.
Jean
PS John, where did you get the cage fronts for your small breeding pens? They look very nice.
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how big are your small breeding coops?
The overall unit is about 6\' high, 8\' long and 2\' deep. Each coop is then about 1/3 of the 8\' in length and has 2\' of head room.
cage fronts for your small breeding pens?
I used 2x4 welded wire on them, but have used 1x2 wire on others. I use the cage \"J\" clips to hinge the doors and latches that are used to make wire cages. I also use the plastic edging around the door openings to protect me from the wire.
I use rope lights on a timer for extra light and rabbit feeders for the breeder pellets. You can see the water cups are on the outside of the coops.