LIVING OFF GRID

This blog is about our travels in our solar powered "Airstream" and living off grid, in our passive solar home, near Bancroft, Ontario, Canada.

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Showing posts with label chicken coop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chicken coop. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Chicken Coop is Done

Today we worked until 6:30 pm; only stopped for lunch and never took a break in the afternoon. We wanted to get the chicken coop done before the rain came and we succeeded.


Our nesting boxes are accessible from the outside. All we need to do is lift the lid (which is locked) and check for eggs. Thanks to Robert, we will start off with golf balls in the nesting box we want the birds to use. They think the golf ball is an egg and they all want to lay their eggs together. We've seen three birds all crowded into the same nesting box. Not sure if they feel safer, were cold or just having a "hen" party.

From the door, you can see the nesting boxes, the pole for the girls to roost on and the top of their feed container. The floor is elevated to make it easier to clean everything into a wheel-barrow when clean-out time comes. Tomorrow we will put down wood shavings before the girls arrive to inspect their new home.

There is a penned in area for the chickens to run if we decide to go away for the day. This way they can go outside and still be protected.

If you click on the picture below you will see a string hanging behind the rake handle. This string allows us to open or close the trap door to either let the girls out in the morning or close it when we put them to roost for the evening.

Along the top of each side wall we have it open but covered with chicken wire to protect the girls but give adequate ventilation when they are inside. Since we will not be keeping them over the winter we did not have to insulate the coop.

That's it, DONE!

Tomorrow we get the girls and we will see how quickly they adjust to their new home. 

Check back in a few days for their pictures and an update on their progress.

Thanks for dropping hy.

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Chicken Coop

Monday was another perfect day; the sun was shining, the bugs were few and far between and we needed to get started on the coop. Our birds arrive on Wednesday and so far they will be like us, houseless. A houseless chicken up here in the bush will soon become some four legged creatures free lunch.

We had lots of 2x4s and some plywood lying around so this project also helped clean up the place.

Mary did the painting, I took the pictures.

Well I did some painting and cutting. See those white boards? I did some of them., and I used some of Mary's paint to do the floor of the trailer.

Here we have the base and corner posts up.  Mary is raking the sand and gravel so everything is level.

The skid-steer makes the job so much easier. This is a great machine and I'm very happy with it.

Almost time for lunch and then we are off to town. Drop by in a few days and hopefully I will be able to post pictures of the completed project.