BEARDSNEST MANOR - Construction Of The Chicken Pen - Phase 1
BEARDSNEST MANOR - Construction Of The Chicken Pen Phase 1
Hi all, my name is Nytehawker.This is my first entry into the DIY Hub. Recently we left the big city behind and began the exciting adventure of country farmsteading. Our farmstead has been dubbed "BEARDSNEST MANOR" so any posts you see from me relating to our hobby farm life will contain that word so hopefully people will recognise when I am posting about such!
Today I want to show you Phase 1 of repairing and constructing a chicken coop with NO prior experience, no manual and no youtube! Just brain power and envisionment!
Rebuilding The Original Coop
The first step was to work out how to quickly get the first coop back in operation. This would be by far the easiest part of the project as the original pen was almost complete. Obviously it had been a functional coop in the past and needed some TLC.
I brainstormed how I would work at doing this in phases.
STEP 1 - Clean The Pen
The pen was full of torn up material. I'm guessing it was some form of insulation. Once raked out, I realised there was uneven ground so I levelled that out also.
STEP 2 - Build The Perch
Using existing wood from around the house and pen, I made a couple of perches. I lined the wood up and cut to size before seating. I quickly discovered the best way to do this was using star screws with my newly purchased Ozito Drill and Driver! I decided if and when I make mistakes, at least I could simple pull the screws back out!
STEP 3 - Hingeing The Old Pen Door
Hingeing this door was maybe the easiest part as it easily fit in nicely. Whoever used this door previously did the hinge the wrong way so I had to drill out the old screws from the hinges. After that I simply flipped the old top hinge a placed it down the bottom and text screwed it back to the metal and used a new hinge for the top. NOTE: You can see one of the old hinges still on the wrong side of the right post. Opening this door must have been a pain opening the door from that side. I'm not even sure how they made it work tbh!
STEP 4 - Seating The Lock
I cut a small piece of wood to level out lock and used an old Pipe Clamp I found laying around and seated it level to create a lock for the pen.
STEP 5 - Chicken Wire
Using a combination of U-Nails, wire cuters and a few zip ties, I was able to complete the remaining tasks of affixing the chicken wire.
STEP 6 - Get The Chickens!
The final step was to re-furbish the interior and get some chickens. I used some old lawn mower catchers the previous owner had left behind. Then I purchased some feeders and chicken food.
I then found someone on marketplace who had saved some 15 month old hens from a barn farm. These girls were destined for the slaughter due the nature of overcrowding and competition for food and laying. These were some of the weaker ones identified by the production farm. But now they have a new lease on life and making us delicious eggs!
Final Thought's From BeardsNest Manor
Thank you for reading! I hope it gave you some inside to farmsteading and DIY. Stay tuned for Phase 2 updates at BeardsNest Manor! If you like this kind of content or have a question, feel free to follow me or ask a question! I am happy to pass on any advice, wisdom or knowledge or even just to have a chat!
I also have a youtube channel I am building that we will hopefully use in the future to document the happenings of the farm! Not much content in there yet, but there is a test ASMR short! Slow and steady!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRzJ1bYoYOHBSyhKY8bgpA
Making a chicken coop is really fun. Especially for keeping animals safe, a house is always peaceful for their life and beautiful movement. First of all, I would like to express my love for animals. You have made a house with great and hard work using nets and various tools and have made good arrangements for the animals to stay with beautiful fences. Thank you very much for completing this repair work today with great and hard work.
Thank you. We have much respect and love for the animals that provide for us and I appreciate that you can see that love coming to life building them a nice home. Even the ones who will stop laying will continue to enjoy a stress free life. For now they are cooped up, but once I finish the project they will be free to roam outside the pens boundry in our massive backyard as well. Right now there are too many hazards for them. :)
Really it's amazing project thanks my pleasure
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STOPThis is so nice,I see alot of hard work here
And the interior looks perfect
I wish I could claim I made it all. Unfortunately I did not. But I am building phase 2 and 3 atm using the existing structure as a reference! That I have built from scratch! Look out for that post in the coming days/weeks. I have gained much from attempting it myself and it's looking way better than I even imagined! I can't wait to share it with everyone!
We are aaaall looking forward to phase 2 and 3 :) Get help/reference of others is one of the biggest secrets for some amazing DIYs pssst :P
selected by @tibfox
Great! It's nice to see content like this on DIYHub Community. You've done a great job and the chickens look great with their renovated home. Thanks so much for sharing this step by step.
selected by @jesuslnrs
Thank you! More phases tp follow! Phase 2 and 3 are well underway but have taken much longer due to the need to contruct entirely new pens! But I think everyone will like the outcome, it blows me away just looking at the progress I've made having no experience in anything DIY prior to 4 weeks ago! And so I look forward to sharing as encouragement to all, that even with no experience, with a bit of planning, time and a bit of effort what you can achieve beyond your own expectations!
You are really doing very well
Thank you!
Thank God
I found my chooks would only lay if fed the pellets from the pet food store. Tried them for months on kitchen scraps but no eggs. When they have the option of either, they just ate the pellets, so we spent as much on food as we saved on eggs (this was a few years ago). If they're only going to lay with the pellets, then they're not great apocalypse insurance, as there are only so many bags of pellets you can stockpile. Might need to better research which breeds lay without pellets if I decide to try again.
The solution is don't throw out your eggshells. Feed them back to the chooks as they contain the very calcium they need to re-form the egg! Kitchen scraps with eggshells and you should continue to get the eggs! A bag of shell grit and mixing a small amount into your veggie scraps also suppliments the lower traces of calcium in the soil. With these 2 things, you could survive almost indefinitely without the need for pellets (along with the veggie scraps) and continue to get eggs when the pellets run out!
https://grubblyfarms.com/blogs/the-flyer/calcium-needs-for-hens
This is a great comprehensive article explaining how to maximise your egg production.
It also suggests that free ranging chickens are good at finding the calcium and nutrients they need through foraging. So let them out of the confined pen and into a wider backyard space so they can find the insects and forage the ground for nutrition!
Then they hang around the backdoor, shit on the path and peck my fly screen to bits. Maybe I just had bastards.