Author: drew

This coop has a few parts of it that make it terrific. It hasn’t gained occupancy yet, but the birds are soon to come. I’m sure it will work out fine. The first picture I’ve got here is the meat and potatoes of the coop.

The general idea of this coop is simplicity, light weight, and the re-purposing of materials.

Security
If you got birds, you need to think about their safety. Not much more annoying than you putting time and effort into them only to have a raccoon decapitate one of them. Your primary defense can be your yard fence, or it can actually be the coop. This depends on the type of predators that you have. For coyotes, animals that hunt in the day, you’re best off spending more time making your fence better. For raccoon, you cannot build a fence good enough, and should focus on the coop being their protection at night.

Portability
The last coop I made weighed about a million pounds. Chickens do not need much! So I suggest trying to use 2x2s where ever possible.
In this coop below, I used 2x4s which ended up being very very heavy! Resist the urge to build a coop like a house, and make it for chickens. No problemo.

Now on to the fun part – the wheels. I had a good time designing this technique. Feel free to copy it and send me a picture. The basic idea is as follows.

I put an “x” where there is a bolt. The lifting happens in two stages. Stage one, where you first start to pull up on the handle, the wheel comes down to the ground, and as you lift more, you get a nice lever advantage to lift the rear of the coop off the ground. Then as you lift higher, the 2x4x12 (yes, twelve feet long) hits the second bolt and lifts the front off the ground.

At this point, there isn’t much getting around the fact that you have to lift that coop off the ground like a cart. It would be better to have the wheels closer to the center taking more of that load, short of getting out a jack to put on the wheels, I didn’t think that up.

The bolt setup in the rear (the end with the wheel opposite the stickman) looks like this. The plywood I was using was pretty old and rotten, so I re-enforced the inside with a 12″ length of 2×4, and put a load of screws through the plywood into the board.

Now the other item of note here is the order of construction. No doubt your coop will be a little different, but if you follow these general steps, your chicken-cart will work just fine.

First build the coop on semi-level ground. Then get yourself the 2x4x12s with wheels on them. Set that wheeled board next to your coop, and lift the wheel slightly off the ground. Drill a hole through the center of your 2x4x12, mark the coop, and that will be your first bolt. At this point, when you bolt that 12′ handle to the side of the coop, you should easily be able to lift the end of the coop off the ground.

Next you need to install the front bolt. The height of this one will depend on where is most comfortable for you to lift. Also, how high you want the front edge of the coop off the ground as you walk around with it. Hold the handle so it’s comfortable, do a little squat, make a mark and drill. This bolt will come in contact with the top of the 2x4x12 as you lift and lift the front edge (the entire thing) off the ground on the wheels.

I did run into a few problems with my wheel attachment. As I rolled the coop around, the
wheels wanted to torque to the side. I put together a yoke to hold the wheels from torquing. I also added an additional 2×4 up front for the people to hold on to as they pull it around. Now, the coop is essentially surrounded by a 2×4 rectangle that can also lift the coop. It’s a little hard to tell from this picture, but the 2×4 on the bottom extends all the way across to the other wheel. This worked very well.

Next item that is good about this coop is the total lack of a floor. This cuts down on weight a ton. We did this so we could start doing something called “deep litter method.” The idea is that when the chickens turd all over the place, as they do, you just throw more yard waste on top of it. Get a mix of green and brown in there. From what I hear, if you can smell poop, you’re not doing it right. Of course, there isn’t a cute little memory trick for telling you WHAT to do! We’ll see how that works. Once the floor builds up, say about 12″ or so, you move the coop. Then you’ve got a nice heap of compost you can use throughout your garden. Thank you chickens, and thank you to me for doing less work.

Next we left off the largest wall and used chicken wire only. Again, cuts down on weight. I saw pictures on the internet of chickens clucking away in their coops while the ground was covered in snow. I guess their feathers work well as insulators and they do not, in fact, need to be in a box every night. Just leave a wall off, badda-bing. I’ll let you know if they freeze…

A holdover from coop version 1.0 is the amazing chicken door opener. You install a guillotine type of hatch, then order this battery operated, light activated, chicken door
opener from Wells Poultry in the UK. Shipping is $40, and the British pound is spanking everyone, so it cost me $180 all said and done. But I will tell you, if you’ve ever had chickens, THE most annoying part of them is having to let them out in the morning, and close them in at night. This door opener takes care of both of those items automatically. A true life changing invention for chicken owners.

Next we’ve got the nesting boxes. Before I had four birds, and they all fought over one of the three boxes available to them. In this coop, I’m planning on
17 birds and they all have to use four boxes. Should be fine. The design feature in this part is a double hinge door. For the first hinge, it opens from the top down. You can open the hatch from the outside to reach in and grab eggs which will be an everyday occurrence. Secondly, if you undo the additional clasps on the side, you use the lower most hinge. Doing this, the entire wall falls away leaving an open edge to the nest box. Then you can easily scrape the entire contents onto the ground. Boom, done. Also of note – the floor of the nest box is the only floor in the entire coop. Less to clean: yay!

Here’s a photo of the final product

~2010

Starting up a compost has been surprisingly entertaining. It’s neat to see my “garbage” turn into something more useful simply by sitting there.

I decided to make our compost container out of old pallets that we picked up from stores in Berkeley. (+) free (-) old wood = brittle wood. You also need to paint the wood bits or the damp compost will compost the boards too.

The basic idea here is that the bottom is made of two rectangular bits. This way, you can pull off the top, pull of the top section and set it somewhere else in the yard. Then with a shovel, you shovel out the old heap from the old location into the new location. This rotates the heap up side down. Once you get some worms going in there, they will probably go bonkers. Bugs and worms are good!

Apparently it’s also good to relieve yourself on the compost heap. Just want to do my part 🙂 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2009/nov/13/composting-urine

Ah, what goes in there. Everything except meat bits and bones. Pay attention to the general color of the compost. If it looks to gooey, add some grass clippings, and vica-versa. There are many “experts” on compost. I have a hunch there isn’t much you can screw up here except to not use it and add to it! Just go for it.

~2012
After using regular compost for quite some time, I thought I’d give a go at a worm bin. I used plans for a double plastic bin design I found somewhere on the internet. Essentially you buy two plastic bins that nest into each other. The inner bin, I cut little vents in the sides just under the rim. Then I drilled about ten evenly spaced small holes on the bottom of the bin. That modified bin nests into an unmodified bin. I also added a couple chunks of junk wood between the two so when the inner bin sags down, it’s got something to rest on.

I started with 100 red composting worms from some dude named Uncle Jim Worms off amazon. Totally reasonable, $25 for 1000 worms. The bag came with instructions that made it simple to start them off properly.

I think the challenging part with these worms is keeping them at maximum productivity. That and then getting your worm casings (worm turd aka black perfect dirt) out once the bin weighs 40 lbs without killing everyone. Oh, that reminds me there is an awesome book with way better instructions that I’ve got here “Worms Eat My Garbage.”

I throw about 90% of our kitchen scraps into this bin. I fill it up, then go back a few days later and lo-and-behold, it’s magically gone back to essentially the same amount that was in there before. These little guys are magic.

From time to time, I just add water to the mix. The book describes it as being able to wring a little water out if you squeeze it, similar to soggy cardboard. So if it gets a little dry in there, I just add water. The other side benefit of adding water is that the water goes through the worms and their casings, and black nutritious water comes out the bottom. I empty it out from time to time (and save the swimming worms that found a hole and jumped through) and use it to water plants around the house.

I’ve had the bin going for over a year now, and haven’t yet pulled the casings out, but it’s certainly high time I did. Good easy fun!

Oh last note: it’s been getting real cold in Port Angeles. I had the bin under a tree just outside the kitchen door for a while. But after we got some snow, I moved the bin into the garage. I was worried they’d all frozen to death, but these dudes are resilient! They just move slower. I could wrap the bin in some leftover house insulation that I’ve got to keep the coldest part of the nights off them. But for now, I’m happy with them being slow.