The Chicken Plan Part III - Building The Hen House Finale

Looking back now I realize this was a big project. A few things could have been done differently. For the most part though I am extremely happy with how this all turned out.

Let's get this done!

The outside was coming along nicely, the roof was on and the inside walls up. See it? There's our wedding dance floor! Not many people would find it nice that their wedding dance floor was being turned into one that chicken poop would gather on but I was/am okay with it. It's being put to good use instead of being burned.

 

The roofing was almost finished too.

 

With the roof on and no siding materials collected as of yet it was time to get started on the inside. Grabbing a couple gallons of left over paint from home projects Cameron and I got started.

On to the siding. Like I had said before, we tore siding of an area of an old barn on the property and used that so we could keep in the rustic rough look of our house.

Here things seemed to be progressing faster. From the point I started to paint to the point I had the inside dividing wall up and the inner door (that dad built) installed to when this photo was taken was 6 days. Siding had to be done on the weekend. I had my dad's help with the studs, inner walls and the roofing, the rest was up to my husband and I. That meant that we had to build around his work schedule. But it was all coming together.

In the photo above it looks like there is a white box on stilts. There is. I built the nesting box into the dividing wall. There is a divider in the box also so it's a double nesting box. I used a leather belt cut into short lengths and nailed on as hinges. Keeping it rustic I guess, plus as any builder or home owner knows hardware gets expensive!

Pop door cut out and bats being added to finish the siding.

 

An inside look at the pop door. I have since attached some hardware & cable so that I'm able to open and close it without stepping foot in the hens living quarters. To the left is the roost and the white corner in the lower left is part of the nesting box.

Pen fence being built. Hand held auger helped with the hole digging, whew! Sunk rail road ties as the corner posts and cedar posts for the center.

And after all that I leave you with the finished product's outside look.

There have been a few touch ups and changes since this photo was taken almost four years ago. My goal in the near future is to take more photos, showing the finished inside (soon I hope since I just cleaned it) and give a bit more detail on how we fenced the pen.

I apologize for it not being a more detailed process with photos. Like I said, there was so much work to be done, and me doing a lot of that work left little time or thought for taking decent photos along the way. I hope you found at least one thing in my series that was usable for your situation. Thanks again for stopping by.

 "What you talkin' 'bout Willis?"

The Chicken Plan Part II - Building The Hen House

On with the plan! I called around to different feed stores and found some Black Sexlink Pullets. I purchased them without having the house built. My plan, stick them in the unused dog house until the new house and pen were built. It was a good plan and worked wonderfully:

 
I just knew that these little girls weren't going to be staying little for very long! On a side note, looking back, neither was that little boy going to stay little.

So it was time to put all my research to work. I knew that I was going to have to buy some new materials but I also had already been collecting a few things to re-purpose. Our house siding is rough cut old growth fir and I wanted the Hen House to match as best I could. The solution? Use siding from an old barn on the family property that my husband's grandfather had built many years back. We'd also had a saw mill cut lumber not too long before all this and there were some extra bats for siding that I was able to use.
I needed windows! I wanted to make sure that I'd be able to open the windows any time I needed to vent the house or in the summer just too get some fresh air blowing through when we had some substantial heat. Solution: One friend's parents had an old aluminum framed one sitting around. That same friend also demolished an extra unused storage room on their home in a renovation project, I got a small window from that. The third I purchased at a building supply surplus yard. The front door was also from the friends with the renovation project. An old farm house door! SCORE!!
But before I got ahead of myself I needed a foundation for this house to sit on. Solution: rail road ties and cedar boards from a deck that my dad had built especially for our wedding reception dance floor. I love that I was able to reuse that material.
Okay, let's get started! (You'll have to excuse the horrible photography here. All of these photos came from my cell phone. I was so busy helping cut lumber, hold walls and pound nails that I really wasn't thinking of taking pictures and when I did the cell phone was the only thing handy. )

My dad is such a fantastic man. What a trooper! I told him what I wanted, asked him if he'd help me (husband was short on time due to long hours at work) and he said, "No problem." (Our neighbor has nicknamed him Mr. No Problem lol). And the first few days we worked the temperatures soared into the upper 90's and over 100 degrees. It was brutal. We persevered,

and finally had a day that dad didn't have to take off his shirt. I'm telling ya, what a trooper!
So, on with the show, I'll just leave you with a few more photos.

Front and west side:

Front and east side (where the run/pen will be):

Rear, facing north:

Stay tuned for Part III, the finishing touches and the finale!

The Chicken Plan

I was raised on a small farm. Our family had horses, pigs, cows, rabbits, chickens, ducks and a myriad of cats and dogs at any given time. I want that. All of it. But we live on less than 2 acres (not including surrounding family land) and although I know there are many people that do it I just can't see us cramming all of that into such a small space.

Several years ago, in 2009 to be exact, my husband was in Pennsylvania for work. When he came home I had news for him; we were getting chickens. To my surprise he didn't have a whole lot to say about it one way or the other. Of course there way the 'why' question. Which, those of you close to us will know that is the man's motto. There had been many cases in the past of me forgetting to buy eggs and him waking up on a Saturday morning wanting to whip up a bacon and egg breakfast with none to be found in the refrigerator. So, I pointed out the plus of having hens producing eggs year round. I think I was able to finally seal the deal when I promised no rooster. I figured the first time the bugger crowed and woke my husband up on his day off he'd be in the stew pot that evening! Plans were under way.

I did plenty of research online, I even went out and bought the book Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. I found that, with the internet at my fingertips, I really didn't have a use for the book although it gets great reviews. I have since passed on my copy to someone else in need of it.

One of the first things I did was start making a list of things I wanted in a hen house. The list was long but fairly thorough the more I read through the forums at Backyard Chickens. I find that website and the people there more helpful than anything else.

Now, I'm going to share my list with you. These are/were my wants and needs. If you're looking into raising chickens your list will be quite different I'm sure. I have a big back yard and was able to make a fairly large hen house and run. I know there are also benefits of using a chicken tractor but at this time I've chosen not to, maybe in the future.

Hen House

~ Big enough to hold 10 chickens maximum.
~ 2 rooms - one side for hens living quarters and the other side for food storage and egg gathering.
~Ventilation! Chicken droppings are high in nitrogen that turns into amonia so a lot of ventilation is needed. High wall vents and windows that open.
~A pop door (the door the girls use to go from the house to the outside). One that can be closed at night to prevent predators entering the house.
~Linoleum flooring for ease of cleaning.
~Painted walls to seal the wood and brighten up the inside.
~Nesting box mounted inside divider wall so eggs are gathered inside, keeping laying hens warmer in the winter. At least 18" off the floor and painted dark brown inside (I recall reading that they like a darker nesting area).
~Roost. They will roost ANYWHERE. (That's almost another post in itself lol.) I believe standard is at last 24" off the ground but would have to double check that info.
~Feeder inside the house to keep feed dry and critters out at night.
~Light, on a timer in the winter months for prolonged egg production. Also mounted a heat lamp from the ceiling shining on the roost area for cold winter day/nights.

Pen
~2x4" welded wire.
~Bottom half of fence down in chicken wire laid out approx 1 foot along ground. Pinned down by cutting off the shoulder curves of wire coat hangers and using them as pins for the into the ground. Grass grows through and you never know the wire is there and can mow over it. (It's said that dogs and other critters will dig as deep as needed to get into something but if there is wire mesh over the ground they don't figure out how to move back to find the edge to dig under!)
~Whole pen covered in chicken wire (wire roof). Needs good cross support for snow load.
~Mounted roost sticks (2x2's) through the fence in the corners for the girls to roost in the sun.

Feed & Water
~Gravity feeder
~Galvanized waterer used in non freezing months, plastic bucket in winter (filled from house due to no water hook up at hen house).
~Feed layer pellets. I prefer pellets to messy wasteful crumbs (have used both).
~Oyster shell. I mix this in with the feed instead of putting it in a separate dish. Seems to work just fine this way.
~Scratch. Fed more in the winter months due to its "fattening" properties. Not needed in summer, use as an occasional treat then.
~No meat scraps. This is just a personal preference of mine and I'm not up for debating it. Occasionally the girls will get ground beef with spaghetti left-overs tossed to them but that is about all.
~No peppers or onions, again personal preference. Plus I need to have something left to put in my compost bin lol.
~I have found that food NOT consumed by them will rot in the pen and add additional stench. (i.e. pumpkin rind, watermelon rind, some non-cooked root vegetables) so you might want to be diligent in cleaning up what your flock doesn't eat within a couple of days.

I hope someone finds my list helpful. And to those of you looking to start raising chickens I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I do. I'll be writing up another post soon to include photos of the hen house project!

So much to do

Well I'm finally back. After four weeks of fighting an illness off and on I think I've finally broken through to the other side. All three of us had it and it was very hard to get rid of.

On the upside, I'm now fighting an itch. An itch so incredibly persistant and deep that there is no cure, as of yet anyway and it can't be scratched. The Spring Fever Itch has taken hold of me! Luckily there is enough days of rain here in the PNW to keep me from going too crazy and giving me an opportunity to get a few things done inside the house before the weather turns nice and I only want to be outside.

So many plans and a tight budget to work with has me looking for different ideas online. My computer is slow and doesn't like to load much from Pinterest which is really ok, too addicting. But I find I can spend too much time browsing Houzz.com. But the good thing about that site is that most of the house ideas are far above my means so it keeps me from hanging out too long. DIY blogs are a great source for how to get things done 'on a dime' and my husband and I have started watching home renovation shows on HGTV. Hoping to get going on some things, taking a few photos along the way to show you all the before and after. Plans this week: start knocking down the textured ceiling in Cameron's bathroom and sanding/staining base board trim to finish off the kitchen, finally. Here's hoping I am as ambitious later as I sound right now.

On a side note there has been talk lately between family and friends who want to raise chickens. Oh I do adore my hens. I was requested to post some photos of my hen house on facebook and that got me thinking that maybe I'll do a blog post about the process too, so stay tuned for that.

So, looking forward to spring but wanting to get a few in-house chores done before it gets here. Guess I better close for the evening and get busy, these things may take a while!