New Chicken Coop

The chickens I bought two months ago have gotten pretty big. Too big to keep in a bin in the house. They are still too small to put out with the big girls though so Sunday I finished building a new coop for them. I found a design on backyardchickens.com that was pretty easy to build. I scaled it down 25% to make the footprint 3'x3' and made several other modifications.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=3951-2StoryCoop

This smaller size made it impractical to have a ramp lead from the bottom level to the top so I put in a ladder instead. The birds can actually just jump from the ground up to the top level. It took a couple days for the birds to learn how to go up and down. I had to move one from the bottom back up to the top because it couldn't figure it out and it was starting to get dark.

I added a built in feed holder. It allows me to dump a bunch of feed in and forget about it for awhile. The lid is slanted so the birds don't sit up there and poop on it.



I had intended to add a pretty big run, but realized I didn't have enough chicken wire. Instead I built a small run that adds another 3'x3'. In total it is way bigger than the bin they were in. It will be easier to expand the run if I want. I just need more chicken wire. In the picture below you can see the older ladies coming over to check out the new birds for the first time.



At the back of the run I left a movable flap of chicken wire so I could get to the water bucket. It is held firm with two rocks.



In the larger coop I finally installed the waterer that is gravity fed from my rain barrels. The valve opens when the weight of the water in the dish is too light. With a 55 gallon barrel dedicated to this water source, I essentially don't have to worry about water for my chickens except for when the temperature is below freezing.



The new coop has another use. If I decide to get a rooster and raise chicks, I can use this additional coop to isolate a mother and her chicks. I imagine I'll have to make some improvements to it to make it cozier, but the hard work is done.

New Chickens

I stopped at the store on my way home tonight. I meant to run in quickly to grab some more egg cartons. I had forgotten to pick some up a few days earlier when I bought feed. I decided to check out supplies for raising chicks. I was surprised to find the aisle lined with feed bins full of baby hen chicks. I bought three Rhode Island Reds and two Leghorns. They were only about $2.50 each. Together with the gear and food, the total was $60. In my excitement I forgot to buy cartons. :)

The little ones chirped all the way home and haven't stopped yet. I put them in a plastic bin and they seem to be doing well so far. The infrared heat bulb kind of distorts the true color in the pictures below. The light colored ones (Leghorns) should grow up to be white, while the darker ones should be a reddish brown when full grown.







Leghorns


Rhode Island Red


On a sadder note I found one of my birds lying dead in the front yard Sunday night. I believe it jumped over the porch rail and Ace attacked him. He had been waiting for the chance since I first brought the chickens home.

This Is What Healthy Lungs Look Like

Last Saturday my friends and I butchered a bison. Most of the pictures are similar to the first two times we did it so I don't have anything new to say about it. My friend did capture this interesting video of me. I learned this trick from my friend Tony.

Rain Barrels

Last weekend I finished installing my rain water catchment system. The system will function as an emergency backup water source. My house runs on well water that is powered electrically. If the power goes out, I have no water. If I owned the house I would install a backup system, but as a renter it doesn't make a lot of sense. Also, I learned that if a dog should happen to rip the faucet off the outdoor spigot, I have no water pressure which makes it hard to get water. So having 220 gallons of water stored is a little insurance against water system failure.

Although it will function as a back up water reserve for household use, it will be the primary water source for my garden. This is why I located it on the uphill side of the house. With the future garden being downhill of the rain barrels, I should have enough water pressure to water the garden. The catchment system is also situated near my chicken coop and will serve as the water source for my chickens as well.

To begin I obtained four 55 gallon plastic barrels from a friend. I researched quite a bit on the internet to figure out the best way to set them up. The following links are where I got most of my ideas. The first link especially contains the technical details I needed. If you look at it, you'll see from the pictures that most of my system uses ideas found within.

water conservation pdf

skagit.wsu.edu pdf

August Home Publishing pdf

A Spouse's Guide to Building the Perfect Rain Barrel System

Each rain barrel has two bung holes on top.


The bung holes are perfect for this project because the have a built-in threading. I simply drilled out a hole in the center.


Here you can see the PVC piece threads into the bung cap perfectly. This made the project so easy because I didn't have to drill out my own holes and worry about making a water-tight seal. All it took was a little teflon tape wrapped around the threading of the PVC piece. Not using a permanent sealant also allows me to reconfigure or move the system with ease.


As you'll see in the pictures at the end of the post, the rain barrels are actually set up upside down. Therefore, I had to make an opening on the bottom of the barrel to collect water.


I added a screen over the intake to filter out debris and to keep mosquitoes out. My entomologist father warned me more than once to do this.


Below you can see the barrels set up in series. It took considerable time to get the cinder blocks level. They aren't the prettiest things to look at, but they are a cheap and effective solution. Elevating the barrels is necessary to have a place for the pipes to go, but the added benefit is that they are elevated above the garden as well.

After installing the outlet piping on barrel 1, I set up a piece of twine as a guide for installing the pipes for the other three.


The following pictures show the completed system. Rerouting the downspout was easy. I bought the elbow piece under the gutter and the plastic piece that wraps the corner and one piece to secure it to the wall. The other parts are from the original downspout.

Behind barrel 1 you'll notice a hose. I took advantage of the second bung hole on the barrel and added a pipe that terminates in a hose fitting. This hose will eventually lead to the chicken coop. I have a water dish that hooks into a hose that fills automatically using a valve triggered by the weight of the water in the dish.


There are a few special features to mention. First, in the picture below you'll notice a pipe at top between barrel 1 and barrel 2. Along with a valve under barrel 1 I can prioritize its filling. I simply shut the valve. As water fills barrel 1, it spills through the pipe into barrel 2. From there the water goes down into the pipes and fills barrels 2, 3 and 4 equally from below.

If I open the valve then all 4 barrels are filled equally. The purpose of this is to make sure the chickens always have water (which comes from barrel 1). At the end of the pipe under barrel 4 there is a faucet where I will connect a hose for watering the garden. With the valve shut, no water from barrel 1 will be used.

Barrel 4 has an overflow pipe at top with a hose fitting. I don't have a hose for this yet. I will most likely send this water to the front yard for use in the garden somehow.


One of the nicest things about this system is that I can easily add new barrels. None of the pipes are permanently in place. It rained Monday and last I checked barrel 1 was full and the others had 4-5 inches. For fun I opened the valve and watched the water level in barrel 1 go down and in the others rise. No leaks to report. It's working great!

Update 03/10/2010: After sometime I noticed that the water level in barrel 3 was not equal to barrels 2 and 4. I figured out that barrel 3 had no way to vent air. My solution was to drill a very small hole near the top to let the air out. There was so much are built up that it blew out air for a good 20 minutes straight. The barrels are all level now.

Tanning a Nutria - Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1 of this series, you can read it here. Sunday night I finished the Nutria tanning project I started at the end of November. At the end of Part 1 I set the racked nutria by the wood stove to dry. Over the course of a few nights there, it dried out. One weekend my friend Andrew and I decided to work on our hides together. He obtained an animal from the same source. His was much larger than mine as you'll see in the picture below.

I used the same metal scraper my brother and I used on the bison. It was pretty easy except the details of head. Half of the time was spent carefully scraping around the ears, eyes, nose and lips.


Andrew did an open skinning and used obsidian to scrape. He tanned it and laid it out in the sun and then never saw it again. I guess someone walking by took it.


Saturday I began the long process of tanning. I used a mixture of soap, oil and water. I rubbed it in till it started getting soft. Then I poured on more mixture and folded the trash bag over top and let it saturate for several hours. When I came back it was fully saturated and flexible.


I started a fire in the wood stove to warm the air. I popped in the new Wolverine movie and settled in for many hours of stretching and drying the hide. I wrung out as much moisture as I could. Then I pulled it back and forth over a rounded post stretching all parts of the hide. Wolverine ended. I put in Watchmen and continued. The skin changed from blue to white meaning it was getting drier. Two and half hours later when Watchmen was winding down, the hide was basically dry but still felt a little cool to the touch. I continued to work the hide as I watched The Ladies Man although it was basically done at that point. The next morning the belly was soft and flexible as can be. The back was just the slightest bit stiff. Overall I was very pleased. I think the lesson was to wring it out more and towel off the fur side before stretching.

The next day I buffed the hide with a pumice stone to soften it up and get rid of skin fragments. In the picture below the right side has been buffed.


Sunday night I got out my smoker. I used to have a pail to contain the fire and support the top pail. Without that I had to rig up this monstrosity of wood and stone to support the top pail and funnel the smoke up. The efficiency of this device was pretty pathetic. 75% of the smoke probably never reached the hide. It might be hard to tell in the picture but there was a skirt of denim sewn onto the hide and connected to the duct. Using the duct prevented the flame and heat from scorching the hide.


Here you can see that the smoke was definitely reaching the hide through the duct. I later clothes-pinned the arms and mouth shut to keep the smoke inside longer. To get smoke I built up a bed of coals and then added wet wood and live evergreen branches. I had to constantly monitor it to keep it from flaming up or burning out. After an hour and a half I took it down.


The picture below shows the finished product. The picture quality isn't that great so it's hard to tell the difference between this and the pre-buffed picture earlier. But the color is definitely darker.


I'm very happy with the finished hide. The hair stayed on and it's soft and flexible enough to make a puppet out of. There were some holes to sew up and I lost the eyelashes, but other than that it's pretty nice. The only thing left to do is make something with it. Most likely I'll sew the bottom together to make some type of bag. I'll post pictures if/when I do that.