Posts Tagged ‘building a chicken coop’
Taking Shape
We are getting close. This weekend we got wallboard nailed on the frame of the chicken coop. That closed it up except for the people-door (because we ran out of pieces long enough to use for that opening).
Elysa and Ande stopped by, surprising us with a visit yesterday. They provided some key assistance toward getting all the gaps filled. It was a bit of a Tetris game to match the boards and the spaces over the studs.
Just having additional hands to hold something in place or hand me another nail helped immensely to keep things humming along. My process involves a lot of pauses to plot several steps ahead and then measure, mark, and cut the pieces.
I had a limited number of large boards that I was trying to match with the best possible spaces. When we didn’t have a long enough piece available, the alternative was to use multiples of the shorter boards. There were a lot more of them from which we could choose.
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In one of our design-on-the-fly decisions, Cyndie and I decided to have two horizontal hinged openings on the wall of the nest boxes. The lower one will open downward and create a little shelf to place cartons while collecting eggs. I decided to use the space above the nests, where there will be a slanted board to keep the chickens from perching, as a small, angled storage area.
The upper opening will be hinged at the top and swing upwards to provide full access to the cubby space.
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When we excitedly got one of the boards mounted on the backside, I realized I’d forgotten about cutting the slot opening for the access door to the poop-board. Now I’ll be doing that after the fact.
That’s the kind of thing that happens when you are making things up as you go along.
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Internal Detailing
When choosing to make it up as you go along, assembly projects can gobble up a lot of time. I had visions of putting up the walls on the new chicken coop yesterday, but never quite got that far. We did make good progress on visualizing the steps we would take to get the internal details finished, despite not actually making the final cuts and screwing the last few things into place.
We started the day by completing the all-important “poop board” assembly that is located underneath the roost branches. We have designed it for a plan of daily sliding the board out for a quick cleaning, scraping off the droppings so they can be composted for fertilizer.
While I was sawing and nailing the bits and pieces associated with that feature, Cyndie worked on making an entrance ramp for the chickens, using branches for the outer frame and then weaving grape vines around them.
Slowly but surely, I devised a plan for how we will secure the edges of hardware cloth with trim boards that I have scrounged from a store of lumber in the garage that has probably been around since the day the house was built.
That means it has been here through two owners before us.
We cut pieces of hardware cloth to cover the window openings on three walls and got those stapled in place. Then I did some work on enclosing the ceiling below the roof structure.
Cyndie cut openings in the plastic bins we are using for the nest boxes and I measured and marked the dividers for those.
It was about that point in the day where things stalled a bit, because I had forgotten twice earlier to take my spare battery to the shop to get it charging.
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Note to self: When working on the last internal details, don’t neglect the other important details of taking care of the equipment that allows you to finish the task at hand.
Eventually, the second battery ran out of power and I was forced to take them both up to be charged. That left me unable to cut anything on which I had marked dimensions.
With luck, that will allow me to make some good progress this morning, quickly cutting the prepared pieces to finish the nesting boxes and securing the last of the hardware cloth beneath the roof.
Then it’ll be time to close the walls, baby.
Oh oh. That means I’ll next need to figure out how I’m going to do the doors. One more thing I’ve never done before in my life.
I’m pretty sure we’re gonna need some hinges…
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Fighting Wind
Of all the days to try to put on the roof panels, the strong gusting winds we experienced yesterday made it much more challenging than desired. I didn’t help myself any by having previously installed the middle row of plastic panel supports just a little out of line.
Regardless, I am claiming victory and celebrating the completion of the roof. Hurrah!
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George stopped by to inspect our progress and Cyndie snapped a photo while I gave him a tour of the place.
With rain predicted, we decided to try wrapping a tarp around 3 of the walls for the night. Even though I am getting weary of the daily intensity of this project, we’ve reached a point where I pretty much need to forge ahead and get the coop buttoned up and weather-tight.
The bungie-tied partial tarp is not going to cut it for long.
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Relative Something 