The Egg & I

My chickens needed a bit of convincing (or is it 'inspiration'?) with respects to egg-laying and the nest boxes. 

A few days ago, I installed these two nest boxes for them.

The next day, I found an egg on the floor of the coop. It's where I'd found the initial few eggs before the nests were up.

It was a tiny, little egg, too. 

The girls can't just leave eggs any ol' place. They need to use the nest boxes. I gave them a stern lecture that seemed to fall on deaf ears.  "What kind of mothers are you that you just drop your eggs any where it's convenient?" 

The old timers had wooden or ceramic eggs they'd put in the nest boxes to convince hens to go broody. Maybe it also works for teaching them to use nest boxes? 

Lacking fake eggs, I improvised and borrowed a couple of golf balls from G.W. (Don't worry, I took the ones that were all scuffed up anyway.)                                                         

The next morning, voila! Two eggs in the box right beside the golf balls.

I guess the chickens see those golf balls and think, "Oh, yeah. That's what those yellow boxes are for." Or is it "Fore!"? 

Gravity-fed Poultry Watering System

Check out my amazing gravity-fed poultry watering system. 

I have two of these set up inside the chicken coop for my flock of 24 birds. 

Our friend Richard put them together using the components I purchased from an Amazon.com merchant by the name of the Coop Queen , in addition to some supplies from Lowe's. (Not that the bucket doesn't make it apparent!)

The system is based on these. 

They are poultry drinking nipples. They work just like a water bottle for a hamster. The chicken pecks at the nipple and drops of water come out.

I chose the saddle-style nipples rather than the kind that are threaded and screw in because the saddle-style ones are easier to work with. They can be removed, replaced and reused. The screw-in kind can be replaced, but not reused.

I also ordered the bulkhead fitting assembly from the Coop Queen. The shutoff valve on the assembly will make cleaning the system a lot easier.

In this photo, you can see both the bulkhead fitting and the shelf used to hold the 5-gallon bucket on the wall. Richard cut the shelf a little narrower than the diameter of the bottom of the bucket to allow the bulkhead to hang freely.

Simply drill a 1 1/2" hole in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket and screw in the bulkhead. 

I used a leader hose for a hose reel to connect the bulkhead to the PVC pipe.

The PVC is 3/4" and is capped on the end opposite the hose connection. 

Richard drilled 5/16" holes along the PVC then wrapped the pipe with teflon tape before snapping on the drinking nipples. According to the directions, the teflon tape isn't necessary, but we decided to take the extra step to help prevent leaking. 

It's important to line up the 5/16" holes along the PVC so the nipples are vertical. In the photo, the nipples are pointing up. During use, they will be straight down. 

Richard used a section of 2x4 to mount the PVC pipe on the wall of the coop. 

Once the bulkhead tap is opened, water flows through the black hose and into the PVC pipe. When a chicken pecks at one of the drinking nipples, water drips out. 

The buckets are topped with Gamma Seals. Those are screw-on lids. These lids keep dirt out of the buckets. Just don't screw them on tightly so that air can get in and allow water to flow out. These lids also make it a cinch to fill the buckets.

I have two of these watering systems in the coop.

Once they were installed, it was a breeze to show the chickens how they worked. Chickens are naturally curious,  so all I had to do was tap the drinking nipples to allow some water to drip out. A couple of the chickens noticed immediately and began pecking at them. Once some of them knew what to do, the others followed suit. In less than 24 hours, all were drinking from the systems. 

The ten gallons total in the two systems lasts my flock of 24 birds one week. Twice a day, I check the water level in the buckets as well as the functionality of the drinking nipples. Then once a week I fill up both buckets. It doesn't get any easier than this. The flock always has fresh, clean water available. No more cleaning poopy water containers!

I've already been playing around with some design improvements. If I replace the end cap on the PVC with some type of connection for garden hose, I can clean out the entire system by flushing it with water while it's still in place inside the coop. I can just connect a garden hose to the end of the PVC, run the hose out the coop door and then flush the system. I could even run a weak bleach solution for disinfection through and rinse it well afterwards.  Since the water buckets are closed, they don't get dirty, but it's still necessary to clean them out periodically.

As a post script to this, I wanted to tell you about the excellent customer service the Coop Queen provides. After we had the watering systems installed, one of the drinking nipples leaked. It dripped water constantly. I sent an email to the Coop Queen and within a couple of days, I had a pack of five replacement nipples at my door. They really stand behind their product! Can't ask for better service!

I popped the leaker off and put a new one on and all is well!

Between these watering systems and my feeders, my daily chicken-related chores are down to just a few minutes. Weekly refills of buckets and general maintenance of the coop itself are really the only chores that take time.

As a disclaimer, having feed and water systems like this does not mean you never have to go into the coop. Don't put these in your coop and think you can ignore the birds for a week or two. OK? That's not how this works.  I still am down there several times a day to check on the levels of food and water, check for eggs, make sure the chickens are healthy, that nothing has tried to get into the coop...all the usual maintenance items. The systems reduce work by keeping things clean. Nothing more, nothing less.

Do you have any labor saving ideas that you use with your flock? If so, please share them! I'd love to see what you are doing.

Gravity Fed Poultry Feeder

One of my favorite quotes is by Thomas Edison. "There is always a way to do something better. Find it."  I also like to work smarter, not harder and look at everything I do with an eye for efficiency. I took that approach to feeding and watering my flock of chickens.

Chickens are dirty birds. Seriously dirty birds. They poop everywhere, including in their water. It's a lot of work to keep their water clean on a daily basis. And it's yucky to clean out a poop-filled waterer. They also waste feed, since their natural tendency is to scratch around. The food, even when it's in special chicken feeders, gets scattered all over the place and wasted.

With some internet research and a little ingenuity of my own, I now have wonderfully low maintenance systems for both feed and water. 

First the feeders.  Here is the finished product. It's a couple lengths of 4" plastic drain pipe, a PVC elbow joint, some drain/end caps I found in the irrigation supply section of Lowe's, a bit of duct tape and some pipe strapping.

This design is a modification of one I found online at Our Little Coop. Here is a photo from their website of the feeder they designed.

It's a lovely, simple design and was one I was going to build for my own flock. Until I got to Lowe's and priced out the components, that is. The tray that the feed goes into is a cap for PVC fence. They were $15 each. I need four feeders, so right away I was up to $60 in materials. Add in the cost of the 4" Schedule 35 pipe and the various other fittings and my four feeders would have cost in excess of $150. 

With some help from an amazing employee at Lowe's, I found alternatives to all of the components for a total cost of just under $60 for four feeders.  WooHoo!!

The white pipe is some kind of 4" drain pipe that's out with all of the landscaping drainage materials at Lowe's. It's a lightweight material and each 10-foot length was only $7. 

Naturally, I was so busy doing that I forgot to take photos.

I'll do my best to describe my process. I used a hacksaw to cut each ten foot piece into two 4-foot and two 1-foot lengths. One of each of these lengths makes up the feeder. 

I used a hole saw bit to cut three holes in each short piece. The chickens will get to the feed through these holes.

The short piece is connected to the long piece with a PVC elbow. The short end is capped with a green plastic drain piece. That piece had drain holes in it which were easily covered over with duct tape.

The top of the long tube is covered with a plastic end cap that was also out there with all of the landscape drainage material. 

Two of these feeders were installed back in July when Richard was here helping with the coop renovation. Here he is attaching one of the feeders to the wall. That's copper pipe strapping holding them to the wall.

This reminds me, if you are going to build something like this yourself, make sure all of the components fit together BEFORE you buy them and leave the store!  We live 15 miles from the nearest hardware store, so we make our list before we go and check it three times before we leave the store for home!

I put up the two outside feeders myself. Because of the way the run is constructed, I mounted the feeders on boards that were then screwed into the supports of the run.

I had a lot of help from the chickens while I was trying to get the feeders up. They're pecking at the drill, at the screws, at the feeder, my belt and even my earrings while I'm trying to work! Sheesh!

Ta Da! My $15 a piece super-duper chicken feeders!

Wanna know the best part? Each one holds around 15 pounds of chicken feed. Once filled, it takes my flock nearly two weeks to empty them. And the food in the pipes is clean and dry all the time. All I do on a daily basis is check the feed level. I only fill them when they're nearly empty, then I'm good for another two weeks or so. Sweet, huh?

Tomorrow I'll post the details of my gravity-fed watering system. If you thought the feeders were ingenious, wait until you see the waterers!

Part Two - The Old Homestead Coop (or G.W.'s Fear of Change Orders)

When we last left you, I'd expanded the scope of the coop renovation from replacing one wall to replacing three. There was at least some measure of logic behind my request. Since we were already doing the work, why not fix up the other sides now instead of just patching them? Then we won't have to come back in a few years to completely redo those walls. Makes sense, right?

That kind of logic briefs well. But when your work crew thinks they are about halfway done and you turn around and add three additional days of work to the project, you better offer up lots of good home cookin' to smooth the way!

Once the guys had the walls torn apart we could see the frame of the coop. It is made from hand hewn wood. How cool is that? 

This is a hand-cut notch in one of the corner posts.

Here, Richard points to the marks left from the felling axe, a tool used to hew wood.

This means the basic structure of the coop was built before there were power tools.  Could be as much as 100 years old. 

It took Richard and G.W. an entire week to renovate this coop and that was with the use of power tools. Can you imagine how long it must have taken to build the coop using only hand tools? I'll bet it took a good solid month.  

But meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I forgot to mention that the guys had rebuilt the gate into the coop yard. It's solid now!

Richard had a great idea for added weather protection for the treated plywood we used on the walls.

Painting the walls with this stuff will add years to the life of the coop!

It was my job to paint the outside walls with it. It's thick like tar but not that difficult to work with. The rough cut lumber siding will go on top of this.

The window and door will have decorative painting on them. For now, they're left unpainted.

The guys were hard at work rebuilding the side of the coop.

With absolutely nothing square or even close to square, they had their work cut out for them.

Then it was my turn to paint with the asphalt stuff.

On the back of the coop, the very bottom of the boards had rotted out.

Rather than try to trim that off, the guys covered the ragged edge with treated plywood that had been painted with the water proofing. 

Then I was up again to paint the wall.

The last task for the day was getting half of the new roof on.  We chose the roll roofing because it's cheaper than shingles and easier to work with. 

Colorado building code doesn't allow the use of rolled roofing on homes. (But it's fine for barns and chicken coops) Some people apparently were using it on houses  anyway, so now stores don't sell it. G.W. got three rolls of it while on a trip to Wyoming a few weeks ago.

Although we had storms roll through in the afternoon and had to knock off "early" (meaning before it got dark), the coop was coming right along!

I believe all three of us took Advil before bed that night!  This kind of work seems to get harder as we're getting older.

Before any of us were ready, the next day dawned and we were at it again.

The other side of the roof went on quickly. I'm proud to say that I was up there pounding nails right alongside the guys.

While G.W. went to the sawmill to pick up the slab wood, Richard and I worked on the gravity feed watering system and the feeders.

Oh, that's right...we changed our minds about using rough cut lumber for the siding and went with slab wood. Nice looking and very inexpensive! More on that in a minute.

I'll do a separate post about the construction of the waters and feeders. For now, let's just say they are very ingenious, will save lots of time and will prevent dirty water and wasted feed.

Here's Richard installing one of the feeders. The gravity fed watering system is on the left (Blue bucket, hose and PVC with poultry drinking nipples).

Another feeder...

...and the second watering system.

The box fan in the window is to help keep air moving through the coop. It's a heavy-duty, rain resistant one.

Again, storms blew in by mid-afternoon, so we had to knock of "early". But thus endeth the seventh day of the coop renovation. Unfortunately, we did not rest on the seventh day.

The next day was crunch time, since all of the chickens were going into the coop at 5PM. 

I worked on wrapping the outside of the coop walls with chicken wire to prevent any critters from digging in. I only had to do part of the outside, since there is a concrete footer along one and a half of the walls. No digging through or under that!

G.W. and Richard started on the siding. I think it looks fantastic! Very much in keeping with the other old barns on the property.

Should I send this photo to the people at DeWalt?

The guys got enough siding up to cover the one corner next to the coop yard fence. Then they could finish the fence.

Just in time too, since the chickens were ready to move in! Not only did I have my thirteen to relocate, I acquired eleven more hens from a neighbor who is moving to Canada. Now I have two flocks to integrate. In my next post, you'll meet the whole gang!