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Gertie
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
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Location: Yorkshire
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Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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Gertie
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
Location: Yorkshire
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Wombat
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 396
Location: SW Cheshire
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Tristan
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Posts: 392
Location: North Gloucestershire
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 Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 12:28 pm Post subject: |
 
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IMHO arks are awkward, having to bend over and lean forwards to clean them out is hard on the back,& if you've got large fowl there is not a lot of headroom.
I built our first hen house from scratch, 4'x3' with external nest boxes, coraline roof, 1/2 inch T&G boardover 2"x1" frame, & it cost about �180.
The next one was a modified 6x4 shed, dead easy to clean as you can stand up in it, and easy to catch the errant hen who always makes a run for it when they get the louse powder ( not sure who gets most tho'  ). We just cut out a hole for the pophole, fixed a windproof porch on and put some nestboxes inside. |
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Marigold123
Joined: 06 Feb 2005
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Wed Feb 09, 05 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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My three black rock hens are housed in a converted tool store, (not even large enough to be dignified with the appellation of 'shed'!), about which I am supposed to be writing an article very soon. It is actually just about the right size for the three of them, and keeps them nice and cosy in Winter!
The design of my house was very much driven by cost, and the need to use as much 'reclaimed' building material as possible. I did have to buy some screws, nails and fixings, plus roofing felt - a HUGE roll that will last me until I am 90! - and a 5 litre bucket of animal-friendly wood treatment for �2.99 from Wilkinsons, all of which, incredibly, I used!
All the wood I used was recycled and free, scrounged from skips, people's front gardens, (I asked first!), friends' garages, etc. This includes the shed itself, which came with the house!
I wanted to light my henhouse, (I like eggs all year-round!), and was fortunate that my friend is qualified to do small-scale electrical work. I bought some outdoor cable, a special all-weather socket, an individual circuit breaker to use indoors for extra safety and a digital timer, and let him do the rest.
Including the electrical equipment, large roll of roofing felt, wood preservative and all the small bits and pieces, and including the feeder and drinker, the house came in at about �50, completed. Without the electrics it would have been less than half that price.
About the house itself:
It has a nest box fixed to one side, with a sloping, hinged roof, to make egg collection easier. The box itself is raised off the ground on bricks - we're high tech here! - and is actually attached to the shed via large hinges with removable pins, in case I ever need to move the shed. It started off as a broken ikea boot box, pinched from behind my neighbours' bins on bin day, but is none the worse for that.
It is the same width as the rest of the house, which I thought was too big for one nest box, but too small for two, so I partitioned off about a third of the area to keep feed and corn in. (The chickens know it's there because they can smell it, but they can't get at it! I am the great god who can open the lid and take out CORN! so the chooks respect me for this!  Like heck they do!  )
The hens sleep on one perch, sited above the pophole, which is locked closed at night. (The nestbox and main door are also firmly secured at night, in case Mr Fox comes calling.) Any draughts which might come through the cracks around the pophole flap are prevented from reaching the birds by the droppings board underneath the perch. I think they are also warmer up under the roof, as there is less space for their bodyheat to disappear into.
The droppings board, (which I slide out and scrape off into the compost heap every few days), collects most of the droppings they produce inside the house, and the rest are left outdoors. As a result I don't need to change their litter very often. About every 4 or 5 months in the Summer and more frequently in the Winter, when they spend more time inside.
I worried at first that they might be too warm in the Summer, but the house is in a part of the garden that is shaded by the house in the afternoon, and actually stays nice and cool. I had made plans to remove an extra plank above the window and replace it with mesh to aid ventilation when the weather warmed up, but it turned out not to be necessary. Our hens are outside from dawn to dusk, and point blank refuse to go into the house during the day except to feed and lay. (Even when it rains they would much rather sit under dripping bushes or a stack of garden chairs.) As a result, by the time they go in, even on the hottest day, it is cool and comfortable, so there doesn't seem any need.
They have layers pellets and fresh water continually available in the house, in a plastic feeder and drinker suspended from the underneath of the bar which supports the droppings board, (in the case of the feeder), and the drinker hangs down next to the entrance to the nest box, from a bar fixed across the width of the shed, resting on existing internal supports.
I chose to suspend their water and feed, rather than stand them on the floor of the house, as otherwise they fill everything up with woodshavings very quickly and the water gets absorbed and disappears, and they complain because they can't see their food! It stays much cleaner this way. It also maximises the amount of space the hens have to move around.
This is by the one small window, (which I added myself - a couple of planks removed and replaced by a sheet of perspex drilled and attached across the width of the shed). The chooks occasionally try to use this to perch on if it has got dark very quickly and they have been too slow to find their normal perch in the dim light. This might be a problem as it means they could drop poop in their water, so I am wondering whether I might look into getting hold of some of that plastic 'anti perching' stuff you sometimes see put up to deter pigeons. I don't think it hurts them, but it's awkward for them to perch on and should deter them from roosting there.
My alternative would be to put a strong hook in the ceiling and use a longer piece of chain to suspend the drinker. I could then remove the bar altogether, which I think would be preferable.
The state of the of the original shed before the conversion was rather rough. The roofing felt was damaged and leaking, and the whole thing was a bit damp. Once I had replaced the felt, treated all the wood with animal-friendly wood preserver, and filled the place with woodshavings and warm chicken bodies, it dried out very quickly, so perhaps a ceiling hook would be a good idea after all. At the time, however, I was worried whether the dampness might cause the hook to pull out under the weight of the drinker, and had to find an alternative method. I think now that a hook fitting with a plate that screws onto the ceiling with 3 or 4 screws would be better than a simple screw-in hook, but I didn't think of that at the time.
I cut the pophole a little way up from the floor of house, as I wanted to use a deep litter system and I didn't fancy having a blizzard of woodshavings kicked out of the door every day. For the same reason, I fixed a board across the bottom of the main doorway, on the inside, so that the shavings would still stay in when I open the door. Unfortunately, this isn't quite high enough, and they can still throw some shavings over it to fall out when I open the door. I will probably be able to get round this by fitting another piece of wood into the space on the inside of the door itself, so there is nowhere for the shavings to collect. It's on my 'to do' list! 
I think the main drawback of this type of housing is that it is not easily movable, as it really needs a concrete base, or at any rate, a lot of bricks under it. You will also need to either have a run attached, or allow free access to the garden, as there isn't enough space or natural light (in my house at least) to keep the chickens happy.
On the plus side you don't have to bend to remove feeders and drinkers or when replacing old litter. (An adult needs to stoop a bit to open my nestbox, but this depends on how high you decide to raise it off the ground.) My henhouse has a low ceiling, as it's only a converted tool store, but converting a larger shed would let you walk right in, which would be lovely, and you would perhaps have enough space to keep the chooks indoors in bad weather.
Don't be surprised if you find a lot of this regurgitated in the conversion article when it appears. I am still feeling my way round the idea, and will probably rely on material I have written already, (in posts and PMs), to get me started. Hope people will be OK with this.
There will hopefully also some pics to accompany it, to help clarify some of the descriptions. I'll also do my best to give dimensions as well, but please bear in mind that the only actual measuring I did was to ensure that the bits I was putting in fitted properly in the places I wanted them to go!
I hope this post and the subsequent article help you to decide on your choice of housing.  |
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Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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Lloyd
Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699
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Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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Lloyd
Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699
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Gertie
Joined: 08 Jan 2005
Posts: 1638
Location: Yorkshire
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Marigold123
Joined: 06 Feb 2005
Posts: 224
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Wombat
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 396
Location: SW Cheshire
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jema
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28235
Location: escaped from Swindon
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Wombat
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 396
Location: SW Cheshire
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| Posted: Thu Feb 10, 05 8:23 am Post subject: |
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Yes, prices and profit margins always get me annoyed. My background is the clothing trade, retail buying, where fashion garments are marked up by at least 300%. I am therefore always suspicious about the real worth of lots of other products, which makes shopping with me a nightmare  
A personal tip, if you have the balls to do so, always negotiate on higher price items. Only recently did I get �15 knocked off of a purchase of �145 in Dixons. Got the manager involved, suggested that I didn't want to pay that much, cheaper elsewhere, etc.
Allways have a go, particularly if you know you do not have to buy it from a particular place and can pick it up elsewehere. That gives you the advantage of being able to walk away and that is what captures the salesman even more
Wombat |
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