The shed door was cut from a thick sheet of concrete form plywood. Cedar trim was then applied to dress it up in the style of a traditional carriage door. We painted it green because that is Lee’s favorite color.

After much deliberation, we selected strap hinges from Pacific Gate Works. We wanted something that would impart a sense of age and tie this new shed to our old house. The hinges really are massive, with thick steel straps and cast iron pivots.

The latch is a twisted ring latch. It arrived with a glossy black finish, so Lee resprayed it in a matte to better match the strap hinges. He also primed and painted the stainless hasp and lock which secures the door. The latch turned out really well, but the paint on the hasp easily chips off.

Lee built the shelving units really quickly based on ideas from a youtube video. The side shelves are two feet deep, so we added crossbars to each level to prevent sagging. We also built shelves across the back (not pictured) which meet the side shelves. The rear shelves are only 16 inches deep and more closely spaced so that one extra shelf fits in the same vertical space.

There’s no picture of the final shelving layout. Immediately after we finished the shelves we started filling them with items that have been clogging up our house projects for years. In the long term, it will be a “garden shed” but in the short term it’s a “bringing some order to our life shed!”

We retrofitted the barrel that we had set up for our pig waterer last year, and poof, we had a chicken waterer fit for a king.

The picture below is an overview of the structures in the chicken pen. The reconfigurable chicken house in the middle is set up as a roosting house now. I think we need to lower the roost bar a little bit, as not all the chickens are too keen on using it at the moment. The reconfigurable range shelter to the left only has food and nesting boxes in it now. The nesting boxes at this moment are cardboard ones as some of the hens have started laying (willy-nilly around the pen) and Lee hasn’t got a chance to build real ones yet. (Actually, in this picture I had just put the nesting boxes in the shelter. Almost every chicken crammed themselves into the shelter to watch a hen use a box.)

I’ve been bringing scratch corn to their pen every day to train them into coming to me. Like most chickens, they are all corn addicts. It’s especially useful training for the Lakenvelder hens. If they fly out of the pen, we’ll have to lead them back with corn because they are too fast to catch.

The original reconfigurable house (the “mini-coop”) had a solid floor, fully enclosed walls with removable screen doors, and was designed as a multipurpose structure: chick brooding, deep-litter roosting house for layers, or (with the center panel removed) as goose housing.

This new reconfigurable house (the “range shelter”) is designed to hold the feed, water, and nesting boxes. If needed, it could also act as a feeding station for sheep. The range shelter was built to the same dimensions as the mini-coop, but features a bolted-together frame of posts and beams. The back panel is plywood, as are small sections on the ends and front to provide shear strength. In keeping with it’s “reconfigurable” design, there are a total of six separate C.R.A.P. rails on the structure: two at each end on the inside, two at each end on the outside, and two in the middle.

The range shelter was cheaper, lighter, and faster to build than the mini-coop. It has a metal roof just like the mini-coop, but to keep things simple it’s not removable. Temporarily, we attached scrap boards to the ends and some scrap fencing to the front so we could lock the “victim” chickens in it until they got used to their new view. We also added a small section of roosts so they could practice roosting. The roosts are held up by mounts that hang from the C.R.A.P. rails.

I’m writing this post about 6 weeks after the events described (it’s been busy around here lately). The “victims” chickens spent a few days locked in the range shelter, and then we opened it up and let them free range. The pen to the right of the range shelter in the next picture housed new victims of the Lakenvelders. We eventually had to squeeze all 7 female Lakenvelders in there, leaving the 8 violent males locked in the mini-coop. The Lakenvelder females have since been integrated into the “victims” flock and are also free ranging.

After all the turmoil, the original “victims” were the first to free range, so it didn’t turn out that bad for them. Despite their weeks and weeks in captivity due to our poor planning and busy summer, they quickly adapted to running through the tall grass, eating bugs and seeds.

Things were indeed becoming desperate at our house.

As tensions rose, Lee worked faster on a reconfigurable chicken house idea he had been mulling on for some time. The plan was to build a semi-portable coop that could fill many roles. We wanted it to act as a brooding house, a coop for small chicks, a roosting house for hens, and possibly as a goose hut. It needed to be light enough that we could move it around the property, and no more then 4 feet wide so it could fit through our garden gate.

First, the base was constructed.

The back wall and sides were erected.

While we debated over a few coop issues I made sure to give the inside a couple of coats of Kilz.

We decided on a removable roof so we could stand up when cleaning it out.

The red middle panel on the coop is screwed into place. If we want to use it for a goose house later, it will become the entrance. It can also be removed to facilitate easier cleaning of the deep litter.

The roof lifts off quite easily with two people. It has lag screws at each end to prevent it from flying off in windy conditions.

The windows are removable, covered with hardware cloth, and easily swing open. There is a latch on both windows. When the chicks get bigger and are let out to free range, we will just remove the windows. They will then simply jump into the coop to reach the roosts. For now, a heat lamp hangs off the center beam and there is a notch in the back for the electrical cord to exit. Since the chicks are still little we are just using a small feeder and waterer. However, the coop has C.R.A.P. compatible rails at each end from which we can suspend a larger feeder and waterer. When it becomes a hen house, we’ll suspend perches from these rails instead.

If this design works out, we have a complementary structure planned to act as a range shelter / feeder / water / nesting station. In the short term, we need to start on the transport rig so we can move the chickens out to a pen in the garden.

With the chicken waterer looking so spiffy in it’s new paint job, the garden gate started giving me sad looks. Okay, not really. It was more like I was giving the gate sad looks as I knew I was going to have to stain it too. When I stained it with penetrating oils early this year, I knew that it would probably need a second coat before too long. I am hoping that with the second coat complete, the third won’t be needed for a year or two. After our harsh Oregon summer, it had already started to look a little rough in a few spots. On a bright note, it was much faster and easier to stain the gate then it was to paint the chicken waterer.

• Keeping up with the Joneses – If it works for car sales, it works for barns.
• False economy – Because 4x more debt will make your animals 400% more productive.
• Anthropomorphism — My animals need someplace warm and cozy just like I do.

This last reason is probably most common among homesteaders (and horse people). You look out in the field. It’s raining and cold. The sheep are probably soggy. You feel guilty. But, let’s consider: sheep were bred in Great Britain (the land of raining and cold) and they are covered in wool (nature’s most effective insulator when wet). Do your sheep need a barn, or do you need a barn so you won’t feel as guilty?

Yeah, that’s a tough one.

The “Barn”

And so, on day 2 of owning pigs I was snuggling in bed and thinking about our two pigs trying to stay warm in the pile of straw I provided. “It’s going to get colder. I should build them something,” I thought.

No, I didn’t take out a mortgage and build them a barn! Instead, I bought $44 in straw and an $8 tarp.

Before anyone starts calling me a ‘horse person’, here are my reasons:

• They really would need shelter if we have another 10° spell like last year.
• Warm animals burn fewer calories. I’m paying for the calories.
• Straw always finds a use around the homestead. (Composting pig manure?)
• It’s Oregon. It’s a tarp. What could be more natural?

The Craigslist Feeders

About a month ago someone advertised two single-bin pig feeders on Craigslist for $25 each. Since these go for $100 new at the local farm store, I sent him an e-mail. No response. Perhaps he sold them or simply forgot to provide a phone number. (Check!)

On day 2 of owning pigs he called me. I almost said, “No thanks, I have an awesome $18 feeder” and then I realized that would be stupid and promptly bought them both. So now we have two like-new pig feeders. They were used for the last couple months of a 4-H pig about five years ago. I’m not going to install one right now, but when I get tired of feeding them twice a day I’m going to mount one very securely and provide a rain cover for it. I’m told that these feeders suffer most of their damage by being torn off the wall and dragged around the pig pen.

Finally, in other news, I put up a pig journal page to record the details of our first pair of pigs.

First, I built a stand for the water tank. The new waterer would be gravity fed, so I needed a bit of elevation. We might also want to mount the waterer inside the coop, so the tank stand needed to be high enough to feed into the coop, but low enough that we could collect rainwater off the coop roof (ala pile of o’melays). This stand is just under 3′ tall. The ends and top are stand-alone units that bolt together. I nailed on the side braces because I ran out of bolts. (Everything but the 4×4′s was scrap material.) It’s probably overbuilt, but 55 gals of water isn’t light.

The water tank was another recycled food-grade 55 gal drum. We buy these from a local honey distributor for $16 each (ours were both used once to transport molasses). They are really sturdy. I’ve read that car wash businesses get their soap in similar drums, so you might take that route to get some free drums. Near the bottom we drilled a door-knob sized hole and installed a plastic bulkhead fitting. The hardware store is painfully proud of these (about $20 each), but they provide a reliable seal between the tank sides and a 1/2″ threaded fitting. We added a ball valve with hose threading to complete the water source.

The waterer itself is a Little Giant. It’s fairly expensive for a brass valve and a plastic bowl (like most things related to livestock), but looks durable and well designed. The bowl removes for cleaning with a quick disconnect and the valve shuts off when you do this instead of running continuously (clever). With the bowl removed, two nuts adjust the spring tension and ultimately the water level at which the weight of the hanging bowl and water closes the valve. I attached the waterer to a 16″ plastic riser, and built a wood mount for it which hangs from a rail on the tank stand. The waterer and tank connect with a short length of garden hose. I prefer garden hoses for easy of reconfiguring things. The chickens were immediately attracted by the red-colored bowl, and quickly accepted it as a water source.

C.R.A.P. Waterer/Feeder

The rail-mounted design of the new waterer matches the rail-mounted chicken feeder I previously built. I like the concept enough I’ve assigned it a name: Chicken Rail Accessory Platform [CRAP]

The concept is simple: by installing a rail of a fixed design at a fixed height, various waterers, feeders, mineral feeders, etc. can be hung and repositioned as needed. The waterer I just built can be mounted inside the coop (with the hose threading through a small hole in the wall) and it will be at the correct height. We can build a narrow feeder for oyster shell or mineral salt and mount it on a similar-height rail on the water tank. If anyone wants to try out CRAP at home, I’ve provided a simple plan drawing below. All measurements were scientifically selected completely at random. They seem to work for me. Other measurements would work just as well.

Edit: Robin tells me my drawing is unclear and needs some explanation. I’m proposing two different install heights based on where you will mount things. Over solid ground, such as outdoors or a regularly cleaned coop, I’m suggesting 9″ from the ground to the feed/water level. This seems to be a good height for the chickens to eat/drink at without wasting food. If you are using a deep litter system in your coop like us, then I’m suggesting 12″ from the floor. This provides an average of 3″ litter to bring the chickens up to about the same height. In practice, this means that at one end of the feeder the floor will be bare and at the other end there will be 6″ litter, but the chickens don’t seem to starve either way. The front lip of the rail in our coop is mounted at 40″ off the floor. The front lip of the rail on our water tank stand is 37″ off the ground.

It involves using wooden posts as rollers under the coop. Lee is much more cheery looking today don’t you think? Must be the ‘third times a charm’ outlook on life.

The coop was farm jacked up on both sides and the first round wooden post was placed under the coop.

The new bolt was attached.

The farm jacks were removed and the coop sat down on the round post.

A discussion ensued over the rough sound of Lee’s tractor. It was probably on whether the tractor was going to make it without dieing again. Lee – Tractor problems have been traced to faulty distributor wires. I’m going to replace them, and the leaking fuel shut-off, and hopefully it will go back to purring like it did last year. Robin – Wow, only men ever talk about an engine purring. Anyways …

WOOHOO it seems to be working!

New posts are added as needed to keep the roller effect going on.

Half way through the coop had to be jacked up again to get another post under it.

We only used three fence posts for the whole process.

Once we had the coop where we wanted it the concrete blocks were put under it again. It managed to rain the whole time we were out working with the coop.

I can’t believe that we actually got this thing moved considering how many problems seemed to come up along the way.

We are off…

We are stuck…

We are off again…

Oops, we got stuck again…

We are off again, I think…

Nope, we got stuck again…

Yeah, we are off…

Nope, it didn’t work. We are still stuck…

YES! We made it and we are off once more…

The chicken coop is making tracks to it’s summer vacation home.

Aw man, we got stuck again…

The bolt sheered and the coop is stuck. Guess we will have to call it a day.

Look at that frustrated face.

We are obviously going to have to work something different out when we get ready to drag the coop back to the chicken pen in the fall. The ground is uneven and the skids aren’t wide enough or tall enough we think. So it keeps getting stuck and is a real pain in the butt to move. Thankfully Lee didn’t get killed by the sheering bolt and flying chain. Thirty pounds of metal in the back of the head probably wouldn’t have ended well. I keep telling him how happy I am that he didn’t die today.

My Dad came by and gave us some ideas on how to get it moved the rest of the way into the garden. Hopefully tomorrow or Saturday we can finish up the job. The chickens are very angry about their confinement in the coop the last four days. Once we get them all the way into the garden they will need to spend another 24 to 48 hours in the coop before we release them into their new fenced in area. The chickens staring out the window will acquaint them with the new surroundings and make them not want to go back to their old chicken lot.