Thinking back over the past few months, I can't help but ask myself, "What in tarnation are you thinking??  Are you insane?  You want to build a chicken coop that's 12' by 15', attach it to a 22' by 42' brick foundation, put a roof on it, windows, doors, vents, roosts, laying boxes, run electricity AND a fenced in  12' by 15' run?  Hey.. before you go buy all that wood concrete and nails, remember that spice rack you made your mother in 8th grade shop class?"

 Yeah.  That was a disaster.  I am not a carpenter by any means.  In fact, it's a good thing that God decided that one flood was enough, because if He was to ask me to build an ark today, I'm afraid that He'd end up with 420 splintered two by fours, 58 pallets taken from the Wal-Mart dumpsters, 126 styrofoam coolers and a canoe, all tied together with masonry string and Scotch Tape.  None of it would float mind you.  Well,  unless you count the canoe, but then again, how may pairs of animals can you fit in one of those?  But I digress.  The spice rack I chose to make my mother didn't look very difficult to make.  Get some good wood, sand it down, shape it and finish it, screw the pieces together and wrap it all up for mothers day with a nice pink bow.  My mind always seems to work that way.  I look at something and I say, "Hmm.. that looks easy!".  The problem is, my hands can't seem to be able to jump on the bandwagon.  They are always cutting things crooked, bending nails, splitting wood and generally causing as much chaos as possible.  There's an old saying that says, "Idle hands are the Devils workshop."  I think in my case, it's the opposite.  I did finish the spice rack though.  Yes I did, and my mother loved it even though the spice jars kept falling off and smashing themselves on the kitchen sink.  My friend at school liked it too.  Just looking at it once caused him to laugh and show it to the rest of the class.  I don't know why they kept calling it a torture rack though.  Unless it had to do with the fact that it kind of resembled one of those old "stocks" thingies.

I think this is how they used to do Marriage Counciling years ago.  Plenty of time to talk..

 So now I am building a Chicken Coop.  Oh boy!  I look at the foundation back yonder and think, "Hmm, this should be easy."  Sound familiar?

Here's a pic of the foundation.  It's a little fuzzy, because I am about as good with camera's as I am with building things. 

 Up until a month ago, this area was populated with about 100 small pine trees.  That's what happens when you let things go "Natural" 'round these parts.  You can see them now laying on the side.

Most houses I believe are tied into concrete foundations, and not bricks.  So my first quandry on my project was to determine how I was going to build on bricks.  I was told that bricks will break easily if I try to drill or attach anything to them, and knowing how good I am at breaking things, I thought I'd try another way.  One of my co-workers said I could set some bolts into the holes in the top bricks using something like liquid nails to fill the hole around the bolt.  Then I could just bolt a two by four to the bick and build on that.   Sounded like a pretty good idea to me, so off to Home Depot I go and buy me 4 tubes of Liquid Nails, (12) 3/4 inch by 4 inch bolts along with nuts and washer to match. 

Do you know how long it takes for a big glob of Liquid Nails to set and dry????

After filling several holes with two tubes of that stuff, and sticking my bolts into them and waiting for 3 days, I realized that Liquid nails was not the way to go.  I figure that the compound stays soft in the tube for years, and that if the middle of the glob never got any air, that my coop might be ready to go by ummm...  2008?  So out came the bolts.  I cleaned them off and put them in other holes.  This time, using fast setting concrete.  Yeah, I do get a good idea now and again.  I drilled holes in the 2X4's and ran the bolts through them.  It's probably not the most secure thing in the world, but its "good enough for government work".   Hopefully we won't get a hurricane anytime soon.  I can see my chickens landing on some witch in striped stockings somewhere over the rainbow.

Now that the brick part of the foundation was done, I now had to set 4x4 posts in the ground as a foundation for the part of the coop that would actually be inside the remaining brick foundation.  I got my bags of cement, two 4x4x8 treated posts, my level, some string and my shovel.  I was ready to rumble.  And then it rained.  Every weekend, it rained.  For a month, Monday through Friday was sunny, warm and the PERFECT weather for building something outside.  Then Saturday morning, straight through Sunday night, it would rain.   AAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!  Do you know how frustrating that can be for an aspiring builder?   Sometimes I work from home during the week, and on those days, I'd look out the window at my fledgling coop and weep as it beckoned me in 70 degree sunny weather.  I expect to be getting my chicks in March, and though I know they will be in a brooder area for some 6-8 weeks, I fear that if this weather pattern keeps up, I will be sharing my bedroom with some 25+ chickens.  Could be worse I guess.  I could be building a barn for horses.

Ahh well, it was a good day today (Sunday), and I did accomplish a good bit.  Once I get some pics made, I'll post them out here.   That is, unless my coop begins to resemble my spice rack of old.  In which case, if you're not a chicken or my mother, you aint' seein' it. 

“Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.”

-Frank Lloyd Wright 

Posted by Tynerion at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When I was about 16, my father decided that he wanted to try his hand at being a part time farmer.  Actually, the term "farmer" is probably not the best way to describe what he actually did,  but it was the closest thing he would ever come to living as an Agrarian.  We lived on ten acres of land situated on top of a hill overlooking beautiful Lake Keuka in Upstate New York.  We had a barn too.   Well, it was had been a barn once upon a time I suppose.  Since then it had been converted to a storage/workshop/place to take your girlfriend to escape the ever vigilant eyes of Mom.  It was fascinating to watch my father put up fencing, close in stalls, and turn it back into a workable barn again.  Being that my father knew little about carpentry or building things, I was quite impressed with what he accomplished.  In due time, we had workable animal sanctuary.

Soon, our barn was bustling with a horse, two nanny goats, chickens and some kind of large rabbits.   The horse was for my sisters to ride, the Goats were for milk, the chickens for eggs and meat, and the rabbits...  Well, the rabbits turned out to be for meat too.  Surprise suprise.  I've plenty of amusing stories pertaining to those days and the animals we raised, but I'm going to save them for later entries.  I believe I'm about to re-experience a good portion of them and as I do, they will come in handy as blog-fodder.

So now I am forty two years old.  The place in NY now belongs to someone else, my parents live in a single wide amongst other retirees who have no interest in animal husbandry, and I've been living in South Carolina for almost twenty years now.  I'm a programmer for a big bank in Charlotte NC, who designs websites in my spare time and plays an online game called Asherons Call whenever I get the opportunity.  I live in a brick and siding home on three acres of land, which sports a circular driveway in front and a 900 square foot foundation sitting behind my house.

That's right, a brick foundation.   It's been there for almost twenty years now.  I think originally, the previous owners who built the house were really into horticulture and wanted to build a greenhouse, but never got to finish it.  When I moved in, I didn't pay much attention to it.  Maybe one day I would build a big workshop on it and take up woodworking.  Or I could build a guesthouse which could double for a place for a pool/ping pong table.  Oh, I had plety of ideas, but unfortunately, due to the unnatural black-hole-like anomalies I like to call children (you put all your money into them to watch it dissappear forever), I never had the wherewithal to actually put even one of my plans to work.

Last November, I was sitting around a bonfire at my neighbors house, imbibing an adult beverage and contemplating the cacophonous sounds that surrounded me.  A good portion of the noise came from half cocked southern boys, pickin' on guitars and howling at the moon.  The rest was in the form of about 30-40 chickens situated right behind us in pens.  When I moved to the south, let me tell you, I REALLY moved to the SOUTH.   And to give you an idea of what I mean, the chickens my neighbor owns and raises are for gaming purposes.  Gamecocks.  I never saw any of this in NY.

I wont go into what I think about fighting chickens here.  Again, that's for another post.  But sitting there that one day, I just kept thinking about what a waste it seemed to me to spend wads of money on chickens that you would never be able to eat, or even enjoy an omlette from one of thier eggs.  At that moment, I harkended back to the chickens on the old farm and all the eggs I gathered, and the roast chicken I enjoyed when we culled the flock.   All of a sudden, a lightbulb went off  over my  head and I knew what I wanted to do with that foundation.  I wanted to be like my father and try something... different.  Cluck Clucky different.

Once I get a thought in my mind, it's hard to get it out.  I spent the next month pouring through website after website about chickens, coops, brooders, how to feed, what to look for, what to do and what not do to..   And now my brain is so full of chicken related stuff, I dream about growing feathers (no joke!)

So now I am on a journey.   A journey that I figure others might enjoy participating in, even if it just through a blog.  Reading about someone with chickens might be a good read and interesting, but when it comes to ME raising chickens, building a chicken coop and all that this is going to involve, it's bound to be an interesting road to travel.   

The following entries will not be exact by date by the way.  I figure I have a lot of catching up to do to bring everyone up to date on where I am at.  But be patient.  I'll be doing a weekly update that is current soon enough.  Right now, the status is: "Brooder made, but no coop and no chicks."  I have a lot of work to do.  :)

Hope you enjoy.  

"People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about  so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately" - Oscar Wilde

Posted by Tynerion at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)