ok my coop is almost done! YEAH! i managed to get sides on it all by myself this weekend. I was seriously considering deep litter but at the moment I can't remember what different things & the reasons why i've read that that everyone uses. I am going to put the water bowl in there up on concrete blocks. It has a dirt floor & I went ahead & put 2x10's up 20 inches on the sides. Do you think the water will freeze if its in there like that using the deep litter method? I can't afford to do a heater on the water bowl this year, money is just too tight. Is this a bad idea to put it in there? Its not a hanging waterer, its a large rubber horse bowl.
The second question.. i was going to put hardware wire all around teh outside bottom of the pen & bury it. My helper has since broken his finger this weekend & the doctor told him he's not allowed to help for 3 MONTHS. that's too long. The girls need new housing within the next week. Originally i was going to pour a concrete wall about 6 inches down around the outside of the pen but i'd figured the wire would be easier. Now the wire isn't as easy bc i dont have help. The concrete the 8 yr old can help me do. Does anyone have an opinion? Do you think the concrete would work? Would 6 inches be enough? Please.. please.. give me opinions. If your wondering concrete is way cheaper here than the wire too. i can pour about 3 ft x 6 inches for roughly $4. The wire is going to cost me about $100. Has anyone tried this? Would raccoons bother to dig deeper than that to get in?
deep litter & wire vs concrete predator repellent
I'm no expert but I think you are supposed to go deeper than six inches. I have forgotten how deep now, but it seems it's 18 inches.
I'm really interested in this question myself.
Is it possible to put chicken wire inside the coop on the floor, or even lay it down outside the coop all around?
Im for sure no expert either... When I built my pen I buried the wire a foot underground so I didn't think I needed to put it over the floor too. Well, now Im fighting rats that didn't seem to have any problem at all digging under that wire. My guess is that 6in of concrete wont stop them either :( Im about ready to dig up all the litter on my floor and go back with the wire.
I live in a pretty rural area surrounded by sugar cane so field rats are a problem this time of year. You may not have the same problem where you are :)
I hope this helps ya a bit!
Caren
we have field rats but the cats kill them... or the chickens do. I'm worried about raccoons & possums. That's the only creature to get into my coops. We buried wire down a foot, put bricks on top of it, the wire came out 2 ft & it did no good, they just found another way in, they never even tried to dig around the coop after we did that, not once. That's why i was thinking the concrete might be just as well, & less hassle to put in. Even at 18 inches down that's better than putting in wire. We actually have never had them dig into the pen in several years. They found better ways of getting in. This pen isn't so much wire tho bc i can't put the wire on myself & I found out i was sorta big enough to slap the plywood on myself (tho i don't recommend it bc now i feel awful). with just a little wire for the top for winter. Next summer I'll put wire on two sides & take the plywood off. That still leaves me a 20" rim around the bottom of the coop with the 2x10s for deep litter & the plywood will go back on over the wire when it gets cold.
I don't want to lay the wire around the outside again. That was days of digging with 2 of us digging. Its me, myself & i this time around. Its a lot of dirt & rock to move to make enough room to lay the wire down. I thought about the inside but that's going to be a lot of digging too & I'd like to leave it free for the girls to be able to dig down & take dust baths if they want.
o.. they have dug into the pen at my neighbors is why i was worried about them digging in(raccoons). I suspect it was a dog tho & i think the concrete would deter a dog. I could be wrong but i don't see a dog going to that much effort to dig under, 6 inches or 18 inches of concrete in one night.
6" doesn't sound like deep enough... field rats are a real pain in the rear. I'd go 12-18" with the concrete. Skunks and ground squirrels are both real diggers and both like to get into coops.
no problem with them but i'll go 18 inches... Does it sound like a possible working solution to use the concrete instead of the wire or am i totally out of my mind?
18" of concrete sounds like a good defense to me. It also sounds like a lot of work!
not so much.. its not like i'm making it 6 inches wide.. just 3 inches. i dug 18 deep holes for the posts, 6 of them in 30 minutes. an 18 in trench shouldn't be that big of a deal.. a whole lot better than digging out 2 ft & down a foot for wire. I guess i should point out this is in the middle of the old pen so the dirt is relatively free of rocks a good 12 inches down. :) makes digging very easy. its also extremely cheaper than wire at this point.
Sounds like a good plan then.
Wow, you are a digging machine Gray.
A strong wind blew down 12 feet of my fence this year. Actually picked the wood fence up and flew it about 10 feet. The wood on the posts had rotted. So, the neighbor and I tried to fix it. I had never used cement before, but he just poured it in the hole around the metal post and then added water with the garden hose. I thought that was pretty neat.
Thanks to all of you for this discussion. I want to do something similar soon.
I was just surfing and found this thread so forgive me for butting in but having had poultry for over 20 years in various situations I will suggest something that we do quite successfully. There are two ways to handle the digging problem. In the house, just rake away the shavings or litter and lay chicken wire down on the ground. Cover the entire bottom of the house. We use the 1" because snakes can't get through it, nor can the small rats. Cover with the litter or just leave it. It will work into the ground and will last quite a long time. Seems like at the old farm I pulled some out after about 10 years when we were getting ready to move (I was curious) and it was still mostly intact. By that time it was about 1" in the ground but we never used shavings either. Staple it to the sides to keep rats from pushing through there.
In our yard, we put 3' chicken wire on the ground on the outside of the fence, tied to the bottom of the fence and left it there. Within a month you really couldn't see it and could mow and weed eat with no problem. It stops the digging. A predator will try once or twice, close to the fence and when they can't get under, they quit. We never had a problem with rats in the bird yard.
Joy
Thanks rouxcrew but i put the wire down about 10 yrs ago, we dug what was left of it up this fall. We have heavy metals in our dirt & it seems to rust anything out & destroy it after just a short time. there was one roughly 12 inch piece of wire left out of two sides of the pen. The rest was just gone. It was on a corner that was up against the garage. I'd lay it on the top of the ground & try it since its easier to replace.. but our grass doesn't grow very fast here & mom would forever be mowing it up til the grass grew in. I dont want it on the inside bc i didn't level very well & it would never lay correctly. plus i want teh girls to be able to level my floor in there for me by digging before i start the deep litter. They like to dig, might as well give them a job to help make their new house.
Light for Jesus - The ground was really soft, it had rained the day before, we started the hole, poured water in, let it sit a bit, dug some more & it went really fast. The concrete I tried dumping the whole bag in the hole them putting water on top like i was told, i prefer to dump 1/3 in, put a little water, let the kids poke at it with sticks a bit, 1/3 more concrete, more water & so on till the top of teh hole.. it set up faster too.
If your ground is wet, the concrete will absorb the water from the surrounding ground without having to add water. Down here when we set posts we just mix the powdered concrete with some of the dirt, tamp it and leave it for a couple days. The concrete pulls the water out of the surrounding clay and you get the big clump around the post.
We also have used livestock panels on the ground, they last forever. Chicken wire conforms to the ground very well especially if it is uneven, but if you don't want to use it, then it really doesn't matter. It stops all our egg stealing rats and snakes. Now our flock is free range and the LGD's protect them as well as the other livestock we have.
Sorry for the intrusion,
Joy
That was no intrusion Joy, that was good information and we all welcome it around here. Welcome to the forum and don't be a stranger. Haystack
Hi Greykittyn, boy your really getting some great ideas and it sounds like you are plugging away. Good girl, I love hearing what your doing the the progress also. Hay
grey, know what you mean about the soil eating wire... I've got soil that consumes T-posts in about 8 years. It makes short work of thin wire.
What are you digging with that you can make a 3" trench? Even my tree spade doesn't make that narrow a trench, so I am very curious. =0)
You're no intrusion, Joy... though grey may not use your technique, someone else will no doubt find the info useful. It's an open forum so we can ALL put in our 2 cents worth, 'cause you just never know what might be useful. =0)
If my coop was level... (next time it will be) I'd already considered using Joy's idea. its only bc the coop really isn't level that I nixed the idea. It would be way too hard to put in the wire.. if only u guys could see what i mean.. there is like a valley on one side, a couple mountains in the middle area & another valley & a crater in there too. ooo & since it rained i've got a cave. I mean REALLY unlevel inside teh coop & it affected the levelness of the actual coop too. it drops probably 6 inches on one corner. rookie mistake I will correct next time.
Joy - It was no intrusion to have you leave info. I'm happy to know that works. I didn't know anyone had every done that before. I just thought of it when i was first putting in the posts, thinking that would be super easy.. then i could just throw the old leaves in on top to speed covering the wire up. Then i realized just how unlevel my coop was & how the ground ate teh wire up.
Jayryunen - idk what a tree spade is. its a hoe that my grandpa redid to make digging easier for grandma to make these nifty little rows in the dirt for planting seeds. the hoe itself is about 2 inches wide maybe a bit more & the width of the head of the hoe, which i think back then was about 6 inches. I turn it on its end like grandma did & did away, scooping the dirt out as I go. Works pretty good. u can dig trenches for seeds for a bit garden in nothing flat.
A tree spade is a long narrow shovel with less of an angle on it than a regular shovel so it goes in the dirt straighter... great for digging straight-sided holes. Mine is 16" long by 6" wide.
Down here we call those sharp shooters. Or post hole shovels if your hardware man doesn't recognize the other term. If you had a long trench, i.e. a bigger perimeter, and the ground wasn't so nice, you could rent a small trencher that they use to dig water and electric lines. I know it is an expense, but seems like it was a good toss up for us the one time we needed a long trench and didn't have a lot of free time or strong backs. Our soil is yellow clay and when it is dry it is like concrete.
Joy
oo we've got 2 of those... didn't know what they were called tho. That's my favorite shovel to use.
ours is red clay.. when its dry.. its as hard as a rock. Thankfully my chickens created some good dirt in the yard where i was digging. I seriously thought about moving them & putting a garden there!
You could do a chicken tractor over your beds when they're not planted... it works great! Though I'd recommend putting sides on the tractor so the chickens don't kick all the nice dirt out on the paths. But they sure do a good job of rototilling and fertilizing.
LOL my yard is on the side of a hill. a very unlevel hill. I'd have to tie it off to trees &build it with a leveling system so the chickens didn't permanently lean one way. But thank you for the lovely suggestion. My chickens free range so they are always in the flower beds anyways. We have a rick rack plant that has looked half dead since i was just a little kid. The chickens took a liking to it this year, tilled the dirt in the pot every day, pooed in it, ate the bugs, napped in the pot & guess what?! the Rick Rack plant looks better than it has in 25 yrs. Mushroom dirt & chicken poo is amazing for flowers. So was our rabbit poo. Tho i can't have rabbits anymore :(
I was thinking about this and looking around trying to learn about trenchers and saw this tool. What does this do?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230391225326
It says it's an "air clay digger". Air meaning, I suppose, hooks on to an air compressor.
i believe it works similar to a jackhammer. I could be wrong tho.
Yeah, I'll bet it is like a jackhammer... which you can rent for a lot cheaper. I saw something like that down at our local rental place.
I rent a lot of the larger tools... trenchers, brush hogs, backhoes. Even with the trip into town, it's worth it. I use it for as long as I need, I don't have to build a place to house it, and they do the maintanence.
I'm trying to talk my rental guy into buying a grain drill that will go behind an ATV... so I can rent it from him. I'll just need it once or twice. So far no luck, though.
lol.. i have access to most of the larger tools already. I just don't use them most of the time.
Oh, don't tell me you married into tools...
'N' he thinks you married him for his looks... shhh, we won't tell. =0)
not married.
family business has acquired some large tools (like back hoe) over the years.
Hmmm, single with backhoe... now there's an ad for the personal column. LOL
Your dance card could fill up real quick. =0)
This message was edited Oct 30, 2009 8:15 AM