The chicks are now 11 days old and growing fast. We’re planning to move the broilers out of the barn at 4 weeks or so, when they no longer need the heat lamps. We made the plan because no matter how hard you work to keep their stall clean they generate A LOT of dust and quite a bit of odor.
The building we’re moving them to has been serving as our tractor shed, or really kind of a catchall shed for the lawn tractor, tomato cages, wood scraps, etc. Cleaning it out to make it a chicken shed with a fenced yard is a fairly easy task. Only problem? No doors on the building and there was an 8′ opening on the south side.
Today’s project was to add doors and it seemed pretty straightforward. Building the doors took no time at all. It wasn’t until we went to hang them that we realized what we were up against. We knew this shed had been moved from somewhere else and put on the pad it rests on now. What we didn’t know was that nobody bothered to make sure that it was plumb or square – in ANY direction.
Yeah, hanging a pair of doors on competing planes is really not that much fun. In the end we racked one cockeyed and secured it with a bolt into the slab to make the whole thing work. Not the best solution, but hopefully the strong hinges and hardware Mike used can stand up to the strain.
Now they just need a coat of paint and we need to put in lights, a chicken door and the yard fencing on the east side of the shed. Then we’ll be ready to move birds in about three weeks.
The big girls even gave it their seal of approval after coming over to check out what we were doing just about the time we finished.
*****
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Welcome to my world…. Dan and I have run across that problem oh so many times in working on our 1881 cape. We must have spent 2 hours trying to lay out the locations for deck footings before we realized that non of the walls the deck was attaching to were square with each other.
Now that your doors are done, it looks good!
Ali
It looks like the same things we were doing. Hubby was out building the coop, I dug up the garden, while the kid was being a kid. Next week I’ll be putting him to work though.
Hubby thinks he is making a condo for the peeps–”what do you think of this” should be saved just for remodeling the house–not the chicken coop. Let me tell you though: when it is finally finished–it will be beautiful.
Ali :: Thanks! We only used a few four letter words in getting them hung…
Monica :: I’m sure it will be! Can’t wait to hear about what the chooks think!
Hey!!
Your mom and I just got home from Big Sky. We can see the yard (it’s brown, but, no snow). Your pic’s show green grass!!!
I am trying to convince your uncle Kenny to raise meat chickens this year……We are definitely going to have a big garden, sheep, dogs, laying hens (thanks to you!!) and I want meat chickens.
We’ll see. Hope your spring is going well!!!
Love
Dad
Oh!!! I forgot to say “GREAT JOB, MIKE”……
Creative solution to the meat chicken ‘home’ problem.
Love
Dad