Adkhunter1590

Happy bday!

It’s ironic isn’t it. We will pay top dollar for gear to shoot a deer to “eat good” but won’t pay a few dollars more to truly eat good on a regular basis. Support local small farms and truly eat healthy!

Almost done. Ran out of drill batteries and screws lol. Neighbor is going to build a set of steps that will flip up on a hinge for me while I finish the battens and water tank deck. Installed a door chain to keep the wind from ripping the door off to. Planning on having it pulled over to my house this weekend to start the painting. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

All finished up on the soffits Working on the battens now. Should have it done by tomorrow. Water tank deck 4x4s were bolted to main frame rails. Just need to trim those up and make the decking. Picked up 10 gallons of paint tonight so now the wifey can get her hands dirty on this project too. Getting there![emoji51]

Lights look good man! Those will be great to have on long rides up in Maine when you go.

Productive weekend on the coop. Got the rest of the siding put up minus the battens. Roof is on and the rafters were boxed out. Just need to put up the soffit board tomorrow and I can start screwing on the battens. That will complete the main structure. Also planning on getting the water tank deck built off the back tomorrow as well. Then I can drag it home and get to work on painting the inside and outside. Going with barn red and will finish it off with white trim all around the windows and door to make it look nice. The inside will be painted white to make it brighter and help protect the wood. I’m happy to see it all coming together finally. It’s been a long process but I think we did a good job. While working on it this weekend 4 people stopped by to take pictures and gawk at it haha.

Biggest problem is who he’s competing against in the next election. Can the Republican Party seriously not come up with 1 person in the entire state that has a fighting chance!!? Idk what would be worse, cuomo winning again, or Cynthia Nixon winning. Have you guys read her stance on things, it’s not good I can tell you that much.

I find it ironic he pulls this crap on election year. He will do anything for a few votes. The one article I read quoted him saying “I wouldn’t take no for an answer” about passing this bill. Talk about a tyrant....

At our last house I ran wire around standing trees instead of pounding posts all over the place. I didn’t feel like taking down trees all over so I decided to just utilize the landscape. I plan on doing this again at our new house along with a hoop run so I can have an area that will be snow free. I already have a 10x16 covered run off the side of my current coop which was just barely enough for the current flock over winter. When I park the pasture coop for winter I planned on parking it like 40-60ft away from current coop and putting a hoop run in between connecting them.

Planning on no Roos with my pasture flock. I bought all pullets. Any that turn out to be Roos will be taken down to the auction. I’ll keep the one roo I have now with the current flock. The pasture coop will be pretty much full up space wise, and I want to maximize egg production so I don’t need any Roos taking up space that could be used for layers.

We’ve had some nasty Roos over the last couple years. I won’t keep mean ones around. Thankfully the one we have now is super nice and easy on the hens. He’s a good protector and it’s fun to watch him guide the hens around when they are roaming around. Hoop coops are neat. I’m most likely going to make one to use as a run for the winter time this year. I wanted to build my mobile one on the hay wagon running gear so it was able to move around rough terrain. As all of us know, very little of this state is flat lol. I’ve seen hoop style pasture coops but they are mostly built on skids or with very small tires to be moved around. They use those types out west and stuff with the huge fields they have. With our smaller fields I’ll need to drive down the road to much to a new field. But a hoop style will work a permanent run for the winter and I look forward to building it later this summer.

Old barns are awesome to check out. When we were looking for a house to buy we checked out one that had a old chicken barn on the property. It was pretty neat to see and would have been nice to have but unfortunately it wasn’t kept up that great and was suffering some serious foundation and structural problems. The House wasn’t big enough either so we passed on it.

Haha it’s all good. A lot of people have chickens, but most don’t really have a clue on what they are doing. Coop designs are clear indicators of such. It’s taken me a few years of lots of research to know what I know. The biggest mistake people make is not making them big enough. The more space each bird has the better. It keeps everything cleaner and healthier. Plus the birds will be happier and produce more. Unfortunately the larger you go in coops, it requires a lot more money to build. Most backyard flock owners aren’t interested in spending big chunks of money on their chickens which results in them living in smaller, cramped conditions. There’s a big chicken forum I go on and I think the most common thread title in the “coop and run build” section is “how to make a coop as cheap as possible”. Every time I see people asking how to make the smallest and cheapest coops it makes me wanna pound my head against the table.

Preach on brotha lol. Thankfully we haven’t had any worm problems or even mites for that matter. We’ve been lucky so far as far as health matters go. But we clean the coop and run on a regular basis which is what helps keep everyone healthy. Glad your egg sales are up! Nothing better than pulling people away from the egg section at big box stores. It helps the local economy and has positive affects on the health of your friends and neighbors! I’m selling almost every egg we have lately. I keep the smallest ones from our smaller birds for ourselves but I can’t keep up with demand at the moment. It really sucks having to turn away customers! I keep apologizing and telling everyone that our flock expansion is growing and will be laying ASAP. I went to a small animal auction Sunday morning to sell a few ducks that a guy I work with couldn’t keep and I couldn’t find a new home for. While there I won a nice incubator with egg turner. My wife has been wanting to try out hatching our own chicks. It’s a $140 incubator and I won the auction for $28. Pretty good deal I’d say. We will be experimenting with it and hopefully using it to grow our flock at a decent rate. Hoping it will help us have more birds laying at all times of the year so we can keep up with demand!

The mobile pasture coops aren’t as common up north here due to our weather and seasons. It’s not easy to do on a large scale here like it is down south where you can do it all year. Up here it requires you to have a winter coop for them. Which I already have and will be making a expansion on it before winter. The problem with big barns full of birds is the health concerns associated with them. If anyone has read the news lately, did anyone see the 20 million eggs being recalled for salmonella? They came from a large chicken farm in NC that produces 2.1 million eggs a day! That’s your traditional warehouse type chicken farm that free range pasture farms like ours warn people against. The eggs you buy at the store come from places like that. We won’t ever be on a large enough scale to sell millions of eggs, but in the coming years we plan to grow until we find the limit that doesn’t compromise our high standards on bird health, happiness and egg quality and safety.

Looks like a over cramped fire hazard on wheels right there lol. A lot of things about that build tells me they don’t know a lot about chickens. Looks to be enough room for about 4 chickens in there if you were to follow the guidelines on sq footage per bird. That guy should of made it longer and gave up the small run because it’s not nearly enough to even be worth the trouble of building it. All those heat lamps in there is inviting a fire, and disease. The only time I use heat lamps is for chicks, once they fully feather they will never see another heat lamp.

Haha well that might be a pretty long haul but the next time I visit the city I will PM you and I can bring down a bunch of eggs for ya! Or if you ever venture north towards Albany let me know and I can stock you up!

Haha thank you! Making them comfy and happy was our biggest goal here. Happy hens produce the most and since we are trying to make a business out of this, figured we had to go all out and make this coop as nice as possible. I also believe appearances make a big difference when people want to buy things. Customers will be welcome and encouraged to visit the farm to see where their eggs come from. I’ve seen plenty of other coops around the area that are just terrible looking and the conditions the birds are subjected to doesn’t make me want to buy anything from them. Same goes for other livestock. Our coop will be moved around to different fields and will be extremely visible from the roads. The same guy who’s going to help me electrify this coop makes custom wooden signs also. He’s going to make us a nice sign to put on the coop so there will be no question who owns this thing and hopefully will become a local symbol of the freshest and cleanest eggs in the area!

I’ve had good growth results with chicory. Seems to help the clover get established as well. My deer didn’t seem to touch it until later in October when it got cold though. They would eat the clover around it until a good frost. Then all of a sudden the chicory almost seemed to disappear overnight. But it’s easy to grow and fed the deer so I’d give it a thumbs up.

Well this weather totally sucks for trying to get any work done on this coop. Add on 82 hour work week and it’s even more challenging. [emoji849]. I forwent sleep Friday to go pick up the siding only to get there and find out the guy miscounted and was 45 boards short[emoji58]. Now waiting on him to mill more sometime this week for me so I can finish up the siding. Did manage to get the windows in and got the boards up on the end walls. Started on the front side to get the spacing all figured out for around the windows and such. Will do the battens last once everything is the way it needs to be and we confirm nothing needs to be adjusted. Roofing will be picked up this week also so that should be done by the weekend. We need some nicer weather, sure would help speed this build up a bit! Still trying to decide on which automatic door I want to put in this thing. The more reviews and stuff I read online the more I can’t decide haha. I figured I’d give myself another week to decide before ordering. Nipples for water system were ordered and I’ll get to work on that once the structure is all done and I can tow it back to my driveway so I can tinker with it without being in my neighbors way. Wife’s friends husband will be coming over around then to help me get a solar charged electric system hooked up so I can put in a couple lights inside and one or two outside as well.

Hahaha damn right! MERICA

China will continue to rip off American companies. It’s the only way they have been able to bring their country out of the dumps. Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do about it. You could win a court case here but what’s that going to do? If anything the company in China will just close up and reopen under a new name with the help of their government. I was on eBay last night looking for water nipples for the water system I’m building for my new chicken coop. I could of saved myself $15 if I had chose the Chinese ones. But I chose to pony up and buy American made and American shipped nipples instead. I don’t like supporting foreign countries in any way shape or form if I can help it. Obviously a lot of things we buy are made in China or elsewhere and there isn’t any other choice sometimes. Nor am I a total nut case about it and have to search the entire state for American made product but I try to do my best when possible.

Can’t go wrong with SKB. I had one but sold it as a package deal with my old bow to a buddy. I hate flying and don’t plan on doing any with my bow anytime soon so I’ve been getting buy with a cheap Plano. Works well enough for riding in the pickup. If I had to fly again with my bow I’d probably go SKB again. Flew 2 times with my old one and had no problems.

True....unless one blew up and lit your house on fire. When they go up in flames they tend to shower down sparks and burn up everything around them. Like this...

We used Monolith for our solar install. https://monolithsolar.com Have zero complaints about them. I think we only had to put $250 down and the rest was financed through a company they deal with that does NYSERDA solar loans. I’m paying about $40-50 less per month than the average electric bill was for this house over the last 5 years. They will have you get your electric bill records from the electric company, see how many Kw you used and how much you paid per month and base your system size off of that information. The other advantage to ground mount systems is that they can usually get away with using a few less panels, thus reducing the cost a tad because they can position the panels at just the right angles to provide the best performance vs being limited to how your roof is setup. If you did decide to go with solar and monolith at some point, PM me. If you use my info as a referral, I would get $500 and you’d also get the same amount off if I remember correctly. Same goes for you after your install, any friends or family members that decide to install with them, you’d get a check for $500. Not a bad deal for everyone involved!