Monday, April 9, 2012

Chicken Plans


I found plans for this cordwood chicken coop in Judy Pangman's "Chicken Coops: 45 Building plans for Housing your Flock."  The woman who made the original coop is from northern Montana, and says she regularly experiences forty below in the winter, and this coop does great.  Now, I never thought I would build something directly from someone else's plans.  I've always just designed my own - bookshelves and cabins alike.   But, looking at these plans, I think that this summer I might just build it as its set forth.  It is designed for a 16 hen flock (about what I was thinking), and for super cold weather, and is CORDWOOD CONSTRUCTION!  If and when we add onto the house as littles come along and then get big, my first choice for construction is/would be cordwood.  Taking on a manageable sized project in the technique is probably a really good idea before jumping into a house....  It seems well designed to me - even the nesting box set up is clever, combining secure grain storage and potential brooder boxes along with the nesting boxes.
Also, we're planning on taking down a whole bunch of birch trees from a forest area that will become pasture eventually, and become firewood this year.  The lady who built the original one said she used birch and aspen, which is great because I haven't heard or seen people using birch for cordwood before.  Of course, birch is the most abundant tree hearabouts (well, and black spruce).

Now the only question is where exactly we're going to put it....  it will be a fixture for at least a decade if not longer (hopefully longer!) so, its an important consideration...

I additionally plan on a tractor-type design for raising up meat birds...

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