With the number of chickens in our flock and the plans to add even more to the flock, the need for more housing was becoming
even more important. Currently the main housing is behind a fence in a large yard area that's mainly limited to the
ducks and those few chickens who jump the fence on occasion to go feed. The rest of the free rangers just roost wherever
they feel like, some hide under the vehicles, some disappear in the woods even. To try and control where these birds
go, more facilities have to be set up to accommodate these birds so they're not all over the place at night.
At
first I planned on building another coop using scrap pallets, but then seen another way of doing it that was quicker and easier
to do, using oil drums. The idea actually came to me after seeing a news story on TV about a dog fighting operation
and when the authorities came to take the dogs, they showed dogs sitting inside oil drums with an opening cut out for them.
I figured, "If this works for dogs, why not for chickens?" So off I went to planning how to do this set up.
I
took two pallets and a couple of 2x4s, cutting the 2x4's to a little less than 2' in length, then screwing them to the sides
of the pallets to make what amounted to tables. I butted the pallet tables side by side and fastened them with small
pieces of plywood cut to act as "brackets".
Next I took four oil drums, cutting two openings
in each one, a large opening on one end for an entryway and a smaller opening on the other end for an egg recovery hatch.
After flushing the drums good and cleaning them of all residues, I then laid the drums on the pallet tables, side by
side. I drilled four holes in each drum and used wood screws to secure the drums to the pallets through the holes.
With
the pallets secured, I cut rectangular pieces of plywood to use as doors over the egg chutes. Using small hinges and
nuts/bolts, I attached the little doors to the small openings on the drums. Afterward I cut some more plywood into narrow
long pieces to use as ramps up to each drum, securing with wood screws.
The last thing done
was to make an awning of sorts, using the remaining plywood and a few lengths of 2x4's to hold up the wood. This is
so when it rains, the awning will shield the entryways to each drum from rain.
With all of
this done, some paper shreddings went into each drum coop and some of the chickens were placed in the drums at night when
they're the most docile to try and acclimate them to the drum coops. While they don't really take residence in the drums,
yet, they do go in them to lay eggs, which is a start. When our baby chickens mature, they will be put in those drum
coops so their first real homes will be those drums, so hopefully they'll take to them a lot faster.
