This for the bees. I’m going to make my own hive bodies (boxes, bottom board, inner and outer covers). I’ll buy the frames and foundation.
This for the water catchment, on Craiglist, for $100. Just need to borrow someone’s truck to pick up two of them.
But the majority of fun is being had with this – with Google Sketchup. The footprint is 8’x6′ for four chickens. The plank comes off the floor because I plan to do Deep Litter Bedding and honestly I couldn’t make it come down in the program.
That would all be rain water for the gardens? How many chickens? Very cute house. You said that they needed insulation. Is just the small area insulated and the window areas mesh?
The coop plan looks really good. I came across this yesterday (while I was researching flooring material): http://steamykitchen.com/20640-the-palace-chicken-coop.html
I thought it might be useful to you. It doesn’t rain that much here in San Diego, but I do wish I thought of adding a drainage system prior.
Andrea, all water for the garden, yes. And I ordered 4 chicks, so I hope to get 4 hens out of it. Only the small area (the coop) will be insulated, the rest is open.
Jackie, I’m also worried about drainage. I’d like to do deep litter in the run as well (not just in the coop, which might be too small for the method). The thing will be set on forest soil which drains pretty well but in Winter we may have ice issues. The foundation in the link is totally wow, but I doubt I have the capability and funds to pull that off. Where that thinking cap?
We have had two of those containers since 2000. It took three of us to move each one manually when they arrived.
We didn’t make a good enough base for them at the time, and now they have tipped forward.
A few months ago we had to replace the connections that run from one to the other, but it was easy to find the parts at a local plumbers merchants.