Baby steps, but a step is a step.

[Deleted]

Here's my quail coup, 8x8, she still needs some more paint, the roof an walls are completely caged all in. Roof has a 3-ft shingled awing. underneath the entire perimeter there are buried concrete bricks, I get these from work, to help prevent diggers from getting in. All my lower boards will be sprayed with liquid rubber an painted.

Now I have a couple questions about the interior, I want to bring the grade up in the pen, I can either use dirt, or pea gravel. I stuck between the two. One I like the ease with cleaning the pen the gravel provides, but I like the benefits the birds would get if I filled it in with dirt and planted grass or a wild wheat. Reason I'm doing this is the yard is kinda low in the back and the water puddles up, I don't want the birds standing in puddles. Anyone got any pro's or con's between the 2.

Stuck that deer head in there a while ago, it was getting moved around the yard, probably a possum or a skunk, but ever since I put it the coup nothing, was just kinda testing it out, but no takers as of yet.


Here's my hutch



Ya it's not quite done yet either, little more painting, some more caging. The major accomplishment was getting it moved. It took 3 of my boys and me to move it into the spot I wanted it at. When I build I have a tendency to go heavy duty. This weekend sucked for me, I couldn't work on my projects, I'am pretty happy with how things have worked out, started thus last fall,but almost 100% of has been free, I collect wood where I can find it, jobs, pallets, dumpsters, nails an screws I collect at the job sites, so sometimes things take awhile. 

[pipewrench]

Looks like a pretty good bit of progress for a guy with some freshly broken bones

[nytrapper23]

Looks good sog , I would go with just the dirt , if you do plant anything in there it will be gone in a week . I put grass seed and wheat in my pheasant pen every fall , it will be about 10" tall before I put the birds in it and it is gone in a week or ten days . I still think it's good for them though.

[Brad H.]

Sog you get more done than a person with two good feet and all their ribs in tact. Nice work my friend.

[rendezvous]

Looks awesome, great job! 

I don't know anything about quail, but I know chicken folk prefer sand in their runs... 

[farmertrappe]

Looking fancy, nice work.

[Deleted]

No I don't, these pics are 2 weeks old or so, I just never got around to putting them up. This weekend drove me crazy. An yes I know My yard looks like a war zone. I haven't got around to cleaning her all up, I got a freaking neighborhood store a block down from me, and 2 schools a block up, seems like I'm right in the perfect spot for people to finish their drinks or chips, and throw there crap down in my yard. I rake out the back yard and we'll get two days of wind to blow all my neighbor's crap in my yard. Thank the Lord Above I don't have a pool, I'd be going crazy.

Wade, seen a guy in Australia grow sod patches for his birds, giving them a fresh patch of greens a week. Also seen a guy cage over where grew the wheat, this let the birds pick at the tops and not kill the plants.

Like I said this is our experiment, if we don't like our results, I'll just board up my walls on my coupe and finish off the roof the rest of the way, throw in my propane heater, and use it to dry out (FUR), I could always use more room for trapping. Also trying to figure out how I'm going to use this cedar fencing, which I got told was in good shape, Never buy a horse, by word of mouth. But I said I'll take it, now its piled up in my drive, posts an all. Top scallops are rotted, bottom 4 inches are rotted. So I'll cut the tops off, an the bottoms, that will leave me about 4 ft of cedar 1x4's. One side is stained an the other side is weathered, was wondering if I could run these through a planner and if that would clean them up good enough to make them look good, but I don't want to take to much wood off I don't know how deep the stain penetrated in to cedar or if I can plan it out, I love the look and smells of cedar.

On another note I also came home with a 50 gallon drum, I wanting to make a wood burner with it, My old one is done and is becoming more of a hazard than comfort. Looking at the kit, where I get the door and the feet plus a 90 for my stove pipe. I think the kit is under 100 bucks, I can't touch a burner for hundred bucks. Not anything that I'd want. I'll paint that thing cherry red with the stove paint an weld a 1/4 inch flat plate on the top and "boom" hot coffee.

Project after project, but that's why I love things like this, I love to build things and figure out ways to get what I want without any big Brand names. Things like this are like Apple Pie to me, there's nothing better than (HOME MADE)... I can build it better in my garage than they do in china or mexico.

[rendezvous]

I tried the box trick, letting grass grow up threw it for the chickens. It didn't work for me, but they aren't quail either. Nobody's yard looks great this time of year, you should see mine! Willow and Black Walnut trees are the worst trees you can have in your yard, trust me! I love projects also and really like watching other's projects, must be a guy thing.
Amen to the "china or mexico" comment also! 

[farmertrappe]

Crop King has a fodder grass system for growing greens for critters or sprouts to eat. Always thought it was high dollar for the output, but an interesting idea for giving fowl and chickens some greens.

[nytrapper23]

I have seen those farmer , thought they were a bit pricey also. I have a bagger on my mower and I throw in a few handfuls of clippings before putting it on the compost pile .

[rendezvous]

Free-ranging works too and they love it.

[nytrapper23]

I wish I could free range them but people here seem to think its ok to free range their cats and they don't mix so well.

[rendezvous]

I had a cat eye-balling mine, chased him off, I haven't seen it since. I had a problem with a dog, until I told an uncooperative owner my way of resolving the situation. I haven't seen the dog since either. My concern lately are the number of hawks I have been seeing, the only remedies for that is limiting their time out or keeping them in. I'll be starting to let them out again for a couple of hours every evening and go from there.

[hunt4it]

Looks fantastic and the test with the deer head shows the construction quality where the critters aren't getting in there.  As mentioned above, have to many roaming cats around here also... Great work Sog

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[Deleted]

 Just a little more paint.

[pipewrench]

Nice work Soggy! Looks like you are ready for birds

[rendezvous]

Very nice!    When are the birds moving in?