Last Sunday I was getting coop burnout. I wanted to do something in the shop, but didn’t want it to be about chickens.

While going though a weekend project magazine that Evelyn had picked up, I saw a neat little BBQ table made out of cedar. I had plenty of cedar, and I needed a table, so what the heck.

Here is how it is set up on our back patio area. The table is on the left, and our Weber Baby-Q is sitting next to it (on a non-functioning old gas grill base).

It’s a pretty good size — about 42 inches long, and 19 inches wide. The original design had the legs fold away into the body. A neat idea, but I didn’t have the right sized wood to make it work properly. (I used my on-hand 1×4 pickets, which are about 1/2″ thick. They call for 3/4″ thick lumber.)

I used bolts with wingnuts to hold the legs on, in case we need to transport or store it. So far it has been very handy to have. Total cost? About $10 in materials.

Update: Here are two more photos of the underside. The first is a closeup of how the legs attach. The second is the whole underside.

The legs are cut at 15 degrees on each end. The corner braces also have 15 degree cuts. If the legs were folding, you’d have to round off the end where the bolt goes, and offset one set of legs so that they nest together. For my purpose, the fixed legs work fine. (I tried the folding, but it was too unstable using my thin lumber. And I didn’t have the patience to cut a proper curve. )

We’ve decided to start naming our coop models, using Austin neighborhood names. Our first one will be called the “Brentwood” and the second the “Crestview” (we live right on the border of the two). Here is our second model, sitting outside drying (with the roof off):

As you can see, it uses the same format as the other coop. This is by design, as it allows us to use interchangable components. A door on the Crestview will work on the Brentwood. All of the doors and fixed panels use the same basic design: 45 degree miter joints with biscuits. There is very little work done “in place” — it’s all made up of components. This makes it easier to mass produce, and opens the possibility of pre-fab kits.

In the above photo you can see that one lower panel has a wooden insert. Here is a closeup:

I routed a slot into the frame, in which a 5 mm plywood sheet runs. This was our first version of this “run access” door. This side of the coop will be where the chicken run will be attached. During the day, you slide this door open so that the chickens can roam a bit. At night, you close it up. It works okay, but I’m not entirely happy with it. “Not entirely happy with it” is a Ron euphemism for “I think it’s too complicated and need to build a better one”.

Here is a front view of the coop, with the roof in place:

Here you are seeing how the doors work on our coops — this is the “special sauce” I kept alluding to. None of our doors use hinges. Everything is a sliding door. This gives you full-width access, if you need it. It also makes it harder for critters to open (there will be a locking mechanism, not visible here). Plus, you can remove the doors to reduce weight while moving/installing the unit.

To give you an idea of how important this concept is to our coops, look at the bigger Brentwood model:

The Brentwood premium model has eight access doors. Both upper and lower doors on the ends open. Two upper side panels open, along with the two smaller storage doors above them. There is nowhere in this coop you can’t get to. Have a sick bird? Just slide away the nearest panel to get to it. No need to crawl in.

Since the solid and screen panels are interchangable, you can swap out panels depending on conditions. Cooler weather on the way? Just replace the screens with solids. Having problems with the late day sun in summer? No problem. Put the solid doors to the West. Want full ventilation? Put in all screens.

The coop has one fixed solid wall, on the lower end of the roof slope. That’s the side that should face the South during the summer — the wall creates shade, and the pitch of the roof reflects off that 3 PM Texas sun.

Finally, here’s a shot of the nesting boxes:

If you check out some other coop designs, you’ll notice that many have built-in nesting boxes, with a small egg access door. That’s a fine idea, but wasn’t the route we wanted to take. Why? Because we learned an important lesson from Evelyn’s mom in Puerto Rico: Hens will lay eggs in just about anything they can get their bodies into. Her mom uses a variety of containers, simply wired to the sides of her chainlink open-air coop. No fancy egg access doors. No fancy ramps (chickens can fly, after all). Dead simple.

So, we went with the idea of creating individual nesting boxes, made out of 1 x 12 pine. The boxes are about a foot square with an open top and a ledge to keep the bedding in (most visible in the upper right box in the photo). Got more chickens? Just buy another box or two (hens share boxes–one box will handle 2-3 hens). Want to put new bedding in the box? Just take it out, dump it into the garbage can, and re-bed. No digging around with a dustpan and a wire brush.

This movable nesting boxes are an important part of our bigger Brentwood model, since we designed that to have movable roosts and nesting areas. You aren’t stuck with having the nesting boxes always at one end. You can swap them. We did this so that people could more easily orient their coop to their land and to the local weather conditions.

But wait, there’s more! Once we have the two models set up in the backyard again, you’ll see another benefit of our Sustainable Urban Module design. Stay tuned.

We’ve been busy working on Coop #2 — a smaller version of our design. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos handy. I’ll take some tomorrow and post them up. For now, here are the highlights:

• Built out Coop #2. This one went together a lot faster, because we worked though a lot of our problems during the design of the first model. It had (and has) its challenges, but nothing too horrible. This model is 3 feet by 3 feet and 4 feet tall. Two sliding doors on one side (for nest/egg and food/water access), and a special run door. A tin roof like the other model. We’re very happy with this one because it’s very light (probably a 1/4 the weight of the big model). It’s not as super-modular as the big model, but it incorporates the imporant aspects, while keeping the materials price lower.
• Built out a 3 foot by 6 foot run. This is an attachment for the coops. Made of a frame and ‘chicken wire’. It gives the birds more (safe) roaming area. Important for the smaller coop, which doesn’t have much floor space.  We are also making another attachment which allows this to be connected either parallel or perpendicular to the coop. (It will make more sense when I post some photos.)
• Today Evelyn treated both coops, and all their doors, etc, with wood protector. This will help protect the cedar from the elements, prevent rot near the bottom, etc. The units looks great (a nice natural look) and are drying overnight. It took nearly a gallon to cover everything. Cedar loves to soak up that stuff.
• Designed and completed 4 nesting boxes. These are the units which the hens will have their nests / lay their eggs. Looks like a 12 inch square cube, with an open top and side. At first we were going to do these with cedar, but it was too time consuming. Then we were going to try plywood, but it was a hassle. Ended up using 12 inch pine boards. Costs a bit more in materials, but a LOT less in labor. The end result are rock-solid nests that will be very easy to maintain.

Tomorrow we’re going to be working on some alternate versions of doors (trying to make the chicken run doors easier to make), and building out the run attachment. Then we’ll play with the roost setup a bit.

Let’s see, what else… Finished up most of my wind generator (finally). Mounted it on a short post (as a demo), and Evelyn painted everything black. It looks very cool. We’re going to put it next to the coops as an example of what people can do. For example, you could have a little wind generator charge a battery, and use that to drive ventilation fans, LED lights, etc.

In the next week or so I’ll probably be starting two new projects, a solar oven and a solar food dryer. These will be two more “sustainable urban modules” that will make up our product offering, and will be designed so that they can be shipped as kits.

…that many of the ‘protestors’ who are against Universal Healthcare appear to be close to, or at, Medicare age? Damn that socialist healthcare — now give me my Medicare! I’ve earned it! LOL.

I’m thinking of getting one of these wristbands:

And to those who say “you can get healthcare, just go to the emergency room, they have to treat you for free”, I say: Good luck with that. The only way that hospital is going to write you off is if you give them a fake name and SSN. Give them the real info (and the EMS will), and you are on the hook.

Oh god, and I hear quotes like “they are taking away our freedom”. Ha. Ha. Ha. You mean that your desire to stick with your Mega Insurance Plan? The one Which Pays 70% After Meeting The $5000 Co-Pay? Which was probably chosen by your employer as the lowest bidder? That “choice”? So that non-existent “freedom” is more imporant than the huge rollbacks of civil liberties over the last 8 years?

Some random thoughts:

• Allow 100% of medical expenses to be deducted starting at the first dollar spent. If I can deduct a ream of paper for my business expenses, I should be able to deduct the $200 for a bottle of pills. I spent thousands of dollars IN CASH on medical expenses last year, but couldn’t use them as deductions, because the gigantic percentage required to meet the threshold. (Basically, if you meet the threshold, you’ve also probably gone bankrupt.)
• Reward people with chronic illnesses with inexpensive medications. I’ve never understood why I’m, in effect, penalized for taking care of myself. Why won’t my insurance company pay for my blood pressure medicine, but will pay for an ER heart attack?  I could have bought 5 years of meds for the cost of my last trip to the ER — and that was a 4 hour stay (and was due to an allergy, and not my heart)!
• Have coverage available to all — but don’t make it a free ride. Provide affordable coverage ($600 a month is NOT affordable) to even high-risk people, but require them to be monitored. For example, I would love to get a big discount on my insurance premiums if I was required to see the doctor quarterly, prove that I am taking my medications, staying healthy, etc. Sure, it sounds like Big Brother — but it would be my choice. If I didn’t want the monitoring, I’d pay $600 a month. If I went with the program, I’d pay $200 a month.
• Admit that COBRA is useless and get rid of it. Oh sure, you can keep your previous coverage when you leave an employer, until you realize how much (or little) the employer was putting into the pot. Sorry, but I’d rather spend my $600 on food.

That’s enough for now. That’s what you get when I read the CNN home page too early in the day.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m starting to dream about coop building. This is not always a good thing.

It seems like we’ve been working on the big prototype forever. But not really. I was shocked to see that this photo was taken on July 10th:

It’s when we were prototyping part of the design (”way back” when we were going to make the roof tilting).

And now here we are on August 7th:

Quite a bit done — most of the time was spent working through problems. And I was busy working for the Conservation District — a whole new application was built in this same time. No wonder I’m tired!

We’ve been making pretty good progress on our large chicken coop prototype. We’ve got the siding on, most of the sides complete, and have it roofed. Putting the roof on really make it seem like a “finished” structure.

Here you are looking at the “South” side of the coop (the one with the lengths of boards). The roof slopes down to the south, so that the rest of the unit can get more shade. Heat is a huge problem with chickens (they handle cold much better than heat), so our design has to take that into account (hence the galvanized roof versus shingles, etc).

We have the roof material running horizontally since it comes in 2.5′ x 6′ pieces, and going that way meant no cuts. We aren’t in a snow zone, so we don’t have to worry about snow building up (and rain dries in an hour under the Texas sun). The roof is held with lathe screws, and sealed with clear silicone.

In the above photo you can see that the bottom is all screened in, and that the end has a solid door (top) and a screened door (bottom). Below is the other end of the coop:

As you can see, the birds will get more air on this side. The idea is to put the roost on the screened end, and the nest boxes on the solid wall end. (Hens prefer laying eggs in darker conditions, and it protects them a bit more.)

Here is a 3/4 view of the “North” (or “Front”) of the coop:

You can see a solid section (on the nesting box side), and then a screen section. Plenty of ventilation, and this side faces North, so you are protected by the shade of the roof.

The upper section (below the rafters) is designed for potential storage. Here is a close up of one of the panels. We were playing around with using old beer cans as a panel design:

The above door was one that used corrugated nails to hold the miter joints together — hence the “slop” in the upper right. The biscuit doors are FAR better and feel like a solid unit. One other thing you can see in the photo is the screening we use for the middle rafter area. The center is open, to improve airflow along the roof (so heat doesn’t build up in the upper part of the unit).

Finally, here is a bit of the inside. This is where we’ll be installing the ramp, shelves, hen boxes, and roost.

There is no gap more that 1/2″ in the unit — most gaps are smaller. And we are using 1/2″ “hardware cloth” (a very strong metal mesh) for all of the screened surfaces. This is done to keep those pesky predators out. Humans and foxes and hawks and raccoons all LOVE chicken. They go for the birds. They go for the eggs, and they are VERY smart. Something we’ve had to keep in mind throughout the project.

For example, you can see in the photo above that we used metal lathe screws (on 6″ centers) to hold the “cloth”. Staples were simply not strong enough to protect the area, especially given that our whole lower level is screen.

Once we have the coop outside we’ll shoot a video so that you can see it in action — and see the “special sauce” that makes this coop pretty interesting. Stay tuned.

Just saw this on the news:

Hewlett-Packard Co. is cutting some EDS workers’ pay again, this time by up to 30 percent or more … This is the third pay cut for EDS workers this year, on top of roughly 25,000 layoffs announced last September … Some making roughly $75,000 said they would see their salaries slashed to about $55,000, about 27 percent.

Once again a company is squeezing blood from a stone, and figures they can get away with it, as people are hurting all over. I’m seeing this over and over again, and wondering when people are just going to snap. You can’t keep expecting people to work at 100% when their pay keeps going down. You pay me 80% of my worth? I’ll give you 80% of my effort.

I’ll tell you one thing: Now is the perfect time to start a business. Yes, it sounds insane, but look at the amazing pool of talent out there. A bunch of people completely fed up with the companies they are working for, who are getting their pay cut, and want to get the heck out. If I was a company with big cash reserves (Microsoft, for example), I would be snapping up people left and right. We’re going to be getting out of this recession soon, and you’ll need all the good people you can get to take advantage of it. It’s a perfect storm.