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.

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.

Here we are with the coop on Thursday the 23rd:

In the above you can see the basic chicken coop frame. Three rectangles, about 3′ x 6′, with posts. Since we’ll have a shed roof, one side is 4′ high, the other is 5′ high.

On Monday the 27th we have this:

Things are hot in Austin, which explains the sleeveless shirt and the bandana. In this photo you can see that we have the roof rafters in place (complete with birds mouth cuts), and the frames for the doors in place.

As of today, we have the doors complete (more to come-there is some Super Secret Stuff involved), and the inside mounting stuff is coming along. Over the weekend we’ll be working on the hen boxes (where they lay the eggs), getting the mesh installed, and finishing up the panels on the doors.

Evelyn and I have been working on a chicken coop project. Not because we want to raise chickens (we had enough of that in Puerto Rico), but because there is a huge increase in urban farming, including keeping hens for eggs. (Austin allows you to keep chickens, as long as the coop is 50′ from neighbors.) We have the tools, we have the time, so why not try getting into the coop business?

Projects require planning, which usually means going through books. Why not the good old Internet? Because most of the plans out there are either (a) not free or (b) suck. There is some good stuff out in the ether, but you have to wade through about a million sites willing to sell you their designs. I understand, but no thanks.

Here is our dining room table, covered with a bunch of woodworking books:

What’s that thing in the middle? It’s a prototype. Let me explain:

I’ve seen a growing trend toward CAD/CAM work and CNC machines. This is where you design your model on a computer and then have another computer do the cuts (or whatever) for you. I see a lot of builders working with CNC routers and laser cutters, spending hours working on their programs, so they can be “printed” on the equipment.

The concept interests me, except for the fact that people are spending more time in front of a computer than actually building things.

I’m a firm believer that if you can’t use a router by hand, then you shouldn’t use a CNC router. It’s simply because you don’t understand materials, and how they fit together, until you actually hold them in your hands. You don’t really know that something is going to work until you put it together. Computer models are nice, and can save time, but can often lead to disaster. (Ask any Airbus or Boeing engineer about the limits of CAD/CAM.)

And, quite frankly, I can knock together a scale sized working prototype in 1/8th of the time that I could develop the computer model. Maybe it’s because my workworking skills surpass my computer skills. Probably. Though it’s a heck of a lot faster for me to make changes and play around and really see the piece when I’m in the shop–not at my computer.

Here is another photo of the scale model. In this model we’re working on a roof mechanism:

We are able to see, in “real time”, how the unit is going to work. It helps us to see the final product in our minds, in a far more concrete way than any computer model could represent.

So, the next time your are going to build something, I’d recommend actually building it, instead of sitting in front of a computer. The result is far more satisfying, and you find out about problems far soooner.

Well, it’s bulk pickup week in our neighborhood. This means that the streets are flooded with overloaded pickup trucks filled with peoples’ cast-offs. Grills, cabinets, snowboards (in Texas?), monitors, and all sorts of junk. I don’t know why the city even bothers sending a truck around, since ALL of the good stuff is picked pretty quickly. Maybe they should just announce a bulk pickup and let the junk guys do the rest. That would save the city some money.

Alas, there is a Single Sad Sentinel which is ignored by all of the junk guys. I give you, the neglected toilets:

There are toilets EVERYWHERE. It’s as if there was a big Digital Toilet Switchover and everyone got rid of their old thrones. Pretty sad. If only there were some way to re-use these things. I’ve seen people use them as planters, but they look pretty stupid that way. Ah, well. Another pile of porcelain for the landfill.

When Deb was visiting we went out west toward Hill Country. Tried to stop at a BBQ place in the tiny town of Bertram, but couldn’t find it (or it was closed). I knew of another place in Llano, further west, so we headed there. The place is called Cooper’s and shows up on the Texas Top 50 BBQ places and was recommended by our native Texan neighbors.

Here’s the outside pit area:

You start by going up to the pit have choosing what meat you would like:

It’s a good mix of Texas BBQ (beef) and some really good pork, too.

Going from the lower left, clockwise, you see: Pork sausages, beef ribs, chicken halves, more sausage, brisket, roast beef (and more brisket), pork loin, turkey, huge pork chops, and finally the pork ribs.

Mmm meat:

Above is a closeup of the chicken and beef. Below is the pork. Look at the size of those pork chops (the three toward the front).

What you do is point out what you’d like, and how much. The pit master takes a tray and starts piling meat on it.

You then take your tray inside and give it to the folks behind the counter. They then weigh it (it’s a per pound cost, between $8 and $10 a pound) and wrap it up for you. You can also pick out sides (corn, desserts, etc).

As you move down the line the checkout person gives you a big piece of kraft/waxed paper (that’s your plate) to eat off of. You then pay for your stuff, and head toward the pots of beans and onions and sauce. Once you’ve got all that, you find a place to sit on the long picnic benches. No personal tables here, just long benches with paper towels and loafs of cheap white bread. It’s time to meet your neighbors. We managed to find a spot at the end of one of the tables, sitting in a room of locals just enjoying their lunch.

We got the pork ribs, beef ribs, brisket, pork loin, and sausage. Brisket was very good, beef ribs were very beefy (which I like), and the pork was excellent. Some of the reviews had mentioned that the meat was dry, but we had no problems with ours. It was very juicy.

So there you are, sitting at an inside picnic table, with a room full of Texans, eating off a piece of paper, with a big pile of meat in front of you, a bowl of cowboy beans, and a Shiner Bock ready at hand. No cloth napkins. No waiter. No pretention. Just good honest food.

We’ve had an unusually hot summer so far, with another day of record heat (105 degrees at 4 PM). It’s the longest/hottest stretch of weather we’ve seen since our arrival in Austin. And very little rain, so our front yard is turning into a desert. (It was already very scrubby and junky.) The back yard is holding up okay, though I think I need to water our two pine trees. They are looking pretty sad.

Our friend Debbie was in town over the weekend, which was nice. She came down to visit & to have me fix her PCs. She also took the opportunity to eat out as much as possible, since there is not much variety where she lives. On Monday we went out toward Llano, had some authentic Texas BBQ, and then took the tour of the Longhorn Caverns. It was a cool relief from the heat of the day, and Deb was able to confirm that we do indeed have hills in Hill Country. At least west of Austin.

Things have been quite hectic as of late. Last Thursday I quit my cushy job, having had enough. When you are 1200 miles from the corporate office, work at home, aren’t a manager, and your job still makes you mean and keeps you up at night, then you know it’s time to go! It’s a real gut-churner to quit a secure job in this economy, but I couldn’t deal with the situation much longer without feeling like a hypocrite.

Over the past week I’ve been regrouping, cutting off unnecessary expenses, and starting to think about “what’s next?” We have enough savings to keep us going for a while, so I have time to cast an eye out for things that I might not normally. The big question, as usual, is if I stay in IT. Pro: It pays. Con: It sucks. For now I’ll take some part-time contract jobs to cover the bills, while I mull over options. I’m seriously considering looking into becoming a machinist, perhaps in aerospace.  Who knows. Cooking is always an option, but master machinists get paid better. I want to enjoy myself, but I don’t want to be poor.