Golden Feather Farm Poultry Housing


My newest project will be to cut the legs off of the two condos above, and place them up on the framework I am building on the left (above left). The floor joists you see will be covered with floor decking. The condos will be placed on a frame (see 4X4 posts) 24" above the floor. Once they are up on those frames I will remove the current siding and extend the sides all the way down to the 2X6 floor joists. There will still be a gap between the roofs of the condos. I will frame out the gap to create an elevated ridge cap of sorts which will allow light in and air flow across the roof peaks (1/2 hardware cloth will keep birds and predators out). The ends will be framed in with a door in one end and a window in the other. This will give me a 12X12 floor area for a group of birds. Stay tuned for more pics as I progress. The building in the far back of the photo on the left is brand new, but I still need to finish the ridge cap and corner trim, so won't "debut" it until that's done! I am hoping to talk my daughter into applying a coat of paint before I take the "official" photos!

I've got the two 12 cage pens moved up onto the framework as you can see above. It's February 2008 now so this project is taking a little longer than I anticipated. However, moving the pens was the hard part and once I get the new pieces framed up, I'll remove the old "siding" and replace it with new stuff all the way down to the floor resulting in a 12 x 12 pen with 24 single cages above it. The end you see framed above right will have a large window in the middle.

This photo gives you an idea where the two condos are moving from and going to. I am finally getting some order to the Golden Feather Farm poultry yard!	I never included a photo of the large male condo (below) once the doors were added. It still needs some painting work, but that will have to wait a bit longer.


12X24 Main building (for now). Runs are 4X12 each. The interior has five 4X8 Pens and one 4X12 pen on the floor, and 24 2X2 single pens on the wall for bantams.	A little bit of snow February 2006!

Condo I built while in California and brought with me to Virginia on a trailer.	I made drawers in this one (complete with dovetail joints) to make it easy to clean. They just pull out. The birds stand in the drawers and when I want to clean them out I just take out the birds, pull out the drawers and dump them in the wheelbarrow. The bottle waterers are great too! Each pen is approximately 24"X32", good for a pair of bantams.

8X8 Brooder Coop, divided into two sides so I can have a couple of different age groups separated.	I installed vents in the back and these are good sized slider windows in the front. I am heating it with infrared lamps with in line thermostats.

16X12 Grow out building. Front and back are solid walls 4 feet up, and the rest is 1/2 inch hardware cloth. A divided run with access doors for the birds will be added. After I get the fence up I plan to add some trees for shade.	Sides are solid. Only one people access door. The interior is divided into two 8 X 12 pens so that I can separate by sex or age group. I also added a double-decker pen on the far and 4 individual wire bottomed cages on the near wall.

Condo for Large Males - 10 individual pens. It's 16' long and 4' from front to back with each pen being approximately 32" tall.	From the opposite end.

Roof complete although still needs shingles, but the roofing paper is done and the drip edge is installed. It will shed water until I get it shingled. The space between the frame and the roof sheathing in the rear is open as well as the area in the front between the cross-pieces and the roof sheathing for additional air flow. I used 1/2" mesh to keep out birds and predators. The doors will also have 1/2" mesh.	Back and dividers all in and primed.

8 hole condo that I brought down from my father's place.	New Shed for Large Fowl Breeding Pens. You can see the beginnings of the pens to the left of the door. Each side of the shed will have twelve 3' X 32" pens. The 12 X 16 Shed in the background is mostly painted, although I still need to finish the trim.

These two shots give you and idea of what I am doing with my Poultry Yard. As you can see from the pictures the nearest buildings were originally 4 X 8 pens that my father built. Last summer I brought them down to my place from NY, and so far I have modified two of them to incorporate a 4 X 8 run that is open on the front. They face east and keep out most of the rain. Every once in a while the shavings in the run area get a little wet but dry out quickly. Eventually they will be trimmed in white. I tore the shingles off of the first one when I added the run, but left them on the second one and just added a layer of new shingles figuring that it would add a little insulation in the summer. I have three more like these to modify. Now that I have a good portion of the buildings in place I will start adding trees to the mix! And yes, I know that the birds in the foreground above do not have any feathers on their legs. The barred pullets are Dominiques, and the others are Buff and White Minorcas. They are about 5 months old and part of my preservation breeds project. You can see a couple of White and Black Cochins standing near their pen in the background.






The above photos give you an idea of how I build my wire bottomed cages. This particular group of cages is 24 inches deep by about 20 inches wide with a 2 inch divider between each one to keep them from grabbing one another. Generally, their foot feathering stays in better shape than if they were on shavings, and I attribute most of that to the vinyl coated 1X1 wire. I make sure to line each doorway and cage cup opening with the plastic door guard material. I buy the 1 x 2 wire in a 100' roll (6 foot tall), and the wire for the flooring comes in a 24" wide X 100' roll. Aside from the wire, I actually get my cage making materials from a Rabbit Supply place. One thing I will change for any future cages like this is the amount of space under the cages for the drop board. Each pen has an individual drop board that slides in and out and I used 7/16 OSB for those, which doesn't leave a lot of room for sliding out "used" drop boards. Next time I will have to add more depth to the runners for the drop boards.