{"id":34,"date":"2008-11-02T21:46:21","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T04:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/?p=34"},"modified":"2008-12-27T16:28:31","modified_gmt":"2008-12-27T23:28:31","slug":"new-broiler-pens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/new-broiler-pens\/","title":{"rendered":"New Broiler Pens"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Side

Horse panel ripped in half and place in dados.<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, I am back in the pen construction business. \u00a0There are a couple of improvements that I want to make to our broiler pens. \u00a0First we want to be able to service the birds from one side only. \u00a0This is not a huge thing with a single pen; however, with multiples this becomes more and more important. \u00a0Second, we want to be able to feed and water the chickens from the outside of the pens. \u00a0If we do this we can eliminate the ‘easy open’ top that has causes aerial predator problems. \u00a0Third, we want to avoid having to walk in the fertilized zone behind the pens. \u00a0To address these issues and make the pen more durable and predator proof we are building new pens. \u00a0The pens will be slightly bigger 8’x16′ and made from horse panels. \u00a0These panels are the reason for the size change. \u00a0They come in 60″x16′ so 1 1\/2 panels will make one pen. \u00a0These panels are expensive ($65 a piece) so we need to use every inch. \u00a0Horse panels have 2″x4″ holes which should be good to block predators. \u00a0The panel will be covered with poly or shade cloth depending on the season. \u00a0The panel is framed in wood, a 2×4 for the bottom skid and a ripped 2×4 for the top rail. \u00a0Ripping the dado is key to this design. \u00a0The panel fit in nicely and we secured it with a couple of screws catching the inserted horizontal wire. \u00a0After putting a second side panel together, Hazel and I worked on squaring up the two sides with conduit. \u00a0I am a conduit bending novice so it took a bit to figure out how to make two ninety degree turns and come out to the right length. \u00a0Good thing conduit is pretty cheap. \u00a0\u00a0\"Squaring\u00a0As you can see in the picture the end panels are not framed but tied to the bent conduit and the side panels. \u00a0Another key feature of this pen will be the flexibility\u00a0in the corners. \u00a0All four corners are wire tied to allow for some flex but still not collapse when we need to make a turn (thanks to the conduit). \u00a0The top rail on the end panel is there to snap the poly cover over.\u00a0The waterer is a gravity fed bell waterer. \u00a0The reservoir pipe is long enough to hold about 2.5 gallons. \u00a0This is a bit less than out current set up. \u00a0This may come back to haunt me as I skimped and just used the pipe I had laying around. \u00a0I should probably shift to 3″ pipe later on (this would hold about 4.4 gallons).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"wire<\/a>

Pull poly over channel and walk in the zip wire.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Wire lock is great! \u00a0This channel locks in the poly covering with a zig-zag wire. \u00a0Easy to put in and holds very snug. \u00a0We plan on using poly in the spring and fall and switching to shade cloth in the summer. \u00a0This wire lock will allow us to do this without too much pain. \u00a0Once the poly was wrapped around the broiler pen I just cut some PVC to make snap on clamps to hold the ply to the end wall top rails. \u00a0For rain run off, just but a small bend (15 degree maybe) in the center of a 10′ piece of conduit and hammered the ends flat and screwed it into the top wooden rail of the side panels. \u00a0Then just Tee into the center and run out to the end walls. \u00a0We will see how this works- good thing we only get 9 inches of rain a year…and most of that is in the winter.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"The<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, I am back in the pen construction business. \u00a0There are a couple of improvements that I want to make to our broiler pens. \u00a0First we want to be able to service the birds from one side only. \u00a0This is not a huge thing with a single pen; however, with multiples this becomes more and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[47,44,46,45],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shelter","tag-bend-poultry","tag-broiler-pens","tag-central-oregon-rain","tag-pastured-chicken-shelter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatamericanegg.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}