From lflondon@mindspring.com Tue Feb 8 03:05:50 2000 Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 01:25:32 -0500 From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." To: london@metalab.unc.edu Subject: (fwd) Re: Chicken house door shutter - LONG [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] On Sun, 06 Feb 2000 22:48:45 +0000, in alt.permaculture Ute Bohnsack wrote: Hi Bill, here are some thoughts others expressed back in 1998: ----------------- 13/10/1998 16:07 Subject: Re: self-closing doors for chicken coops?To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu Ok, we do not have enough rules set for this game. Are we assuming a coop that is on the grid? (How dull!) Moreover the grid is not 100 percent reliable. Timers get corroded from chicken shit and fumes and feather dust, etc., etc. Devices get fouled (PUN intended). My inmate students came up with devices such as a counterweight door that closes when all of the chickens are at roost. (Can you imagine the hilarity. The last chicken flutters up to roost and suddenly the roost goes out from under everyone. SWAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKK!!!! Up the chickens go, removing the weight before the spring loaded catch, which is fouled anyway with chicken shit and litter--remember they scratch everything everywhere--can enage the coon-proof door. Up and down and up and down. You don't need racoons. Your chickens will drop dead of exhaustion.) The most reliable device for locking up chickens at dusk is the person. it has photo sensors that detect when the last rooster in the group, harassed by the others into staying out until the last minute, is in or out of the coop. It has mechanical extensions for clearing debris from latches. Predators are afraid of it. And it runs on chicken and eggs. (Almost as good as the wood fired chain saw!) Moreover, it can get the chickens to go in early if it wants to go to a movie. We use two foraging regimes for our present small flock. We have a six-foot fence which mostly they will not fly over because they like us and want to make us happy. this encloses a huge area (on a per-chicken basis) of palms, giant oaks, wild grapes with vines the diameter of my arm at the shoulder, etc.-- They love playing here. the plams throw down little fruits with, no doubt, nutritious seeds. The grapes add a bit in season. they can't do much with the acorns except eat what fragmentst he squirrels drop. However the palms also breed the ever popular palmetto bug--a cockroach that resembles a volkswagon in size and shape. Some of our hens are afraid of them,but the ever-ready-to-be-macho roosters get off on slaughtering palmetto bugs for the hens. There are regular cockroaches, the odd batch of termites, etc. Most herbaceous vegetation has been eliminated, but they eat low-growing grape leaves, smilax leaves and fruit, etc. That's where we put them when we want to round them up early. Otherwise, I just open up the coop door and let them have the entire universe. The ramp leading to the enclosed forage area is hinged at the bottom of the opening so that when it is lifted up, it can be fastened to the wall as part. I use hook-and-eye hooks with spring loaded safety clips. Otherwise, racoons will open it. The front door has a hasp with a spring loaded clip as well as a regular doorknob. We get snakes in the coop anyway, of course, but so far nothing larger than an 8 foot rat snake which was probably after rats! Chickens are messy eaters and this brings in rodents. We have a few species of snakes that specializ in rectifying this problem. I suppose they get an egg or two and I keep chicks in a MUCH more secure area until they are big enough to fly to roost. (I use pallets in a corner of the coop when I introduce the chicks to the flock so they can hide under the pallet if harassed by the hens. After a while, the hens get bored and/or forget that they don't know these new chickens. the attention span of a chicken for anythng except food and, for roosters, sex, defines the term infinitesimal. I wonder if there is an evolutionary connection between poultry and people? For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses, consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence courses via email. Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com We don't have time to rush. A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture Teachers assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html From: 17/10/1998 20:43 Subject: Re: self-closing doors for chicken coops?To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu In a message dated 10/16/98 8:07:18 PM, you wrote: << Thanks Dan! I really appreciate your contributions and the humour! I've been thinking how to introduce chickens to retired professionals who want their land to produce value - not to sink hard earned cash or endless labour into their land year after year. I been thinking that you're sensible that it is best to have a human put the chickens away if you have only one chicken coop nearby. Too many complex issues to leave chickens in the "care" of devices furthermore one must see the chickens often and their situation to take care of them. I've also seen on that good video "Permaculture in Practice" from England a very ricketty ladder to the coop door high up that was designed to collapse if anything the weight of a predator got on it. What if you had an extensive orchard/agroforestry system and many coops? I have heard of dogs herding and caring for chickens. Could they not be trained to put the chickens in on command then press a lever and close the door? Automatic door opening device is much more realistic and useful in my mind. If you have layers then you don't want to let them out too early - so I've read. Hey - I've almost never touched a live chicken in my life - the game is to let them out late morning 11am so they don't lay eggs out in the pen. That would safely save one trip a day out to the chickens that is in the middle of a work day - and it is not too technically advanced. Really, I want to have designed and built for my clients a egg mobile that a person could pull because it had big wheels, is warm in the winter and has a green house gas-type window opener for hot days. It also must link up with a movable fence system for orchard areas and connections to Andy Lee style tractors that will work vegetable beds. Suitable size for the chickens - I understand that a "happy" flock size is 12-17 adult chickens. An adjustable floor: either the manure falls to the ground or is collected. Not too high - must fit in a garage if really cold period comes. Water roof catchment,tank and easy to clean water for the chickens to drink. Feed. Roosting and laying situations. Easy access for cleaning. Auto open door. Solar powered lighting to keep them laying - if cost is worth it. Well, that is some of the specs. I know how to get the info on Eggmobile designs but I wanted to modify it for permaculture uses. To get the job done I am going to have to find other people to help complete that project with me. Chicken tractors - egg mobiles are not well known around here. Harold Waldock haroldw@alternatives.com Vancouver, B.C. Canad>> Hey Harold: Sounds like a kindred spirit there, diagonally across the continent from me. We have an old camper-trailer (called carvan in most English-speaking countries) that was abandoned here. I'm going to gut it, put the propane stove and ice box to use in a summer (outdoor) kitchen, work very hard with sheet metal and body plastic to plug the holes where rats and snakes get in (we have huge poisonous snakes), and use it as a chicken mobile. I'll pull it with my truck for now, though I'd like to get a water buffalo. A conventional ox would be more appropriate in BC. Dogs are good predator control except that it is not possible to let them run free any more most places in the US due to "leash laws," which on the whole are as necessary as laws get. (I'm an anarchist.) We've lost more chickens to other people's dogs than all other predator4s combined. From: 13/10/1998 17:01 Subject: Re: self-closing doors for chicken coops?To: permaculture@envirolink.org, permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu Thanks for all your answers! Right now I have 23 5 month old pullets (one is a rooster in drag) on pasture, in arched cattle panel tracters. The place is off the grid, which is fine, with alternative power not feasable till next year. I like the idea of using their weight to pull up a door. Perhaps when I have power, I'll hook a switch to the door and electrify a metal plank/tunnel! [snip] Thanks again, Jeff From: 13/10/1998 01:54 Subject: Re: self-closing doors for chicken coops?To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu marc@dimensional.com wrote: > "Does anyone have information on how to open and close a chicken coop > door automatically, using a photo sensor or timer?" First, I assume you know that the birds must have proper ventilation. Shutting the door on them could cause problems. Anyway, if you're in mind to adopt a different idea, I once saw a diagram for a chicken house in an English free-range operation that used a fence charger. There was a hole about 2 or 3 feet from the ground that the chickens could hop-fly up to. They would then momentarily perch on the hole edge and then either hop down or on up to their night perch inside. A charged wire was mounted on insulators about 3 inches down from the hole. The wire ran all the way around the house and stuck out from the coop side the length of the insulators (about 2 inches). The predators that tried to go to the hole got zapped on the nose. They also got zapped if they went around back with intentions of coming over, and then in, from the top. I don't know if they have a snake problem in England or not, but methinks this system should zap them as well. Regards, Rex Harrill From: 13/10/1998 01:16 Subject: Re: self-closing doors for chicken coops?To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu "Does anyone have information on how to open and close a chicken coop door automatically, using a photo sensor or timer?" A couple of suggestions: WW Grainger has a spring loaded electric vent louver opener that could be adapted to a chicken door and there are some photocell switches that also can be found in Mouser, Allied, Newark and DIGI-Key electronic catalogs. Many hardware, electrical and general supply houses will have various components you could use to control a door such as those dark activated "turn the light on and keep the thiefs away" devices that plug into a wall to make believe you are home. ----------------- bill wrote: > > Can anyone point me to where I can plans for automatic door open/closer > for our chicken house so the door will open just after dawn and close at > dusk.Or does anyone sell such a product. > > Bill > ©¿©¬ Ute Lawrence F. London, Jr. Venaura Farm metalab.unc.edu/intergarden InterGarden metalab.unc.edu/permaculture PermaSphere metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/orgfarm AGINFO metalab.unc.edu/market-farming Market Farming lflondon@mindspring.com london@metalab.unc.edu