NOCC - Progression

It's happening!

For all those who have been watching the NOCC (New Old Chicken Coop) come to life, well, from that last attempt which we no longer speak about, to this! It is not yet finished, however it is well on its way. We have hit a few 'unexpected' issues along the way, but it has been so much fun to work through them with my awesome partner in these crazy ventures (Queen Cassowary).

So as a quick recap, we got an old van, and we are making it into a chicken coop, well, more an isolation coop for when we get new birds or a sick bird. We moved the van into place with no 'major' problems, however the first attempt at creating the 'living' area was a fail. We have switched to wood frame (instead of poly pipes) and it is working :) So far so good!!

So this is what it looked like when we started again. Poly pipes down and a lot more wood was brought up from our 'resource pile'. The great thing about collecting things that you might use later, is that when you think of something to make or do, we have 95% of it here already :) Wood, tin, pipes, screws, wires, and more... (including the odd fridge!)

Back to the progress, we redesigned the frame of the coop to be wooden, this was a challenge as the outdoor area is going to be about 3 meters high, and 4 meters wide, so it is not too small. The problem with the poly pipes was that they could not support the weight of the shade sail over that large distance. We did consider only using chicken wire, however when there are no chickens, ducks, geese or guinea fowl in the isolation coop (NOCC) then I will use it to grow something (veggies in a hydroponic bed most likely), so I wanted to have the shade to enable the area to be used for lots of different things. So wood it is. Problem with wood at this size is the weight of the wood. Getting it that high was a task and a half. The only ladder we have is a three step ladder (plus the part on the top) and we don't have the funds to get a bigger one just yet, so we make do.

This is the frame, made mainly from hardwood from an old shed frame. The screws that we used to hold the whole thing together are screws that have been kept from other projects, or saved from things that we have pulled apart over time. One of the most important things that we have found when recycling things, make sure that you sort things out. Put like screws together, put cables together, try to sort of everything you can as you pull things apart (or collect things) and add them to your growing 'resource pile' so that when you need screws, it is just a matter of getting the screw container, inside it you should have lots of little containers, or compartments) and working what fits where. It is nice when it all just happens, however sometimes you just have to buy things :(

From this part, we needed to connect the frame to the van, and to the other end of the fence (the part you are looking at now is the middle of the outdoor area. If you remember from previous posts, where the shade cloth is attached to the van, there is a wooden frame we made around the door, so we chose to use that as the far left point to connect to. That part was relatively easy, however really important to keep the whole 'shape' of the frame and support it later.

This is all we really needed (on both sides) just to ensure the frame would not move to much. Then the other side of the frame needed to come up. That was a new problem, as now the top of the frame was over 3 meters high, and screwing things above that was 'comical', however we did it. At times we joked "you know those 'health and safety on the work place' videos you see and think, yeah, sure, WHO would do that, who would balance on one leg on top of a ladder with a electric drill in one hand and a heavy beam of wood in the other, while looking at the 'view from up here'.." .. yeah.. that was us :) It was a really nice view though!

So this is the other side, the side that is attaching to the fence. It comes down on a slight angle to help water not pool at the top of it, hopefully it works. We do try to think of everything that we might need to take into consideration, however I am sure that we have missed one or two things, but we will catch up :)

Now, shade cloth time, so one end is already attached to the van (from the earlier failed attempt), no need to change that too much, just throw it over, nail it down as we move along.

And it is working! It is ALIVE!!! Under the shade cloth you can feel it cooler already, shaded and calming. Whoever goes in here will be happy :)
So we went along and touched it up, making the shade cloth as tight as we could, however realising as we along that there must be something more to this than just pulling it tight and nailing it on. There are some points where it sags a little, and some parts where it is not too even, but nothing around here is perfect so why should this be! :)

This is a view of one of the corners, just in the case that you are wondering. If you would like more information about whatever else (like how, when, where, etc) then please just ask, I have lots more photos and information, I just don't want to over load you.

We wanted to make a little gate at the end that is NOT the van end, so we supported the top of it (that will be the top of the door frame) and then built a gate underneath it. In the final view of the NOCC I will put up more details about how and why things are the way that they are.

This is Scarlet testing out the gate for me :) It is not finished, I have to put latches on it, and I am thinking about putting a spring on the inside so it automatically closes, fancy eh? :)

So that is the stage we are up to now, we are about to go and keep going. The shade cloth is up, a gate is up, the wire is looking good, nearly done! :)

I hope that you all enjoy the progress of this, I will let you know how it goes, but here are some other photos from the helpers that we have had so far in the project.

Scarlet on a coffee break, it is hard work supervising all the humans!

Robin was around a lot to ensure that the quality of the wood met her high standards!

And Charlie made appearances here and there, just to see if we had anything nice that she could eat, the answer was always no.

I hope that you all have a great day, we are going back out there to get this done! Enjoy your life, and be inspired by the beauty around you.

NOCC - a failed attempt

The van 'NOCC' - fail attempt 1

If you remember from an slightly older post I was changing an old van into a chicken coop, well I hit a 'snag'. They say that you learn more in life from failures, but with that said I should be so much smarter by now! :)

So the original idea was:

Using old 1' diameter rural piping (black hoses) we were going to create an arch and lay shade cloth over it, and up the sides run chicken wire attached to the bottom of the shade cloth, so there would be no spaces at all for the little chickens (or guinea fowl right now) to escape. Once we got the shade cloth and got it all up there, the weight of the cloth slowly caused the pipes to bend, once they got to a certain point, there was no stopping it :( Shame, but it is ok, we tried. So now I have two new ideas, and I am in an internal debate about which one to do. I think they will both work, but I am trying to think about all the other projects around the place, I would hate to use something here that I could only use on the next project.

So the two ideas, firstly I could use wood. The support around the van is currently wood, so I was thinking about using more of that. The wood that I am using is from an old shed (2 1/2 car garage) so there is more than enough wood to go around, and it is really nice hard wood. There are star pickets already in place, so I could just attach the wood to the star pickets, make a frame from that and done. Also the wood would be a lot stronger, and would enable us to make easy changes, like adding a hanging water feeder or watering system. 

The other idea is using reclaimed steel poles. These are galvanised steel from an old exterior structure. We are not metal workers, I have nothing to cut something that thick, or to weld on to something like that, but we do have a lot of the 'joiners' that link those kinds of metal poles together (like the supports for a chain link fence). The reason why I have such a big debate in my head, is that those poles would be 100 times stronger, last forever, and never give way, however, with all that said, they might be put to better use on something that needs that kind of structural integrity, not something that just has to hold up shade cloth.

I know what you are thinking "first world problems here!", and you are right, there are people with no wood to spare, and no steel poles just laying around their yard, and this is the reason why I take so long to make a decision, I would hate to waste it when I know there are people out there that could also use it. 

I think that I will use the wood. I have enough reclaimed and saved screws and nails to put it all together, as long as I have wood that is long enough to go the entire length (I could just join, but that always creates a weak point). Also I do feel more confident working with wood, don't get me wrong, I still have no idea what I am doing, but I have a drill and a hand saw - what could go wrong??

So, come Saturday morning, I shall start the process of making a large wooden frame for the new guinea fowl enclosure :) This afternoon (when it gets cooler, it is 30oC (86oF) 45% humidity right now) I will start to move some wood up there, same thing tomorrow after work I will move more and get the area ready, then come Saturday morning, let the drilling, sawing and nailing begin! :) And then hopefully by Sunday morning the guinea fowl are in their new house.

Again to recap, this is what went wrong, the support were not good enough, we used star pickets to support the bottom of the pipes, but the tops where the problem. So we are going to replace the plastic pipes with a wooden frame.

So, until I update you again on this, thank you for laughing at me, and I hope that you all are learning things as I am, and when it comes time for you to do something like this, hopefully you all get it right with minimal problems :)

Enjoy the rest of your day, and be happy with what you are doing in life, generally.

:)

Some ducks....

Chickens, ducks and geese

This little clip is an experiment to see how well linking my little clips of my crazy girls will go on my blog. So far it looks a little slow and choppy, but we will see :)

I talked before about setting up a YouTube channel to put all the clips onto, I think that will be the way to go, and link them from here.

Here are some of the ducks and geese. The geese are so interesting, they are so curious, whenever you do anything, there they are to check out what's going on. Chickens will get in your face to explore things, they will jump in a hole as you are digging it, or try to examine a chainsaw while you are using it (not too smart), but geese are different, they don't put themselves in harms way like chickens do, but they still want to be involved :) They still like to know what is happening, and if they can eat anything that is happening (as you can tell by this page alone, nobody is starving here!)

The video clip at the top of the page was just after throwing some seed (you can see some girls in the background actually eating what I gave them) and the ones in the foreground (mainly the Muscovy ducks!) are asking for more or something different, they will not get it, they never do, but they always like to ask, The Muscovy's especially like to eat out of your hand, I think it is their way of ensuring that THEY are getting all the food, and there is no 'waste'. I love them all, and their 'special' personalities :)

I will look into how to get the YouTube thingy happening, I have a lot of little movies like this one, movies about what I have been doing, or just the animals being, well, the animals, very cheeky.

I hope that you all enjoy your day today, hopefully it is filled with chickens, ducks, geese and the rest of life, not stuck in an office somewhere not wanting to be there.

Be happy, I'll talk to you all soon! :)

The Van... progress of NOCC...

New Old Chicken Coop

Well, if you remember not that long ago I said that we got an old van and we were going to make it into a extra chicken coop, that is what we have been doing this morning.

I will run through what we have done so far :) We have paused this outside game because it is so hot right now, went shopping for things, now time to hide from the sun until the evening and keep going :)

Wait... before we start, I need (want) to explain something. All our animals are free-range, in the end. When we get new additions to our family we put them in an "isolation" pen, which is not anywhere near the others. This is for a short period to asses them and make sure they don't have anything that might spread to the others before we can contain it (ticks, fleas, lice, etc.). There is one other pen that we are building, which is the one that the van is turning into. This is for new additions to our family that can not be trusted yet, ones that need to know where home is. This is because they are either older and have a home and might try to return to it, or something (like the new guinea fowl) that have such are large home base (meaning they fly around and do what they want during the day) and they need to establish a home so they know where to come home, where is safe. So that is what this is for, so the Guinea Fowl can live in there for a few months, get the hang of things, and meet the other ladies through the wire, then get introduced properly when they (hopefully) know how to know home safely and on time (or they WILL be grounded).

Back to what I was saying, so what have we done?

This is the van, we towed it into place and chocked it with bricks for now. The idea is that it will lose its tires and have a small breathing space underneath it (bricks holding it up). I will keep stripping it every chance I get (taking the engine out, the interior etc, cleaning it into an empty shell), and we are building a cage to attach to the outer side of this picture. Digger and Scarlet are just assessing the area and ensuring that it is all in order.

From this angle you can see some star pickets that we have driven into the ground (they will come into play shortly), and a door that doesn't close (I have started pulling things apart, I have learnt that you should probably leave the door closing thingys until the end :)

Ok, this is a big stick, a really big stick. You might be thinking 'why do you have a big stick leaning against such a high-class over-powered beast of a van?' Well, it will be used as a frame against the van. So the grand idea is that there is a 'cage' attached to the van, running along the fence until it gets to the other fence (I know, I am lost also), it is about 10 meters long (about 32 ft) and about 3 meters wide (9 ft). This wood is about to be cut (using a hand saw) in roughly half, more important I measured it against the van to where I want it to be, cut it, then the left over part I measured against the part I cut and did it again (because I need two pieces of the same height).

This is what I mean, I got the big long woodie thingie and put it on some bricks (to get it off the ground) and cut it, then cut the other big again, now I have two bits the same size (bottom of the picture) and the bit at the top is now spare, for a different project perhaps.
So here is a little tip. If you don't have fancy 'saw-horses' or whatever you call the bits to keep wood off the ground, use what you have. You don't need to spend money just to cut a bit of wood. I had bricks laying around, so I stacked some up (so the wood was off the ground) and made sure that when I used the hand saw it didn't hit the ground, and done :) The wood is cut, and I have not spent more money than I needed to, happy times all around!

So these are the bits of wood cut to size, they are going to be roughly there and I will have a large piece of wood across the top (it is on the roof of the van in the picture) and that will be the 'door way' frame. The idea is that only that large sliding door will gain access to the pen, the front door of the van is for humans to go and do human-like things (like cleaning), and the sliding door on the other side is to open the place up so all the girls can have fun anywhere they want to when they are not in some form of lock down (this place will also serve as a hospital isolation ward for injuries that mean the girls can't get in the water (sad for ducks) but things like bumble-foot)

So, from a far:

These pipe that are airborne are going to support the wire, and the star pickets are going to support the vertical wire, so it will be like a big arch way. There are trees and life inside here, and that is something that I am going to have to deal with, I just don't know how right now, I am thinking about pruning the trees and keeping them shaped (I normally like to let things go wild).

Just in case you are wondering (and thinking about doing something like this yourself), This is a close view of the pipes, I have the chicken wire tied onto the pipes, this is about 6 ft high chicken wire, I will attach more as we go along (hence the shopping trip today).

The sun is starting to get really hot, and this is a view from near the van facing away. The structure is getting there, but it is hard using mostly recycled parts and just myself and Queen Cassowary doing the job (neither of us actually know what we are doing, but we fake it well!).
Ok, now we stopped this, went shopping then went inside (had lunch and wrote this page), we will keep going shortly and then again tomorrow morning, then hopefully it is done :)
The cleaning out of the van will take a bit longer, then making it into a livable home for the new Guinea Fowl, but that will happen this week.

So here is where we left it, most of the wire on this side is up, the pipes are in location and tied up, the van supports for the cage are cut and ready, just need to finish it off! Exciting!!

I should mention about where these parts all came from, so here we go.
Van = donated by a lovely man in the local area who heard that we could use it for this project
Star pickets = 1/2 purchased new at the hardware shop, the other 1/2 are from the old fences in the area that we have pulled up
Wire = left overs from the other million jobs around here that needed wire (people just don't throw that out)
Pipes = found as broken and mistreated pipes, hidden on the land by the previous owners (thinking we would be upset by finding this?)
Wire Ties = old wire from other jobs, the off cuts that were kept
Wood Frame = an old shed that I scored (if I pulled it down for him)

Well it is coming along, I have a few more things to do inside the house while it is still too hot to play outside, but I will update you all soon about how things are going with this and everything else :)

Thank you for reading this, I hope that you all are either inspired, happy or motivated by what I say to you, and like I have said before, if you want me to do something on this land, if you have an idea that you have wanted to try but don't have the materials or land, please just let me know. I am more than happy to try new things out, and I will let you know what I find out :)

Thank you again for visiting, please come back again and see how things are with this project and so many others.
Have a great rest of your day!

An anamalistic overview

I was thinking about what to blog, blogging requires inspiration I think, however I am tired, it is Saturday morning, I don't sleep too well these days and I don't really like sitting on the computer, I find it boring and un-inspiring. With that said though, I get to look through some photos for my blog, it is nice to reminisce and see how far things have changed in such a short period (for better or worse)

So, while thinking, should I write a blog on the update of the van/coop.. yes, however I don't have the photos on the computer yet *sigh* too much effort some days! :) Then I was thinking, what about my water moving projects, projects designed to move water around the area; either for power creation, irrigation or aeration. So that was what this morning was going to be, a quick document about the different methods I have tried so far, what I have found, and what I am going to do, but then I got caught up looking at cute pictures of my babies, and said "no, on a Saturday morning people want to see cute animals, not water projects".

The above picture is a quick look at a lot of animals in one picture :) You can see that there is wire between the two cats and the birds, this is a look from inside the 'cat-eo' (if you recall the cat-eo from a previous blog). It has been upgraded since this photo, there is now a flooring instead of natural, which has been met with mixed responses from the feline owners of this house :) So, who is in this picture? Well, starting from the most obvious, Pants, she is on-high to survey the area and ensure that her kingdom is running smoothly, under her (in many ways) is Binx. I have not talked about Binx yet, he is (was) a beautiful cat that we were cat-sitting for a period while a friend was moving houses. Unfortunately for Binx he did not fit in too well. He comes from a home that has one cat, Binx, and that is all there is in life. Being thrown into this house upset him a little since there was already a hierarchy, and he wasn't included. Also being a "complete" cat (all our domestic pets are desexed) I think that he felt out of place. Nevertheless I know that he did have some fun times (mainly with Thunder Cat).
Next in the photo are some chickens mixed with some ducks :) There are two (of our three) breeds of ducks in that photo, The larger ones, I am not sure if they have a breed, cat you have riffraff ducks, is that a breed? They are just mutts I think :) Lovable though. And in the back you can see two of the three Mallards that we have, these little ladies are so cute, so soft and quiet, unlike the riffraff ducks! :)
And then the geese, not much needs to be said for these beauties, you either know geese, or you are afraid of geese, simple. They are so loud, obnoxious, clumsy but so adorable and lovable. When I come outside they stand up tall, open their wings wide and run at me as fast as possible. If I didn't know these geese I might actually be a little weary of this, but they are just trying to get to me ASAP to get all the food! So cute.
The ducks (mainly) like to hang around the cat-eo, because it is also under the kitchen window, and any time we walk past the kitchen they can see us and they let us know that they are still there, I think with the hopes that food will appear for them, hopeful :)

While on the topic of Binx, another picture of the little man (little is relative), and Buttons :) These two didn't get along really, Buttons being the alpha-male in the cat hierarchy and Binx invading his turf (and checking out his woman!), but it never go too bad, a few scratches here and there.

This is Charlie, she is a strange little chicken, lays the cutest little eggs :) She was a rescue chicken from only days old, sad, but happy now :) She bosses nearly everyone around in the fowl world. She is the smallest of all of them, but she will tell the geese (largest) off if they do the wrong thing. It is very funny to watch! :)
She was hand raised due to the fact that she was so small and weak when we got her, but as she got bigger she slowly got introduced to the other girls (only have 5 chickens at that stage) and slowly took over as chicken-on-high, I fear for any rooster that attempted to join this flock!

The last picture I will leave you with is this picture of Scarlet 'protecting' this Brazilian Cherry. The tree was given to us (lovingly) by two very good/beautiful friends of ours, Matt and Juliana. It is growing so nicely, and hopefully it will give us years of joy and fruit :)
Scarlet of course is doing what she does best, being cheeky, poking her tongue out. Scarlet is such a beautiful puppy, she has the best nature about her, but when her heckles come up and her teeth come out, don't poke her! :) Right now she is trying to get to know the Alpacas better, I think she believes that since they share a similar color with her, they must be related (I never said that she was the smartest puppy!) She is a very loyal dog, and protects her heard/flock/family all the time. All our animals live together (except the cats, they just share with the dogs), but the dogs so in and out all the time, they hang out with the ducks and chickens, everyone gets along nicely :) I don't like leaving the dogs alone with the chickens for too long though, Scarlet (especially) likes to go into the chicken coop and search for eggs, I know what you are thinking 'good girl Scarlet for finding eggs and bringing them inside'...no... they are a lunchtime snack for her, and Digger likes to eat the chicken food.. we do have some confused animals out here!

Well, I must depart, the ladies are starting to sing their merry song to me. On a leaving note however, I will be getting a YouTube 'account' up and running soon, and on there I will be putting a lot of movies, movies about the things I am doing around here, and projects, and the crazy things that the animals do, so stay tuned for that one! :)

I hope that you all enjoy your day, and if you have to work today, or you are feeling down, just picture Scarlets little face, poking her tongue out at you :)

Happy Chickens (and secret NSA plot)

My happy girls

This picture is a little old, only about 9 months or so, but it is from when we first moved in. The girls (now a lot more) were getting to know the place :) On the right you can see Charlie, she is the only little bantam chicken we have, we got her from a "rescue" the last owners/breeders where closing down and we went just to see if there was anything we needed (wire, feeders, etc) and the place was feral. There were dead baby chickens throughout the floor (been dead for so long that some where just bones...) normal things that you see from uneducated breeders like over population, confined cages, etc. and Charlie was there, a baby chicken, a few days old. Charlie ended up in our custody and now thinks she is about 10" tall!!

Since this photo was taken a lot has changed, firstly the amount of animals, but the regeneration of the land has also really taken off. Charlie has also raised babies of her own, with out the need of a rooster! (yes, she is independent) We got some fertilized eggs from a friend when Charlie was broody and 4 babies hatched. She was the proudest mum ever (mind you all her babies are now twice her size!)

When I look at some older photos like this one (and regret not taking more 'before' photos), I am so happy to know how far we have come and how much we have done. What we are doing here is so minimal compared to what needs to happen in the world, I will not harp on right now about the problems that we have in regards to food production, sustainability, etc, but there is a huge problem. I like the idea that I am involved with a lovely group of people that like to grow there own produce, and more, and 'trade' with other people. It is so nice to know that. This means that there are less caged eggs being brought from the shops, less chemically grown/maintained foods in circulation, and the place gets greener (in looks) which is so nice compared to concrete buildings everywhere. It is nice to see so many nice eatable gardens popping up in suburbia, some people at work have started asking me about what to do with chickens (are they easy to keep, what to feed them, etc..) which is great that people are starting to become more self reliant on some things (we have to start somewhere). And then there is the conversation about keeping money local, don't get me wrong, the local supermarket is a global company that uses all its money to fund secret NSA satellites that spy on me when I sleep (I am actually really interesting when I sleep) and we should keep the money local instead of helping the NSA spy on me, however they do give local people jobs, which gives them money, and the large chains are a necessity in modern day living. I do like giving money (or produce) to local people though, and keeping things close to home, gives you a warm fuzzy feeling :)

BTW, if the NSA are actually spying on me it means that there is nothing else important to do with government assets, so it makes me happy to know this, means there are no more nasty terrorists running around :)

Anyway, I must be going, I have another day of work (not the fun kind) to be doing, so I must get all my goodies in one basket for that.

And if anyone out there would like to donate money to the "Jimmy should get to stay home in order to make the world a better place" fund, please feel free to contact me and we can talk :)

Last thing (I promise), I don't actually think that the NSA are spying on me, or that they are capable of spying on anyone, and I don't make any actual accusations towards the NSA in regards to what they do or don't do with their governments money/assets. (..just in case.. I don't want the American government to sue me!) but I do believe in the "Food is Free" project and home grown produce!