The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
Rebuilding A Grotty Chicken Shed
awemawson:
This is not a project I wanted - in fact I've resisted it until the domestic pressure has got too great :zap:
A chicken shed - with a design not entirely practical. The idea I think was that having it on wheels, and with a slatted floor, it could be moved rather than having to muck it out, and the chicken poo would fall through the slats.
In practise this didn't work well at all - the poo sat on the slats, but far more seriously the badgers grabbed chicken legs from below and bit their feet off. Not nice to find in the morning and certainly not nice for the chicken :bang:
So some years ago I put galvanised sheeting over the slats. But slowly and surely, like all these things it rotted from the bottom being close to wet earth, and no doubt the rats helped the process by gnawing away as well.
My offered (and favourite) solution was to lay a slab of concrete and build a brick chicken shed along the lines of my Pig Palaces, but this didn't meet with approval despite the fact it would be virtually maintenance free for decades to come. (Apparently we have too much brick work about the place :bang:)
So having previously prepared the ground for a masonry construction, I'm now having to try and make a Silk Purse out of this Sows Ear of a shed.
It's fragile as the base is rotten. The wheels have fallen off the rotten timbers of the base and SOMEHOW it needs lifting two foot off the ground and suspended so the the base on which it was built and the slatted floor can be cut away and replaced. I ended up nailing some re-inforcing timbers across the narrow side internally knocking a plank off at each end, and threading scaffold poles through which I could then jack up onto 'builders band stands'
It would be SO much better to dowse it in a gallon of paraffin and toss a match in :scratch:
So it was about this stage I started taking photos - so we start when I've got it up on the band stands (one of which is in an extremely dodgy state itself and is going to need repair)
awemawson:
So the next step (quick before it ALL collapses) remove the three lower planks to give access to the base to perform butchery on it's fixings. Hopefully I can match the shiplap timbers when it all goes back together - it looks to be a fairly standard 6" profile.
Then out comes the reciprocating saw - one of those rarely used tools that in this case was indispensable - cutting through screws between two timber baulks. At this stage the slatted floor fell out along with other bits of the structure that I wanted to retain :bang: Never mind, they nailed back ok !
awemawson:
Next step - make a new base and floor - solid floor this time from 18 mm shuttering ply with the steel sheets I'd previously fitted fixed below to give the rats a head-ache.
Now it just so happens I have a pile of nominally 3"x 3" rough sawn timber that had arrived as cribbing for the steel work for the tractor shed - it's a bit irregular in sizing but none of the base will show. It is of course pretty poor quality soft stuff, but it should last if given a good soaking in genuine Creosote.
So Saturday afternoon I cut it to size - I've decided to add two cross braces that weren't part of the original design making four lengths for the short side and two for the long side in a ladder format.
Had to curtail activity at that point as was due at a friends 80th birthday celebrations.
Then this morning, despite a slight hang over and a very late night (well actually early morning!) I cut all the halving joints and made a trial lay out on the woodwork shop floor.
I need to order up some genuine Creosote before I can do much more - I have 'Creosote Substitute' which is OK for fences but no use for stuff that sits on the ground.
John Rudd:
Those pig palaces, I mistakenly took them as a new house build.....it looked so good... :bow:
SwarfnStuff:
Ah, I see another "Sit with coffee" read coming up. :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: Just waiting for the next installment.
Thanks Andrew,
Your posts are always a good read.
John B
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