How strong does a chook shed need to be?

So I need to do this soon.
Watching gardening Australia on the ABC a while back I was intrigued by the use of a mesh floor with poo traps underneath and want to build something like that.
But I want it to be free standing and movable.
MetalCorp have strong gal mesh 50*50*4mm at $66- a sheet 1200 * 2000mm so that is the size I want to build to house a dozen or more hens.
As usual money is tight and getting tighter so I want to use as little structural timber as I can and use some of my leftover steel battens to hold the steel sheet cladding and the roof.
I'm hoping I can just use 70*35 H3 for the basic studs and rafters
Advice requested and thanking you all in advance

Wouldn't need to be too strong, but you wouldn't want it to blow away either.

It needs to be strong enough to keep a fox from getting in.

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Originally Posted by ErrolFlynn

It needs to be strong enough to keep a fox from getting in.

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Yes I had thought about that, I guess I also need to think about rat proofing and insulation

High high can foxes jump?
Over the last month I have been fencing off the yard behind the shed for vegetable garden and chook run. Next doors refuse to fix the fence so I'll be doing something from our side to 3 metres tall and soon I'll be buying a roll of chicken wire to do the upper part of the timber fence etc
Everytime I go to Bunnings I try and get a few of the H3 packers that come under the plinth board packs; I want to use those as part of the chook shed if I can.
Edit
Also I will do a 300mm wide and deep barrier under the chicken safety area to stop the foxes digging under

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Originally Posted by Moondog55

High high can foxes jump?

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Not sure, but they are enterprising creatures.

I had chooks once. I used angle iron to make a frame for the coop. About a third of it was enclosed - their bedroom. The roof hinged up for access. The other two-thirds was enclosed in chicken wire. It had no floor so that it could be moved and the chooks could get fresh grass whenever the thing was moved. It had a door at the end so that they could be allowed to walk around the garden. They knew where they lived and they always went to bed at sunset. Kind of funny to see it happening.

After a time, I felt the enclosure was too restrictive. Sometimes on lazy mornings, they wouldn't get let out till late, which wasn't so nice. So, I had a fence put up that surrounded a suitably sized area. The sort of steel 'pailings' you often see around the perimeter of schools. That was on two sides and chicken wire on the other two sides. Probably around but not quite 2 meters high. I had them make the fence panels with a particularly narrow opening to prevent anything from getting in or out.

We generally always shut the door of their pen at the end of the day, but sometimes we forgot. Anyway, they were inside the fenced area. Should be safe. And they generally were. Until one morning we went down there to let them out and the place was a mess. Dead chooks everywhere. The gate was still shut. There were no holes dug under the fence. I doubt a fox could have squeezed through between the pailing. Must have climbed the chicken wire. Maybe climbed a tree and leapt to get in, and then to get out maybe got on top of the coop and leapt to the fence to escape. No idea.

Never had any more after that experience.

Then maybe I'll do an angled floppy top too. I was going to try and get a 3m mesh fence all around but it starts to get very expensive.
I will make sure that the coop is fox proof though.

I guess the shed itself needs a roof strong enough to support the grandkids if they decide to climb up there and jump around so maybe I should also look at some guttering and a small water butt on a short stand, I happen to have a blue drum with a tap hole in the bottom

How strong does a chook shed need to be?

My first thought was "How big are the bloody chooks?" If emu size very strong otherwise as previously mentioned fox proof + dog, cat and possum proof depending on where you live and the surrounds... Good if you can keep snakes and goannas out as well.

Had cooks for many years. Shed doesn't need to be massive just big enough to house perches and nesting boxes with room for scratching around, watering points and hanging feeder and lots of hay/straw/wood shavings for floor and bedding... clean out regularly and use for mulch or composting.

Forget moving it around make it a permanent fixture and build a pen around it 6 -7 ft high with chicken wire attached to wooden uprights and secured well at the bottom. Forget about the rats and mice you've got no hope of stopping then especially as you have invited them in with food they like. Hanging feeder is about the best thing to deter them, but not fool proof as their clever little blighters.

Could go further but I'm over chooks after 45 years of them in the distant past.

Cheers - Neil :U

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Originally Posted by Neil

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My first thought was "How big are the bloody chooks?" ...

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Originally Posted by Neil

Forget about the rats and mice you've got no hope of stopping then especially as you have invited them in with food they like.

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Oh yeah. I forgot about that when I kept chooks. Now I've read that there is likely to be a rat within 20 meters of everyone, everywhere. (Or is it 10 meters, I can't recall.) So, that's a fact of life. But do you want to add to the population?

I used to buy pellets for the chooks. Kept it in a plastic rubbish bin in the garage. Rats and mice have sharp teeth. There were so many rat or mice holes in that bin that it wasn't any good for anything any longer. I soon learnt to keep it in a steel rubbish bin. Not sure if you can still buy them. But there are other issues.

I had kept a lot of books in the garage. In an old sideboard that happened to be next to the chook feed (in a metal bin). Mostly note books from when I was studying. Not the sort of thing I'd look at regularly, but not the sort of thing I'd want to throw away. When it came time to move and pack up my stuff, naturally I went to get all my old notes and books only to find a lot of them had been eaten, and droppings everywhere. I just didn't want to touch them because of the mess and stink. Most of them got chucked I'm sad to say. Are you sure you want chooks?

I was watching telly one evening. The TV was in front of the window. it was evening and the curtains were closed. I was shocked when my eye caught some movement. One of those little blighters (ie. mouse) had come out of an opening between the brickwork and timber window frame, went trotting across the top of the curtains and disappeared into some other tiny little hole at the other end. It must have felt quite at home. It didn't seem scared. Just going about its business. Are you really, really, sure you want to keep chooks? My mouse and rat problem in the hosue wasn't evident before I started keeping chooks.

Have to agree with Erroll. Chooks for us in the country meant rats and mice everywhere in plague proportions although horse feed didn't help.

However, a wee mouse did cure my young daughter of going barefoot around the 120 year old house/homestead.

She got up from the lounge and went into the kitchen to raid the fridge without turning the kitchen light on.

A bloodcurdling scream came from the kitchen, I rushed in to see what had happened and nearly died of laughter. She had stood on a mouse with her bare foot and popped its head off shooting its insides out through the vacated head hole like squeezing a tube of toothpaste.

Probably wasn't funny... well not to her but for me hell yeah. It was hilarious and we've dined out on that and other mouse, rat, white ant, possum, echidna, goose, horse and dead sheep stories on numerous occasions.

Must admit did cure her of bare feet around the house to this day she still wears slippers at all times in the house and she's 30+ years older now.
The dead sheep story is a favorite of mine and many of our friends, sad but side splittingly hilarious. :rofl:

Cheers :U

Oh Neil, I don't know what to think of that. My jaw dropped open. How old was she at the time? Poor soul.

About 13 from memory.

That's not even the goodest jaw dropping story. The dead sheep/ram is a absolutely hilarious, jaw dropping, mind blowing, doozie.

I think you have an audience, Neil.

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Originally Posted by Neil

About 13 from memory.

That's not even the goodest jaw dropping story. The dead sheep/ram is a absolutely hilarious, jaw dropping, mind blowing, doozie.

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Ok, Ok, now we are all waiting ⏱️

Our daughter was given an orphaned lamb "Toby" he grew and grew into a pretty big ram. Was kinda like a big wooly dog. Followed her around and us depending on what was going on. Very gentle and always around had fun playing with our bull terrier "Sheeba". He must have been 4+ because he was shorn 3 times.

We were away for a couple of weeks and when we came hone there was no sign of Toby so figured he was out in the paddock somewhere. We found him the next morning after the daughter had gone to a friends house.

He was in the house paddock, a few feet inside the gate and dead as a doorknob. I brought the van around with the trailer on and backed it up to as foot or so way from Toby so we could get him in the trailer with not too much effort. My 2 boys around 16 and 18 yrs old said they would lift him into the trailer. Unbeknown to us he must have been dead for more than a few days and it had been raining whilst we were away.

Anyway the boys grabbed a 2 legs each and on 1 2, 3.... They lifted in perfect unison but Toby didn't move even though his 4 legs did the boy had pulled his rotting legs off. Dropped them and were rolling around on the ground screaming out unintelligible noises and words like yarrrrk, gurrrrk, gaaaah, etc.
:gaah: :yuk: :puke: :cry3:
I know it wasn't funny but Pauline and i had tears rolling down our faces :rotfl: and our sides ached:roflmao: from laughing... So glad the daughter wasn't there.

Still had to get Toby into the trailer so once the boys had finished dry-retching, shuddering, laughing and regaining their composure they had a go at try #2. They reached down grabbing handfuls of his thick woolen coat 1 2, 3... and this time they came up with 4 handfuls of fleece. More of the same antics on the ground, more laughing and aching sider.
:rofl:
We grabbed a piece of old carpet from the off the floor in the tack shed, rolled him over onto that and got his front half up onto the trailer just as the carpet split and his back half began to separate from his front half. My extra pair of hands helped to keep what was left of him in almost one piece and finish off the loading onto the trailer.

Quick trip into the gold fields and to the dead animal mine and poor old Toby was unceremoniously dumped down the longdrop where cows, sheep and other largish animals called their resting place. Daughter was never privileged to the full story. Rest In Pieces toby.

If you don't think this is funny... YOU JUST HAD TO BE THERE!!!

As for rats. One warm summers night there was a cacophony going on outside the house which sounded like it was coming from the corrugated iron roof. We went outside to see what was going on, the roof was absolutely covered in rats and they were streaming across the electricity wires leading from the homestead to the cottage and to the tack shed and root cellar, then down the yard to the big barn, out sheds, cattle shed and smithy.

They were everywhere.

What did we do? Not a thing went back inside and ignored the blighters. We had problems with them in the roof before and discovered that they hated mothballs and camphor flakes so there was always s few boxes of it thrown around the inside of the roof from time to time. To our knowledge not one rat came into the roof that night and within a few hours all but a few stragglers had moved on. Strangely they didn't come down onto the ground or try to get into the house or half cellar at the back of the house which had open vents at ground level.

Pauline said "If just one of those rats gets inside, I'M LEAVING!!!"

Not sure what was worse the noise of the rats on the roof or the sound of buckshot raining down on the roof opening weekend of duck season.

We did have the odd snake venture into the half cellar from time to time. I drew the line at the 10ft king brown I saw disappear into one of the vents and covered them all with tin after he/she had moved on.

Also had a pet goose (Howard the duck) Not pet... possums, echidnas, owls, bats and a dozen or so swallows who kept on coming back to their same nests each year, a squadron of pelicans about 60 strong, a number of platypuses (not platypi), a ship load of sheep, a wombat or 2, thousands of rabbits and half as many feral/wild cats, the odd wallaby or few and some thoroughbred horses mostly Trotters and pacers amongst them the trotter known as That horse Mouries Idol Never beaten in his long career. Almost forgot a couple of really scary Cape Barron Geese that stopped off for a few days, from time to time.

Oh yeah, we rented the house and out buildings. Thee property (380 acres) was at Welshmans Reef Central Victoria and the Loddon River ran through the property into Cairn Curran Reservoir the head of which flooded the bottom 60 acres of the property. Hence the pelicans and platypuses and duck season shrapnel.

This was also the home of Maine Woodworkers Woodies Swap Meet for a number of years, boasting as many as 5000+ plus through the gates for a 1 day event in the middle of nowhere.

Do we miss not still being there. Yep sure do. Would we want to go back. No, not any more.

OK that's enough of that stuff.

Cheers - Neil :U

Regarding poor Toby, I think you have to be tough to live on a farm.

Huh. Yeah tough and slightly nuts. When it's good it's great and when it's not it's really not. Helps to have a good sense of humor. a thick hide and a knack for getting into or out of trouble without getting committed, shot, kicked in the face by a horse or falling down and jumping up with a joyful cry of "I'm alright" before collapsing in a heap and starting it all over again.

It's all fun and games until it gets serious. Then it's not.

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Back to the chooks:

A really great trick for the chooks... throw a piece of corrugated iron on the ground in the chook yard and leave it for a week or so. When the chooks are out in the the yard flip the iron over and watch the fun. There should be dozens if not hundreds of earwigs under it and on it. The chooks will go absolutely berserk... it's a smorgasbord of their favorite food on the run. They absolutely love earwigs.

Works best if the ground has been well picked over of vegetation and is slightly damp before putting the iron down.

Cheers :U