Nothing like hearing quacking under your window to get you moving. Especially when your window opens out to the dog pen!
No, there should not be a duck in the dog oen. At least not if it wants to stay intact. Lucky for the duck, the dogs had not been let out yet.
A few minutes of outsmarting a duck and success! Here’s a picture of the culprit…who has now been chicken wire fenced out of her secret fit through spot. Bad duck!
This post will be a post about posts….well, at least ones with hinges attached :). I snapped a few quick pictures to show some of the different ways I’ve attached gates to posts around the homestead.
First up is a galvanized tubing gate attached to a round wood post. I used an inexpensive (Harbor Freight) strap style hinge here. Drill holes through the tubing and put bolts with nuts on the gate side. For the post, the hinge is made out of a soft enough metal that you can bend it round with your hand or gentle taps with a hammer. The star head wood screws also help pull it in.
Next is one that was done for me. This is a gate that is simply a cut up piece of cattle panel. Another strap hinge was welded onto the panel for me. Then this time the flat part is simply screwed onto the post-this was a landscape timber so it had a flat face.
Third in the line up is another cattle panel gate. This hinge is actually designed to be welded on both sides…again, I had it welded onto the cattle panel for me and then a hole was drilled into the flat part and a lag bolt put on. As you can see, the zinc hinges start rusting almost immediately after being welded (the heat destroys the coating).
Last but not least, this required no welding at all! The gate is actually the spring base to a baby crib that I found by the side of the road. The square tubing it is made out of is thin enough that self tapping metal screws went right in. To attach the other side to an existing post with layers of fencing on it, pieces of #9 galvanized wire (fence repair wire) were put around the existing post and twisted together. This gate is a little floppier than the others, but since it only divides duck pens there’s not much pressure on it.
I thought I’d share some pictures from when I built the goat raising house. I say “goat raising” because they will be outgrowing it, and I plan on using it as a nursery in the future.
The basic idea is an old chain link dog pen (10×10) that used to be my rabbit “barn”, a tarp roof, and pallets around 3 sides to prevent predator break ins.
Here you can see the basic house. I’ve put up the chain link pen, the roof, and half the sides. Missing in the picture is the shadecloth and the raised sleeping area I built out of pallets and cinder blocks.
I used landscape timbers and 2×4’s to build a roof frame work over the pen. This supports bent cattle panels which in turn support a tarp. I’ve found that just a tarp sags when it rains and seems to wear out faster.
The wood is held together with strapping, plates, and lots of screws. the cattle panels are tied to each other and the frame with UV resistant zip ties. I like to leave the ends long to discourage things from roosting/building nests there.
Against the sides I added wooden pallets, screwed together with 2×4 pieces and other cut up pallets. This stops the goats from pushing the fencing too far out and things from pushing the fencing in, as well as providing shade and a wind/rain break. View from inside:
And how it looks outside:
Once everything is tied/screwed together, tiedowns are added over the tarp (shown above is the roof to pen ties, not shown are the augers). So far this type of building has done well in storms.
Issues I’ve had are the rain blowing sideways into the sleeping area and not being able to cut the grass that’s growing between the pallets. I’ll eventually add another tarp for a bigger weather resistant area , and the grass is being handled by the geese for now.
I wouldn’t be able to figure out an exact cost on this one since I already had most of the materials. The tarp was $100. Pen cost me $300 new, I think they’re $400 and up now. Pallets were free. I didn’t count screws but I easily went through a box of those, and probably a dozen plates and different hardware. I already had the landscape timbers and 2x4s , also from the old rabbit pen.
So far, the goats love it!
I walked outside and noticed a slight problem…instead of pigs in their pen, I had goats in the pig pen??? And not a pig in sight! Below are the caprine (goat) culprits, Molly still inside and Bambi already chased out. Seems the goats have figured out how to shove hard on the pig pen gate and slide through.
But….where are the pigs???
I went back to the site of the original crime and not only had they gotten out in the same spot, they made it bigger and pushed the post I had in several feet away. Talent!
But…still no guilty looking pigs…until I walked over to the side of the main area and found these two. One contentedly making herself a digging zone and one pretending she belonged out. Looking on from the door of their pen are Bambi and Lizzy (for once, Lizzy didn’t cause any problems). Sigh….
So, once again utilizing magical objects aka pig treats…I lured the girls back to their pen.
This time…I put in a piece of cattle panel in front of the tree stump and wired it to the sides. They are strong but so far not strong enough to bend a cattle panel. Means they lost a foot off that side of the pen though… once the weather cools off I’ll be working on a new area for them that’s bigger.
Badddd piggies!
My newest designed duck house is a hit. Made with cattle panels, t posts, hardware cloth, a tarp, pipe insulation, and a door/frame built from wood. Low cost and predator resistant! The only issue I have is I didn’t take the old rabbit hutch I was given out before I built the door…and it’s too wide to go out. Oops. I’m leaving it in there in case any of the hens want to use it to lay eggs, I have had some success with that in the past. It’s also a visual barrier if I start having squabbles.
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