After having used the Mustang Chicken Coupe for two generations of baby chickens and having gone through different trials and errors with the way things were set up and their following corrections, we decided that another car coop was needed to help in making the chicken yard more complete. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, the current generation of baby birds maturing in the brooder section of the Mustang Chicken Coupe are going to need a place to stay and Two, the kit coops that we have set up are going to deteriorate more sooner than later, requiring their residents to relocate more sooner than later.
Now I didn't want to just settle on any car to be the donor to go in the yard next to the Mustang Chicken Coupe. I wanted to uphold the theme of old/classic cars by finding something that was old itself so it would fit in the same environment as the old Mustang. How would it look having a 2000 something sedan set up next to a 73 Mustang? It would be completely out of place. So off to FB marketplace to hunt. Now being the car guy I am, I didn't want to just sacrifice a nice body to the chicken coop project as I would look at it as being a waste. Only reason the Mustang was sacrificed was because it was rusted to hell plus was damaged severely by fallen trees. If I found another vintage Mustang body that was in pretty nice condition and had the title to it and I was able to get it for a few hundred bucks, no bloody way would I bother butchering it to make a chicken coop, no, I'd be restoring that. I want something that doesn't have a title so its not going back on the road under any circumstances and because the body is shitty it wouldn't even serve as a decent donor body or parts body for a hot rod or whatever. I basically want something that is a tow truck hook away from the crusher. Well our prayers were answered when this 86 Toyota truck fell into our lap. This truck has accident damage in the front, relatively superficial. It had its engine pulled by the previous owner for another truck so its not going anywhere under its own power any time soon. It also didn't have a title so there's no way its driving on US roads again. Given these facts, the truck was only good for pulling parts off it before sending it to the crusher. Or in this case, to our chicken yard. And for $300 it now resides in the chicken yard. While I have the previous owners old engine that they swapped out after taking this truck's engine, this truck still has the manual tranny among other parts in this truck. I will have to gut the interior, which includes the dash section, HVAC, seats and carpet. The tranny and driveshaft will have to come out and I will of course pull all wiring out from the truck. If the wiring appears to have that corrosion that copper typically gets from being aged and exposed to the elements, it will be processed for later scrapping, otherwise I'll probably process it into usable lengths of wire while taking care of the remains for scrap. The parts pulled from the truck will of course be sold online to help recoup the costs spent on the truck. Now funny thing is the powertrain from this truck has its potential for being used outside of just a powerplant for this truck. If I really wanted to, I could rebuild the setup to drop in another vehicle, maybe mod it, who knows. These trucks were modded for offroad and racing purposes so there may very well be a good aftermarket for these powerplants that would facilitate their use elsewhere. Hell I might make a Frankenstein car that uses this plant. I don't want to just sell it off immediately until I do some research to verify the ability to put this powerplant to use like I would want to. Even the seats can be used in another project as far as providing seats for a vehicle. Even though I might not actually see a return money-wise from some of the parts, knowing that I can fill a gap elsewhere in the project field w/o spending anything because I can press some of these parts into service is still a win. Until then, there is a slew of other parts that I can sell off to someone who may be fixing up one of these trucks. As for the other additions to the chicken yard, we managed to get our hands on a bunch of fence pickets once again so we went ahead and got the other materials, 2x4's, landscape posts and concrete so I can go ahead and start erecting more fence along the backside of the chicken yard to finish covering the expanse of that fence line. Using the pine trees that I conveniently plotted the line across I started to nail up boards to get the fence up. I even left the old chain link mesh in place, not only because I didn't want to go through the hassle of removing and disposing of the material but it would actually provide a twofold barrier from critters just making their way through the fence into the chicken yard. Making use of the post hole digger I managed to immediately get a hole dug for the post and after pouring raw concrete into the hole I added water to soak into the powder. After a short time of the wet concrete settling I went ahead and tacked up the 2x4's, using my level to get the boards horizontal. I had to use the longest deck screws I had available to reach through the boards and through the thick bark of the tree and into the wood to ensure a good solid attachment. From there the pickets went up. From here I continued with another post hole dug and a post sunk with more 2x4's nailed up, and then some more pickets nailed up. The nail guns were put to serious work in this op. Now, the one problem with using trees as fence posts is the idea that getting the fence perfectly plumb is NOT going to happen. Accepting the fact that the fence is going to be off kilter somewhat allows me to just continue to get the fence up without being distracted by the fact that it is kind of goofy looking. But the fence did go up. Luckily I actually had more than enough fence boards to completely cover the span from where the existing back fence ended all the way to the opposite end of the chicken yard. With the back fence done I will have to get more material so I can start on the section of fence that will enclose the east end of the chicken yard from the back fence to the house. The other important thing to note about this section of fence is that this is also the perimeter fence for the entire yard. Since the chicken yard is against the edge of the plotted perimeter fence line, this fence needed to be made to the same standard as the regular fence panels are, using three boards to hold the pickets up compared to the two boards that I used for the interior garden fence. Even the sections of garden fence that serve as the perimeter fence will be made with three boards if I have to make the sections from scratch versus using completed panels. Again the chain link adds some reinforcement to this main fence line so intruders will have a harder time penetrating this line of defense. As can be seen in previous pics the area behind the fence was cleared to make way for easy access to the area for us to erect the fence. I cut down everything that wasn't a pine tree and hauled it away to the burn pile in order to make for a buffer zone behind the fence. This almost serves as an "access road" in case we need to get back there to service the fence, or, as I plan, being able to more vehicular traffic to the other end of the compound without having to actually go through the compound. This is especially important when it comes to any automotive work we do as it will keep us from having to move cars around just to access one car or to get one car to a certain spot in the lot. Plus without having brush and other plant trash up against the fence, it will help keep the fence from being damaged by trees that can get knocked up against the pickets. There's plenty of benefit to having the area cleared around the fence line. Along with the section of fence going up to the house the other order of business is putting up gates for the main entrance and the back entrance. Lowe's sells gate kits that consist of iron sections that can be put together along with fence pickets to make a reinforced gate assembly that can be hung and not sag or distort and can be made up to 6ft wide, which will work perfectly for the 8ft main opening to the chicken yard with double gates. The back section will be less than 3ft wide which is within the scope of these kits as well. The back gate is for allowing any caretakers to be able to access the chicken yard without having to go through the main yard to gain entrance. When the fences are complete our plans are to let our dogs be able to run free through the entire compound and even though we do not plan on breeding vicious dogs, some people will not want to mess with territorial dogs if they're trying to do something like tend to our chickens. Especially when one of the dogs is a pit bull. So having that back gate will help immensely in allowing outside access to just the chicken yard. Of course it'll be locked up to keep out unauthorized access. Stay tuned for more to come in our exploits on the homestead.
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