suburbanite farm sustainability in the suburbs

Here’s the nearly finished rooster box. The walls are stuffed with fibreglass, which isn’t the best sound insulator but hopefully will do. Removing the tin cladding to replace with the real stuff won’t be hard if it doesn’t work. The to do list is doors, divider (2 roosters will sleep in here), roost and the base, which will be a security screen offcut. Also still to do is the sealing: soundproofing requires no air leaks (ventilation may be a challenge!). Stay tuned.

Our first attempt at soundproofing was almost completely ineffective. It was polystyrene sheeting like the stuff used in cold rooms or refrigerated trucks. However the panels were so unwieldy and (surprisingly) heavy that the tidy and precise assembly required for soundproofing eluded us.

Mk 2 is proper timber framed and will be lined with as thick a particle board as I can find. Then a layer of leftover fibreglass batts, then an exterior layer of corrugated iron.

The only materials so far that aren’t scavenged are ther screws.  As usual, they comprise the largest part of our budget. (The big chicken run has hundreds of dollars of fasteners in it!)  We already have leftover board from wardrobes, cupboard doors and various furniture. The tin comes from a friend’s disassembled carport. The timber is from a cubby house that another friend was binning.  This reuse is important for us because in addition to making it all cheaper, it diverts waste from landfill and turns it into something useful.

Pics show progress so far.

Here’s the day’s harvest: carrots, beetroot and an accidental parsnip. Yum!

Here are the ladies of our grower pen: rhode island red, rir x light sussex or wyandotte and araucana (the pictured araucana may be a boy but we definitely have a couple of girls). We will sell some and keep some for the breeding program.

We also have 10 gents. They are rir crosses and araucanas too. We tend to get 3 meals out of a bird so that should last us a while! The aspiration is to eat 2 per week.