Good Enough is PERFECT to us! Winterizing the Hoop Coops.

well good morning everybody welcome back to living tradition's Homestead it is a chilly start to the day today uh we are getting out early to get ready to start milking and we've got some other things we need to do today as well we thought we'd bring you along though to start with chores this morning before we move on to a project we have had a very mild fall and early winter and so the fact that winter has like all of a sudden showed up and tomorrow they're predicting a sizable amount of snow we need to get this place uh in order and get the animals ready for like real winter right really we need to get the hoop coops all ready because if we're going to get snow tomorrow we can't have snow you know we can't have the hoop coops filling up with snow but before we can do anything today we need to start with chores the first thing we need to do is [Music] milking morning [Music] babe good morning babe you're such a good [Music] [Music] girl now things are a little bit different around here these days because we have started separating Ralphie overnight uh he is in the lean to area here so that he can't drink from babe overnight just recently we have come out to milk and there's been like hardly any milk at all because he is drinking so much so now that he's 6 weeks old he is old enough to be separated overnight uh so we will milk and get almost all of the milk in the morning I do keep one quarter completely full for him um and then when we're all done milking and cleaned up and everything he gets let out of here reunited with his mother and he can have his breakfast but that is one change that we have done recently and that allows us to get all of her milk in the morning but it also allows us not to have to milk in the evening so just one milking for us in the morning all the rest of the milk goes to Ralphie throughout the day this is a very common thing for homesteaders and and small farmers to do it's called calf sharing so this is very common to separate the calf at night uh to get all the milk in the morning and then the calf can drink all day long with its mother H right come on good girl good [Music] [Music] girl [Music] than [Music] good [Music] [Music] girl [Music] [Music] well it looks like that's about a gallon and 3/4 gallon and a half maybe we'll take it inside in this container then we strain it once we get inside and put it into glass jars okay Ralphie breakfast breakfast time yeah Mama [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] there now I told you earlier that I was going to save the milk from one quarter of her udder to make sure that Ralphie had enough for breakfast the udder of a cow is actually divided into four quarters or kind of like compartments and each quarter has its own tee so I can milk out three out of the four quarters using three out of the four teeths get all the milk out of those three quarters or compartments and leave one for him and that is where he is drinking his breakfast from also cows have the ability to hold back some of their milk and not have all of it be milked out uh and then they can save that for their calf so there is still a little bit left in all of her quarters and that hind milk that last milk is where all the cream is which is where all the fat is which is perfect for the cat C good morning let's go get your [Music] food [Laughter] I know you guys get your special food here on the ground I'm [Music] coming there you go [Music] the [Music] the last thing in Waddles Ville is to check on the quail see how they're doing wh what I've been doing is cutting down little trees and bringing them in here and that way they have more places to hide which is really calm them down but you can see over time they eat all the all the pine needles and everything off the trees so it's about time for me to go get [Music] more morning chickens come on out well this is our younger flock of chickens we had two other small flocks that were older recently we sold those too so that we could just have this younger flock we've also decided that over the winter we will allow them to come out here we're inside our moat area which has our garden and our Orchard and in the future we'll have berries we have grapes in here too so for right now they get to scratch around and find any bugs that aren't hibernating or dead in the winter and they are really enjoying it well chores are all done the sun is starting to come out a a little bit which is great I think it's supposed to be out for a few hours today so hopefully we can accomplish our project while the sun is shining and definitely makes it more tolerable outside it's still pretty chilly but the sun makes it a little bit better like we said earlier today's project is to winterize the hoop coops that we're using because winter is here and snow is coming right yeah I think it's supposed to start snowing overnight tonight and into tomorrow I'm not sure how much we're going to actually get you know here in our part of Missouri we don't get a ton of snow we don't get snow like the people in Wisconsin or Minnesota or Illinois or even Northern Missouri we get you know a few inches every winter but it's enough what happens here is we get snow and then it warms back up enough that it just turns into a big muddy mass and we try to keep the animals as dry and as much out of the wind as possible and that is really uh the purpose of what we're doing today all of our animals will be fine in the cold here because it really doesn't get that so so cold right so the majority of what we're doing today like Kevin said is to provide a Windbreak which is important for them and to keep out the majority of the moisture whether that is snow sleep or rain over the winter so behind us are two of The Hoop CPS the quail Coupe we already showed you guys in a previous video we pretty much winterized that or we did winterize that probably I don't know 6 weeks ago or so so that one is pretty much done although I do want to show you some finishing touches that I put on it and then this is the hoop cop where the Ducks and the geese live and so on this one really what we need to do today is we need to cover up these sides and we need to cover up I think probably up to about here on the door the back on this one when we built it we left a taller back on and I don't think we need to add any more to the back so I think this one will be these two sides and the door up to about here and then along with these along with this one we also have the one that the silkies live in and the one that the American breast live in and we need to get those all done today before we walk down by the silky Coupe let's take a real quick look at the at the quail Coupe here I'll show you kind of how I finished that one up and then we'll go take a look at the other two that we have to do so the quail Coupe is a little bit different than the others if you remember when I originally built this this one for one thing has a floor on it so they're not right on the ground which keeps them drier the quail in general are a little more fragile than some of the other birds that we have so they need a little bit more protection so on this one um you know we already added these two sides on here which these come off in the summer and then this is all just hardware cloth off and then we also added this U hinge section on the front door so that when we do get really cold or really rainy weather this can actually fold down and they'll be completely sealed up inside of there that's been working out really well for the quail and it keeps them nice and and safe and out of most of the weather on a nice sunny day like this though I do like to open it up so they get more fresh air now remember we put a clear tarp on this one over the winter so that they get extra sunlight in there so when it is all closed up it's still nice and bright in there and it gives them some extra heat let's go around to the back and I'll show you real quick what I did on the back and then we'll head down to the silky CPE in the summer we just have this metal down at the bottom we added this panel for the winter but I decided to make this hinged so that on nice days like today we can open that front door panel and we can lower this so that they get some good air flow through there on the warmer days and then I I was having a hard time figuring out how I was going to get this to stay up but what I ended up doing is I took two of these braces that you can buy they're really for like doors to put a 2x4 to hold a door so I added one up here and then I added one here and I welded a piece of metal to the bottom of this one so that I can take a 2x4 and just slide this down in here and then it won't slide all the way through and then that holds that up there nice and tight and protects them from the snow or rain or whatever we're getting at that time now like I said on a warm day like today I'm going to leave this open so they get better air flow and then tonight when we come lock up the chickens and everything else I'll also make sure that I close this and the one on the front all right let's head down to the silkies now the silky Coupe over here we're going to need to cover the sides of the front here and then the open section in the back we'll leave this open for ventilation and they'll be they'll be fine now if you remember last summer the original silky Coupe and actually one other coup that we have here was picked up in a storm and thrown over the fence back here and like over near the pig pen and it got completely destroyed we were able to salvage some of the parts but for for the most part this one had to be completely rebuilt I say that because we do already kind of have pre-made sides and back pieces from the old silky hoop CP we may or may not be able to use that again we're going to try and see if it can fit good enough uh just to keep you know the wind and the precipitation off of them so uh hopefully everything will work out fine we can reuse all the materials otherwise we're going to have to look around and see what we have to finish out this one for the winter as well so this is the last one that we have to do this will be by far the easiest because this hoop coop we've actually had now for several years I think honestly this was maybe the first first or second one we ever built but what that means is we already have all of the pieces we need for this one because what we do in the winter is we just store them inside of one of the Barns and then we just mark them so we know which one they go on so this one we already have and then the other two hoop coops that we have we're actually not using right now we get we sold the breast chicks that were or breast chickens that were living in those so we don't need to winterize those this year because nothing's living in them and nothing will be living in them until next spring and you guys are going to find out then what's going to be moving in so uh this is we have this one the silky one and the duck one to all get done today I think we'll be able to do it before the weather starts to take a turn for the worst let's get busy working well we're going to start today with the easy one the one that we've already had the panels made for because basically all we need to do for that one is screw them up there now just like the other coups we are going to cover up the sides here but leave this front door open for some circulation and again remember the goal here isn't to make this air tight isn't to make it 100% waterproof it's just really to block the cold wind from the animals when it gets you know really windy outside and cold if you live somewhere that's a lot more extreme than southern Missouri then you might need to do more than what we're doing but I think this is the fourth year that we've used these same panels and we haven't had a single chicken complain yet all right the front is done on that one they'll be secured from the wind on that let's go around and do the back of it and then we can move on to the other ones that might be a little more difficult all right so this is the back piece it's going to be basically the same we're just going to hold it up there it goes in between the fence and the hoop coop here and then it just kind of sits on this bottom board we'll just screw it in place push it over that's good for me over here unless you need more room over there this that's fine okay all there we go that one's all nice and closed up give them some nice wind protection let's move on to the next one so these are the pieces that we had for our old silky Coupe uh we've had them in the barn over winter I'm pretty sure now these are the pieces that go on the back I'm my guess is that these are going to fit just fine because when I rebuilt this after that storm I was able to reuse the entire back section so I'm pretty sure that this is still going to fit it's these front pieces that we're not really sure about so we're going to hold them up there and find out honestly they don't need to be perfect they just need to be good enough right honestly if they cover what we need covered or most of what we need covered we're going to call it good for today because we really don't have a lot of time left in the day you know these days are getting so short we just want to get this done and make sure that they are protected especially these silkies they're not quite as Hardy as some of the other birds all right let's uh which side I guess this looks like these were the outsides last time so let's okay try that again looks like that one's a little taller than we need it but that's not a big deal I think it'll be okay there's a little space over here there I think there was on the old one too so and I think this kind of goes over a little yeah I don't think it'll be a big deal all right needs to come this way way a little bit oh there that's good not too bad it's a little bit tall on this side but it'll be again I highly doubt the chickens will complain all right that's good too yeah that's okay too the thing with building these hoop coops is that no two ever turn out exactly the same so but I think it's it's okay that's good yeah I think that'll be good this way when they're on the ground they'll have a lot of Windbreak all right time to see if these pieces fit on the back like I said I I think they will because we were able to reuse this entire all of the wood on the back we're able to reuse that'll be come down my way there well it's not perfectly straight but I think it's going to do the job all right I think that is going to be just fine all right two down one to go now this one we know for sure we need to make all new pieces for so let's head over to the duck house and see what we can do all right so for the duck house what we decided is we're going to use metal on both sides and on the door we got some old you know old rusty metal from when we had one of our buildings re-roofed I always hang on to this kind of stuff and if I can ever get more I always get more because it comes in so handy all right so the easiest way to do this is to just stand this up here and then we're simply going to trace back here with a sharpie and then we'll cut this out uh and then we'll cut this out with my tin snips so show you that in a second so I'm going to have Sarah come hold this we'll trace this on here and we'll cut it to shape okay all right so we've got our line drawn on here and you can see what I like to use if you're doing much work with this metal like this this ribbed metal this corrugated metal one of these tin snips that goes on your drill or on your uh impact driver is so nice to have they're not that expensive and if you use them you know much at all it's definitely worth the price and especially when you're doing diagonal you know rounded things like this so this we should be able to just trace this line and cut this right up all right let's hold it up there I think that's going to be perfect let's go ahead and do the other side so I can do that before I take the tin snips off the drill and then we'll get them both screwed up there all right well the duck house duck I keep calling it The Duck house but it's the duck and Goose house is completely done I think this is going to give them some good you know Extra Protection we didn't do a whole lot on the door only up to here because I didn't want to have to mess with the latch and you know they don't Roost up on perches like chickens do so they're only down on the ground so as long as they're protected on the ground they're just fine now when we took a break for lunch we happened to look at the weather forecast and wouldn't you know it the weather forecast has changed and they're not calling for snow at all tomorrow right but it's this is Missouri and if I know one thing it's that we could go back in the house right now and it could change back to calling for snow again so who knows it's only a matter of time until we're going to get snow we actually got a little bit last week that caught us off guard we should have had this done before that so you know we're going to get more and this way we're all prepared when it finally does come you guys we're so happy that you joined us today to do chores in the morning and to secure these CPS for the winter we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did you guys if you're enjoying our videos we'd love for you to hit the Subscribe button and remember that the best way you can help us here on the homestead is just to share our videos on your social media until next time thank you so much for stopping by our Homestead take care and God bless God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 75,485

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing

Id: i6nD0Otwayg

Length: 28min 31sec (1711 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024