Loft alterations

[Andy]

I thought I’d start a new post for the alterations I’m intending to do.
I had the wood turn up today. I had asked for 15mm plywood sheets to make the nest boxes. They quoted the price for these but then phoned me to say that they no longer had any 15mm and because of little demand for that size they weren’t going to stock it again. I could have gone for the 12mm but thought that this might be a bit thin so they agreed to give me 18mm at a discounted price. This is quite thick and is heavy but should make great nest boxes.
Will start alterations soon and keep members updated with how it goes.

[Murray]

Yes, please do,Andy. I am very interested.
18mm ply! Yep, that'll do the job!

[Devo1956]

That is it Andy 18 ml mate, keep bringing the news and updates.

[Buster121]

Good luck with it all and look forward to seeing the updates

[Andy]

Starting to get everything prepared to start the alterations. I have made the nest boxes just need to put them together in the loft. Rather than join them together outside, which would be both difficult to handle and heavy, I have made them so that they just all slot together. It means than when doing a thorough clean I can just slide the shelves out individually. I have made them like this in the past and works well. I have cut most of the new flooring sheets to size ready to put down. I just need to work out in what order I do the alterations because of where to put the birds whilst doing it. I have plenty of room to move them around as I go. The last things to be done will be the front of what is now the young bird loft and the aviary on what will be the young bird section.

The nest boxes are coming out of this section to be replaced with box perches for the youngsters. This will be the first section to be done.

This section will be done next. The 16 nest boxes are going to be replaced with 12 widowhood boxes. The box perches are going to be taken out.

All the perches are going to be taken out of this section and 8 of the nest boxes from the last section will be put in there for 8 pairs of naturals.

Apart from the front this section is not going to change and will be for the widowhood hens.

This is how the fronts look now. This will look different when finished.

[Devo1956]

Already taking shape mate, keep updates coming, looking good mate.

[George and Morgan]

you going over to widowhood Andy

[Andy]

you going over to widowhood Andy

Yes George. I always used to race widowhood. Since returning to the sport I was racing natural. Although I could race both cocks and hens I have felt that I can’t get the best out of them. They home but don’t race. There were a lot of issues I found with natural. The biggest problem was because of basketing on a Thursday morning for a Saturday race I had trouble keeping the pairs sitting on return. This then meant that the hens were out for the following 2 weekends at least due to being eggy or just laid. So although I could race the hens I would be lucky to get more than 2 or 3 races a year from them. Also if I lost one of a pair they would then have to repair. Sometimes a mate left behind would have repaired before its mate returned.
With widowhood all of these scenarios are removed. I am aiming on just racing the cocks. I will have 8 nest boxes that can be used for natural. This is where the hens I want to race will be.
The other big difference now at present is that I have no national racing available so just going to be club racing.

[George and Morgan]

how many cocks have you Andy

[Andy]

how many cocks have you Andy

I will have 12 cocks on widowhood George. These should be able to race every week of the old bird season. I have got half a dozen more cocks that will be used for the natural hens.