Loft Advice

[learning]

Oh, I forgot in the last post. Randy, in your post you mentioned dowelled partitions. I would really like to use these on most of the interior walls. Is there any place you can get these prefab or do you have to make them custom yourself? Seems like a lot of work. Sure would like to save all of those damaged feathers from the wire mesh stuff. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Thanks,

Dan

[Happy]

Dan, Nice looking loft plan. I've never seen where birds trap in through a hallway into the loft. Seems like a lot of doors to close, but may have some other advantages? My hallway is on the oppisite side of Landing Board....... I use 1/2"x1" Welded Wire for bottom of Landing Board. No scraping Board, cleaner bird & feet, give baths in the Fresno or Calif. style Landing board with front closed, so Hawks etc. can't have an advantage catching a Wet Racer bathing out of the loft as so many have to cause they don't want the water on there floors in the loft. The downside is that it is a little harder on there feathers, but I've had Landing Board that way for many yrs. & like it better..... I also have the Steel Grate Floors & it is harder on the feathers also, but is the lesser of evils for me. So much easier to clean, breath, & no dust..... Good Luck, Happy

[learning]

There are several guys down here that trap into a hallway. The clinching factor for me was when one of the guys in the local club had a hawk come through his sputnik trap into the loft! Scarred the hell out of his birds but the hawk couldn't get to them because he was stuck in the hall. Probably saved at least a few very expensive pigeons that day. It also makes it easier if you are using any kind of round-a-bout system where the cocks and hens are rotated. They all come through the same trap, just into different sections based on which doors are open. Even though there are traps on all three young bird sections, I will only use the middle one 90% of the time. I will just use the others to let them out in the aviary for sun and still keep them separated (sexes). Hope that explains my thoughts (right, wrong or indifferent!).

Dan

[Lovebirds]

Originally Posted by learning

Oh, I forgot in the last post. Randy, in your post you mentioned dowelled partitions. I would really like to use these on most of the interior walls. Is there any place you can get these prefab or do you have to make them custom yourself? Seems like a lot of work. Sure would like to save all of those damaged feathers from the wire mesh stuff. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Thanks,

Dan

Can I ask why you want dowelled partitions? Why do you want any kind of partition that the birds can see each other through? When they are separated they need to be TOTALLY separated. Just wondering.........

[learning]

The dowelled walls would be used for the comon front walls (to the hall) and doors from the hall to the sections, not the actual walls that separate sections. I guess that wasn't clear in the other posts. The idea would be to increase the air circulation through the loft from lower front to upper rear. The sides of each section will be solid. Hope that clears that up some.

Sorry,

Dan

[Lovebirds]

Oh. OK!. I don't know of anyone who makes them. They would be alot of work to make but would look really nice. Better get busy!!!!

[learning]

Like I don't have enough to keep me busy now! Right now this loft is a clearing in the woods with 10 posts sticking out of the ground! We get out of school this week so the heavy duty building will then begin. I hope to have the platform done and floor down by the end of the summer.The amount completed will depend more on my bank account than amount of free time I have! I am doing all of this by myself and this is the first project of this size I have tried. Can you say "I better be a quick learner!". Oh well, I don't plan on getting any stock until Spring of '08 anyway so I have time...at least some .

Thanks,

Dan

[Lovebirds]

[quote=learning] Can you say "I better be a quick learner!". [quote]

Oh yes, I can say that. "You better be a QUICK learner". I know how hard we worked for 3 1/2 months, all day EVERY day, sun up to sun down to get ours completed. You've got quite a task if you are doing this alone. Although there was 2 of us, it was a job and of course my husband was the brains behind the whole thing. I didn't have a clue what we were doing. LOL

[ZigZagMarquis]

Originally Posted by learning

Let me try this. I saved the image as a JPEG instead of a bitmap. Hopefully this will be better.

`

DAMN!!!!

I lived in apartments... with roommates... smaller then that when in college!!!!



Your future birds will be way lucky!

[learning]

Thank you all for your kind words and advice. Now I just need some prayers to get it done before I am too old to enjoy the birds!

Dan

[learning]

On another thread Jiggs asked for some pictures of the loft as it was coming along. Well it aint much folks, but at least there is something that resembles the beginning of a structure of some kind! This chunk of the platform represents 1/3 of the platform. Next comes another section just like this one that will run along side this piece. Then I have to finish the "L", then it's on to some flooring!!! The piece here will be the breeding side of the loft if you look at the floorplan earlier in this thread.

I know I am getting way too excited about such a small little chunk, but if I don't do it this way, (looking at each little piece as a kind of milestone), I will get way too depressed feeling like I will never complete it! Well, thanks for indulging me.

Dan

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[Pigeonpal2002]

Hi Dan,

I just got around to reading this thread and your loft design is grand! That is going to be one huge loft! Did you draft the design yourself or did you hire someone to do it? Your blueprints and 3D schematics are very professional.

How's the loft coming now? It's been over a month since you posted these pictures and I was just wondering if you have done anymore work.

[learning]

Hi Brad,

Actually the loft itself won't be that big. O.K. it's still pretty big, but 8 feet around the inside of the "L" will be deck. The loft itself is 12' wide. Granted it is a good deal of square feet for a pigeon loft, but as I stated earlier in the post I can not come back and add onto this later due to local ordinances. They give me up to 900 square feet and so I am going to take 880 of it! I have to plan for the future in all aspects of the sport (yoiung birds, widowhood, stock loft, someplace to separate the sexes in the off season, etc., etc., etc.).

The actual construction is coming along o.k. I will finish framing the deck this month and hopefully get the floor, decking and stairs done before I go back to teaching next month. My budget is the biggest time constraint right now. I am only doing this as I have the spare cash. I am not going to finance or borrow any of this. Soooo....I take it a step at a time and at least when this thing is done I will have the pride of knowing that every nail, every board and every post was placed there by my hand. If nothing else, if the thing falls down I have nobody but myself to blame! Right now I am playing around with different nest box and perch designs. Keeps me busy when I don't have any money to move ahead on the actual building!

Thanks for the inquiry. I will try to post some more pictures when the floor and decking are done.

Dan

[TerriB]

Dan, good for you, working through this with patience. The final outcome will definitely be something to be proud of!

I noticed that the adjacent area seems heavily wooded. Just a suggestion that you may need to feed a supplement with vitamin D. I'd thought that because my birds are outside, they got enough sunshine to create this. However, one of the hens got pretty sick before I realized that she just wasn't getting sufficient sunlight due to the location of the flight pen and her disinclination to spend much time outside in the cooler weather. I've been using Winsmore most days and she is much improved.

[Happy]

Originally Posted by learning

Oh, I forgot in the last post. Randy, in your post you mentioned dowelled partitions. I would really like to use these on most of the interior walls. Is there any place you can get these prefab or do you have to make them custom yourself? Seems like a lot of work. Sure would like to save all of those damaged feathers from the wire mesh stuff. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Thanks,

Dan

Dan & Randy, I just remembered that I saw some time ago a Loft using PVC pipe for Dowel's.. I forgot about it till today, but probably doesn't cost anymore than Wood & it sure looked good??
Hap