Property with small commercial chicken house - Useful?

[QUOTE=Spamela;7130552]Because coccidia is host specific. There are many different types coccidia that infect goats, cattle, humans but they can't survive in another species. It is an old wives tale that chickens give coccidia to other livestock.

I didn't know it was species specific. All I know is there was a 12 house chicken farm up the road from me. Every time they had an outbreak of coccidiosis, my chickens and rabbits would die off like crazy. The chicken company hauled the dead chickens off in a dump truck that passed by my house, scattering feathers and spreading stench.

As for commercial control of the chicken diseases, they do wash downs between flocks. Not sure what the chemicals are but they killed everything that lived in my creek. The washdown water flowed down a drain that ultimately went into it. The chicken company was sold and their company owned houses were shut down and sold off and torn down and now the life has returned to the creek.

Depending on the area in which the building is located, and if traffic is good, parking space is ample, and if local regulations allow, you may have a perfect place for a swap meet, flea market, or indoor farmers market.
You could clean and paint the inside, paint some markings on the floor to section it off in 15by15 foot areas or so, and do a once a week or once a month, whatever, show.
Charge vendors $20-$30 or more per spot.

I own such a building. I consider it a liability rather than an asset. Currently mine is rented but not for enough income to keep the maintenance at a high level. It should already have a toilet, particularly it the chickens were layers. There should also be a water source and enough electricity to operate lights, pumps, augers, some heat and plenty of ventilator fans. The best use that I have seen is by a person that is into horses. He leases horses for riding lessons. For the fee he stables, feeds and oversees the health of the animals. He even rents shares of a horse and does a good business with this rent to use business. Problems with the chicken house are that there is a LOT of roof to maintain (expensive). The headroom height is lacking and their is no loft. There is manure to get rid of frequently and often no place to put it. The outside area needs mowing and the road has to be maintained. Rent is also hard to get from tenants. My tenant is behind now! Should you get tired of having the building it would cost thousands to have the building demolished. IMO a vacated chicken house is a lemon that is difficult to get lemonade from. PS.....the chicken houses that I am familiar with have dirt floors.

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Agmantoo
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you know you can!

It would be great to have the building space, but the upkeep on it if it's already got some age on it could be high. If the roof is starting to go, for example, that could take a lot of money to fix up. You'd have to balance how much you like the idea of having the extra barn vs. what it will cost you over time as it ages. Of course, worse comes to worst you could take part of it down and just fix it as a smaller barn when that time comes. Honestly, 400' is a LOT of barn.

As someone else mentioned, if you put an offer in on the place I'd be basing it on the barn being more of a liability rather than an asset.

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-Northern NYS

Lets assume the walls are 8ft high. go back say20ft, and from there take out another 20ft of the side boards. Use them to block off the area being boxed off.Ther cut it again into a pen 20 X 20. Put mangers and grain boxes in them to milk cow s in. The pen can be for a cow ready to drop, or for watc hing a sick animal. Now, go into the shed another 20ft. box that off again. This would be your tractor shed and tool room. Build work benches/table on the sides. You've room for drill press, table saw, table grinder, ect. Go back into it another 8ft. Lay down RR ties, one atop another, every 2ft. Lay 1X8X1in plywood on top the RR Ties. You might want to run nales into the RR times from the top of the plywood to keep them in place. Every 4ft, bolt a 4X4 on upright 1X8X1in plywood for your walls. That will take 4 to a grain bin. In the front, cut 2X12X46in for risers to keep the grain in. IF bad boards, you might want to ship lap them.
You have made 4 bins, taking up 16ft sideways. Now use the rest of the 24ft X 8 and build a corn crib. Keep laying the floor as was done with the grain bins, and then build the sides, say out of snow fence with 2X4s, spaced, nailed to every other row of RR tie up to the roof supports.. Make the door into the corn crib 8ft from the edge. Run a fenced in portion 4X8. Put a 4ft doorway to allow access into this area. ONLY FENCE it up to around 4ft or less. This will be an area to put cobs after shelling. Set your corn sheller next to this divider wall to easily throw corn cobs into the holding area.
Now go into the C house again another 20ft. Leave this area open at the sides, and do so with the tractor shed opening. This area now, will be for access with your pk for bringing in grain, or feed sacks, or wagons with ear corn, and storage for your pk/truck. Now go into the C house 32ft. Box this off somewhat. This will be your hay storage area. open up another 20ft past that. This will allow you access to hay or straw from both ends. It also will be a place to park your hay bailer, corn binder and hay rack.
You can park your grain wagon either there or in the tractor shed alleyway.
Now cordon off another 30ft, and box this in rather tightly allowing a door around 4ft wide at both ends. This will be an area for yiou to store corn fodder you would chop up to feed after running the corn bundles you made with your corn binder into your husker shredder. Make another 20ft alleyway. This will be to store your corn binder, and perhaps a 2nd tractor. Take out another 10ft, and make pens around 10sq. This will be for farrowing hogs, or penning goats due to kid. Take out another 20ft, and make this open at the sides, but make it a loafing area for hogs or goats, OR sheep.
Take out another 20ft. divide this in half. Devide the first part in 1/2 again. The first part is your laying area. The second part is your roosting area. You will need a 3ft doorway for your and the chickens entrance. The other 20X20 will be for raising chickens to sell.
Take out another 20ft. This 20 X 40 will be a loafing area for the chickens that are laying of for the chickens your raising to sell. The sides should be removed on this part.
Take out another 20 and devide it by 1/2. The front 1/2 will be for a brooder house, and the back 1/2 will be an enclosed area for the chicks to roam.

That takes up over 100ft of it. You could take down more as needed to use the lumber todo the building as I have suggested.

I know that theres no way your going to do all this. It was a mental exercise for me in putting it together.

I would love an extra building that size on our property. For storage alone, it would be great. Instead of having some equipment left outside during winter (tractor, baler, boat) they could all be kept indoors.

It sounds like you have a lot of great suggestions already. I'd be looking to turn part of it into some kind of income helper. Rabbits, meat birds, whatever works for you.

If, in the end, it needs to come down, can you do that yourself? Save yourself some money if you could. If it needs a new roof, I'd go with metal. A bit more expensive up front, but zero maintenance and a long life.

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Yeah, if your in their driving area, you could get a contract with Pel Freeze out of Rodgers Ark to raise rabbits. One of there stipulations is that you have them in an enclosed building. I couldn't get a contract here cause I had them in cages out in the open.

OP did you end up driving by this weekend?

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You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.

Just put some chickens in it. A couple dozen should be good. They'll live like queens with all of that space.

Not yet. Spent today at the Sustainable Preparedness Expo in Chattanooga. Might be a chance to get together with my realtor friend tomorrow afternoon. I extended the weekend an extra day... Just too much happening...

Brief update...

Went to see the property on Monday. Within 5 minutes, the wife said, "No!"

Chicken house looked much better in the pictures. Land left a little too much to be desired and the lay of the land not under roof just didn't look to work well for a homestead... at least not for us.

So, we'll keep looking.