I needed to make some perches for the Cinnamon Queens run so I took a bit of slab wood from a huge red oak that fell over in a storm and cut out some blanks with the chain saw and peeled the bark off and milled the bottom flat on the jointer.

 

The chickens took right to the new perches.

 

Not many chickens have live edge perches...

 

JT

Quote

@jthorntonNot many chickens have live edge perches...

 and I'm sure they appreciate it

Happy Chickens!

And you managed to color coordinate the perch with the bird!

Great use of available material JT. Those are some "high roosted" pampered hens you have there.

Great idea and the bark gives them a grip, for a while till it falls off

 

You know, I actually thought you may have sealed the end grains with red paint to color code it red oak 

 

Beautiful job!  Beautiful wood!  Those chickens will 'age' it in no time; it'll increase in value, no doubt. For historical reproductions and movie sets.

2 hours ago, Dovetail said:

You know, I actually thought you may have sealed the end grains with red paint to color code it red oak 

 

Beautiful job!  Beautiful wood!  Those chickens will 'age' it in no time; it'll increase in value, no doubt. For historical reproductions and movie sets.

Actually I did seal the ends of the logs with red for red oak and white for white oak to prevent checking and to make it easier to identify later. IIRC it took 3 coats of oil based paint to finally seal them.

 

JT

3 hours ago, Gerald said:

Great idea and the bark gives them a grip, for a while till it falls off

 

If you leave the bark on the bugs can infest the wood. They just walk on them like it's a chicken super highway...

JT

This is me squaring off one of the logs I harvested and used the slab wood for the perches. The power head was too small a MS391 struggles with a 48" bar on an alaskan chainsaw sawmill but we got it done.

JT

 

11 hours ago, jthornton said:

to prevent checking and to make it easier to identify

Thanks, love the color code idea. I've not yet cut slab but have trimmed doors and set exterior brick molding.  Sealing end grain is something that gets noticed within a few years if you don't do it.

 

About how high up the trunk did this section come from? Looks healthy. The fella who took my dad's 300 year old oak - a white iirc from the acorns -  said the trunk was only good for firewood. Is this extensive interior coloring typical of most red oaks?

 

21 minutes ago, Dovetail said:

Thanks, love the color code idea. I've not yet cut slab but have trimmed doors and set exterior brick molding.  Sealing end grain is something that gets noticed within a few years if you don't do it.

 

About how high up the trunk did this section come from? Looks healthy. The fella who took my dad's 300 year old oak - a white iirc from the acorns -  said the trunk was only good for firewood. Is this extensive interior coloring typical of most red oaks?

 

 

This section was about 4' up from the roots. Red oak is pretty red when you first cut it but within an hour or so it gets very light colored. The end of this log had been painted after I cut it because it was a few weeks before I could get back to it.

 

Here's what it took to roll the red oak for each slab cut. This is an 8 1/2' long log.

 

JT

2 hours ago, jthornton said:

 

Here's what it took to roll the red oak for each slab cut. This is an 8 1/2' long log.

 

JT

One question. Why not just continue to slab the log as it lay originally?

6 hours ago, Gerald said:

One question. Why not just continue to slab the log as it lay originally?

Cutting with the Alaska Chainsaw mill is wasteful because of the kerf width. Chain almost 3/8" kerf, band saw 0.045" kerf. Not to mention that the power head was two times too small for the job. It was bad enough to cut 4 sides then split in two. The last two cuts to quarter the slabs was not too bad as I was only cutting 24" x 12" into a 12" x 12". My buddies saw mill can only cut 22" wide and about 22" high.

 

I will take photos when I cut up the 36" white oak this summer. I figured if we take out the center two stanchions the log will fit in between the  rails and not be too high to cut the slabs off.

 

JT

 

Them thar chickens  do be classy