[Cob] Need info for my chicken coop in Portland, OR

[Raduazo at aol.com]

I am planing a chicken cob coop for a friend. I  want a cylinder with a door 
(for people) a high window and 3-5 doors for  chickens. The chicken doors will 
be the size of cinder blocks so I can block off  all but one, and I am going 
to build a movable cage which can be matched up to  the one opened door and 
then moved so that the space where the cage was can be  used as a garden. This 
is my idea of crop/coop rotation. 
    In response to your questions:
1.  What amounts of clay and is a cemetary really a good place to get  this? 
    This question has no answer. Every part of the  earth is different from 
every other part of the earth. If the dirt removed from  the cemetery has 
sufficient clay it is wonderful. If it is silt or sand you  can't use it. To tell 
the difference take a ball of material in your hand, add  water and work it 
around. If you can make a ball that sticks to your hand when  you turn it upside 
down you are in luck it is clay. There are some clays that  are not useable 
like bentonite, but these clays are rare. Try making a bricks of  the material 
to find what mix of earth sand and straw is best.

2.   What amounts of straw and where closest to NE 42nd in Portland (I use
Flexcar  and bus)?
    I am in Washington, DC so of course I have no  answer to that, but I 
notice that around Halloween many retail places get  bails of hay or straw as 
props. Offer to dispose of the material  after Halloween. Baring that you can use 
any dry grass-like substance as a  tensile reinforcement for your building. Do 
you have fields of tall dead grass  with seed heads in the winter time? Mow 
one of these fields with a grass  catching lawn mower store the grass in a dry 
place till it is needed or rake up  some tall grass that someone else mowed 
and dry it out. You want grass stems  with tensile strength it does not matter 
much if it is chopped. 

3.   Where do you get free or cheap roundwood timbers?
    Do you have trees or dumpsters? My chicken coop is  going to be 7 foot 
across I already have some 2"x6" x10 foot boards from  dumpster diving and I 
need a few modest length 2"x 4" 's to make a truss. I will  probably try dumpster 
diving or buy them. Note when you build a chicken coop, as  you build you can 
imbed short sticks in the wall to support the chicken nesting  areas and to 
provide access ways to the nesting areas.

4.  Is there  a cob chicken house builder who would be able to keep me going
with input by  email?
    If you have a specific question you can usually  find someone to answer 
it. There are lots of good chicken coop designs available  on the web for free. 
Look at them and try to adopt one that you like to  cob.
    

5.  How high do you pile the flat  stones? (I read about making the chicken
coop 3 feet instead of 1 at the  base.  Is this applied to the large flat
stones? ) 
    A one foot knee wall should be enough for a 7 foot  high enclosure.
    Have you ever tried dry laying stone? They must be  laid in a running 
bond so that as much as possible each upper stone overlaps two  or more lower 
stones and each upper stone must be supported at three spaced  points so that it 
is not tippy. You do this by carefully selecting the stones  and by using 
stone chips to shim the stones. You can cheat by mixing up and  using tiny 
quantities of concrete. One bag or ready mix can go a long way on a  stone wall. Mix 
small quantities and make it thick. Clean the stones  so cement will bond to 
them.
    I like to use a rototiller to mix cob and use lots  of straw. If you use 
a tiller for mixing you can also use pine needles instead  of straw. If you 
foot mix needles those little suckers will kill your  feet.
    I am not sure when my cob coop will get started,  but I will post it on 
the cob web because I would like to have a  volunteer or two to help.
Ed