A long time ago, someone, probably my dad, told me that "80% of all carburetion problem are really electrical." In other words, your engine doesn't run, and you suspect a fuel or carburetor problem, when all the time it was an ignition problem.

This happened to me over the last week, when my tractor (a Ford 640) would not start. I wasn't the one operating it, and the issue became confused because he didn't use the fuel shut-off, so we really did have a carburetion problem -- the carburetor was flooded.

I messed around with various stupid and irrelevant actions until I finally woke up and brought a voltmeter into play. I discovered that the ignition fuse had voltage at both ends, but the fuse HOLDER had no voltage at the far end. It had corroded and wasn't making a good connection. I burnished this up a bit, the voltage magically appeared, and the tractor started right up.

This, by the way, is what you get when you use inferior parts. When I converted the tractor from 6V to 12V operation, I added an el cheapo fuse block. I should have bought a marine-quality one. Never again!

Another take-away is that, if you allow things to go downhill, it's hard to tell what's going on. I was down to one working headlamp, and then zero. With working headlights, I can use the lights as an impromptu voltmeter, because the way things are wired, the ignition is getting voltage if the lights are. But with both of them burned out, I had to go find my multimeter. Life is simpler if only one thing is broken at a time!

Nevertheless, I designed a T-shirt this morning, commemorating old iron, which you can see below. After all, my tractor is older than I am!

I've been meditating on the ideal roof for a chicken coop. It ought to have the following properties:

• Easy to install.
• Cheap.
• Lasts forever.
• Strong.
• Rainwater doesn't cause mud in front of the house.
• Chickens don't roost on top.

Also, if you live in the suburbs, it should be pretty enough to shut up your pompous neighbors.

Most of my houses have shed roofs made of galvanized steel roofing. The configuration is a "shed roof," which just means that it's higher and the front than at the back, so rainwater pours off at the back of the house where is causes less trouble.

My roofs are just metal, with no plywood decking underneath, and no insulation. This is appropriate for highly ventilated houses with enough airflow that the inside temperature and humidity are about the same as outside. You don't have to worry about condensation in such a house.

In a tightly closed chicken house, you'd want an insulated roof, but you'd have to be nuts to build such a house. Ventilation is the magic bullet for chicken health. (See the sample chapter of Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, one of the classic poultry books I've reprinted, for more information.)

My houses have purlins but no rafters. The sheet metal is nailed directly to the purlins with roofing nails, meaning that they are supported only every four feet. This has worked well for me. One thing I've learned, though, is that if the roof sticks out very far in front of or behind the house, you need to nail a 2x4 across the underside of the very front of the roof, and one at the very back, to keep the sheets of metal roofing from flapping in high winds. Otherwise they'll work themselves loose.

One problem I haven't solved is that of keeping chickens from roosting on the roof. Chickens like sleeping as high in the air as they can, and that means the roof. My roofs have a shallow slope and they can sleep anywhere on the roof they want without sliding off. A steeper roof is clearly called for. I haven't done any experiments to discover where the sweet spot is. Maybe I should!

You won't believe how little water our well gives us -- one quart a minute. That's 440 gallons a day, which is enough if we don't want to water the lawn with it. We have a 1500-gallon tank (these things are surprisingly affordable and lightweight black plastic affairs that a single person can roll off a trailer and into place), so we have plenty of water, until we run out.

We didn't run out, but it started smelling bad. This is the other bad thing about wells in Oregon's Coast Range -- sulfur in the water, and the sulfur-loving bacteria that go with it. Not a health hazard, but unaesthetic.

So we mixed a jug of bleach with a bucket of water and poured it down the well, and followed it with some vinegar. Recirculate lightly every half hour (the pump is on a timer), wait 24 hours, and pump the well dry. It's called shock chlorination. If you have a well, you probably know all about it.

Yuck! Not only did we get the usual greenish-brownish gunk, but some reddish stuff as well. That's too many colors for something that's supposed to be crystal clear!

No doubt everything will return to normal again. It always has. I'd fire my water company, except it's me.

Keeping the chickens' water ice-free during the winter can be a struggle.

The classic technique for full-grown chickens is the old bucket switcheroo: when you go out to tend the chickens, you bring out a galvanized bucket of warm water with you, and leave it for them to drink. You take away the partly empty bucket you left for them last time, which may have frozen. You bring the frozen bucket inside with you and leave it in a place where it will thaw a little, so the ice will slide out easily.

I think 10-qt galvanized buckets are the right size for this, though 12-qt butckets are okay if that's all you can find.

The water will freeze much more slowly if you provide some kind of insulated sleeve for the bucket (not styrofoam: chickens love to eat styrofoam). If you make a wooden float for the top, just a disc a little smaller than the bucket with a few 1" holes drilled in it, that will not only reduce the cooling rate, but will prevent the chickens from soaking their combs and wattles, which leads to frostbite.

Electric Birdbath Deicers

A more high-tech solution is to use electric heat. A lot of people use overhead heat lamps, in spite of the grotesque level of expense and overkill that this entails. ($54 per year if you leave a 250-watt bulb on for 90 days.) I like Birdbath Heaters combined with galvanized pet waterers. These thermostatically-controlled heaters use a lot less electricity, and all the heat goes to warming the water. I like galvanized pan waterers because mixing plastic and electric heaters makes me shudder. Sure, the heater has a thermostat, but I prefer not to trust such things fully. If you use a plastic waterer anyway, use a low-wattage heater. A 50-watt heater won't do much damage. I use 200-watt heaters in my galvanized waterers. 200 watts sounds like a lot, but mine only run when the hen lights are on, and in the morning the waterers may be frozen solid!

You can also use a thermostatic switch to keep the lamp off when it's not too cold.

I think attempting to keep the chickens warm (except during the brooding period) is a mug's game and I wouldn't spend a nickel on it. People in climates where temperatures fall below -20F might find it worthwhile, though.

You can also use heated waterer stands, which will work with a variety of waterers including the usual double-walled water founts. Me, I use automatic waterers when I can, and buckets when I can't, but lots of people like galvanized founts.

As for keeping the water flowing through the pipes, you're on your own. Here in Western Oregon, there are only a few days per year with daytime highs below freezing, so I run garden hoses everywhere and let them freeze and thaw as they please. On days where the hoses don't thaw, I carry hot water out to the waterers. This works fine if you use metal fittings everywhere and use waterers with metal valves, like the one above. These can freeze solid and not care. (Of course, I have to prevent my pump and PVC piping in the well house from freezing, but I leave the stuff on the pasture and in the chicken houses to take care of itself.)

Don't you just hate it when your tractor dies in the middle of a field of dry grass, and when you go to investigate, gasoline is gushing over the hot engine? I know I do!

Gas was pouring out of the air cleaner side of the carburetor and out of the the fitting of the bottom of the gas tank as well. Not good!

I took off the gas cap to see what the deal was, and there an enormous "whoosh" and the cap shot up ten feet into the air.

After finding the cap again, I verified that it said "Vented" on it. You couldn't prove it by me. What the heck?

The gas continued to leak out the carburetor after the pressure was relieved, but banging on the carburetor with a wrench recalled it to its duty. The pressure must have jammed the carburetor floats temporarily.

Here's a picture of my tractor during an outbreak of teenagers a while back:

Now I'm down to an annoying slow leak at the outlet of the gas tank, of maybe a drop a minute. The pressure must have distorted the O-ring. This is not an easy part to get at. I may have to take the top cowling off. Grumble, grumble.

So what the heck happened? I thought all vented gas caps were the same -- basically a gas cap with a hole in it to keep the tank from building up any pressure (or vacuum). But unless the cap I had was simply defective, this is clearly not the case.

The cap wasn't specifically recommended for a Ford 600-series tractor, it's just that I noticed that a cap for my 1972 Ford F100 pickup also fit my tractor. I needed a new gas cap because I lost mine and Ford/New Holland no longer carries them. On the theory that all unvented gas caps were the same, I got the vented version of the one for my pickup. This clearly was a mistake.

The smart thing to do would have been to go to Yesterday's Tractors and order the right gas cap. They've got everything, including forums with good advice. Check 'em out. I ordered the right gas cap and that should be that.

So the take-away here is that gas caps contain mysteries that are beyond mortal ken. Buy an exact replacement.

[Later:] I thought I had the gas tank fixed, but it turned out it still had a slow leak. After considerable fiddling around, it turned out to be a leak in the tank itself, rather than at the valve. I have ordered a new gas tank.

[Later still:] This is a serious problem! I've discovered several things:

• Cheap Chinese gas caps sometimes contain parts that dissolve in gasoline! I am not making this up. Buy a name-brand cap, like Stant.
• Even with the recommended Stant gas cap, the tank would over-pressurize and leak. The problem seems to be that putting a gas tank directly above the engine isn't the smartest thing in the world, and the hot engine pressurizes the tank beyond what the gas cap's vent can deal with. In the end, I used the trick I read about on Yesterday's Tractors: there's a spring-loaded plastic button on the inside of the gas cap in the center. That's the vent. Drill a teeny-tiny hole in it. This gives you a non-pressurized gas tank.

Earlier tractors like the Ford N series had non-pressurized tanks, with a dome built into the top of the tank with a pinhole in the top and bottom to vent off gases. I'd rather have a proper spring-loaded vent (since it reduces emissions and minimizes the amount of gas that dribbles out if the tractor turns over), but I have to select something that works over something that doesn't.

The safety issue, by the way, is why old tractors have metal gas lines rather than rubber ones. Because they use gravity feed rather than a fuel pump, turning off the ignition does nothing to stop the flow of gasoline. If you ever feel moved to use a rubber fuel line, you need to put a fuel shutoff solenoid between the tank and the rubber, and have it turn on and off with the ignition. Such shutoffs are available.

P.S. Check out my other tractor pages.