Cooling Pigeon

[pigeon controller]

I've always been happy with cooling my pigeon on the garage floor which is 18 inches thick and always cold. I have five freezers in the garage and even with a mega bag I can put a layer in each freezer and the rest on the floor. It's a tandem garage so I have space.

Recently I have been requested for fresh birds and any birds I have during the week would be left on the floor but with the recent abnormal hot weather these have started to smell???

Bunny_blaster lent me a commercial bottle cooler he picked up from a pub refurbish. Hi mate used it as a fridge for some time and then left it in a garage which allowed the mice to sample  the wiring. I managed to get the compressor to fire up but not cool when I managed to find a refrigeration engineer to look at it he recommended it to be gassed but it is the old type gas ( freon, I think) and we would not do it. I've tried and all the companies will not touch it. 

Ive looked on UTube in converting a freezer to a cooler but I do not want to loose the freeze effect.

My latest system is the place them in a freezer , power off and place two , one gallon frozen water containers and alternate with two frozen containers a bit like a large cool box. 

Any suggestions from the massif. 

[GingerCat]

A big cheap 2nd hand fridge out of the free ads? 

[spot on]

try your local auction houses " for house clearances" or any shop liquidation clearance sales ..

[old'un]

Get rid of the disco and get one of these…..

[JDog]

Or try the local recycling centre. People are always throwing out perfectly good stuff.

[ditchman]

get yourself some plywood and knock up a large long container....make it twin skinned and line it with polystyrene...then make some open racks out of weldmesh and then put 3 or 4 20 litre water containers in the freezer....then transfer to the coolbox you made..........

[pigeon controller]

Thanks for your replays, over Christmas I won an undercounter fridge off EBay for 99p which will not work in the garage if it's cold and when it is hot it freezes birds on its lowest setting. I filled it the other day and it blew a fuse and all the birds were lost as I did not check presuming they were chilled.

Ditchmans cool box method is what I'm doing now with the freezer turned off and two gallons of ice placed in daily.

I did think of a timer unit that would turn the freezer on twice in twenty four hours for an hour , not sure if it would work.

 

With respect to the bottle cooler and the old gas, if my freezers are of the old gas type do I have to discard them if they require gassing??

Any refrigeration engineers in the Massif?????

 

Oldun, I have considered fitting a fridge unit to the Disco so it would chill the birds on the way back from shooting.

Edited May 30, 2018 by pigeon controller

[kenholland]

punch in free cycle , have a look.

[motty]

I have a fridge freezer in my shed. The fridge will easily take 75 pigeons, but they have to be left to lose their body heat before filling to that extent. That wouldn't solve your problem, as you would probably need about 4 fridges of that size to be of use.

You could get yourself a small walk-in chiller installed. You seem like you would have the means to do this.

[marsh man]

9 hours ago, motty said:

I have a fridge freezer in my shed. The fridge will easily take 75 pigeons, but they have to be left to lose their body heat before filling to that extent. That wouldn't solve your problem, as you would probably need about 4 fridges of that size to be of use.

You could get yourself a small walk-in chiller installed. You seem like you would have the means to do this.

I have the exactly the same set up , I can sell 40 fresh pigeons every week which I can easily get them in the top compartment , if I get to many ( which isn't very often just lately ) I can keep them till the following week and any surplus can go into the freezer , once the bottom drawers are full I can then switch my chest freezer on to start filling that up , this way I can now cut down going to the game dealers which is a 80 odd mile return trip to the bare minimum .

 

[motty]

1 hour ago, marsh man said:

I have the exactly the same set up , I can sell 40 fresh pigeons every week which I can easily get them in the top compartment , if I get to many ( which isn't very often just lately ) I can keep them till the following week and any surplus can go into the freezer , once the bottom drawers are full I can then switch my chest freezer on to start filling that up , this way I can now cut down going to the game dealers which is a 80 odd mile return trip to the bare minimum .

 

I take my pigeons to the same place as you. A slightly shorter journey for me.

I have a chest freezer as well, but I could do with another, as it is difficult to keep up at harvest. Keeping a lot of pigeons cool is one of the biggest challenges when it is hot. Battling fly blow isn't such a problem.

I can still freeze around 250, which is a reasonable amount to take in, along with some fresh birds.

[marsh man]

2 hours ago, motty said:

I take my pigeons to the same place as you. A slightly shorter journey for me.

I have a chest freezer as well, but I could do with another, as it is difficult to keep up at harvest. Keeping a lot of pigeons cool is one of the biggest challenges when it is hot. Battling fly blow isn't such a problem.

I can still freeze around 250, which is a reasonable amount to take in, along with some fresh birds.

Two of the best freezers I have had were Walls ice cream freezers with a pair of sliding lids on the top , the first one was second hand when my younger brother bought it to keep a jointed out pig in it when he kept pigs , when he moved and no longer wanted it I gave him a tenner for it , I had it well over ten years and it never let me down , when you laid them neatly you get just over 300 with the lids shut , if I had more I would lay them out on the already frozen ones and lay a sheet over them until I had time to run them up to the dealer , in the end the red lights kept up and its freezing days were over.

The second one was acquired when they re organised our cafeteria , the one I got was surplus to requirements ( well sort of ) and was a bit more up market than my first one , the only problem with it was a high pitch whining which we could hear indoors , as it was free we couldn't complain ,  well moving on a bit , at the time we had a large wildfowl collection that was opened to the public and one day I had to go down there to price some building work up , whilst having a cup of tea with the keeper , my beady eye noticed a freezer the same as mine with no lids on but looked in excellent condition , I asked him if it was any good and what is he using it for , he told me it was in perfect condition and he used it for storing corn in it to feed the wildfowl , I told him I have one the same I use for freezing my pigeons but it make a whining noise , would you do a swap ? , yes no problem , I took him my old for him to keep his corn and I took his one for my pigeons , this one also served me well until it finally gave up the ghost .

If you come across one they are well worth having , even more so if you know a Walls engineer who shoot pigeons and you could offer him a day out.

[Jim Neal]

Think I've got the answer to this, from my home brewing gadgetry Hopefully you haven't spent a fortune on anything yet, as there is a pretty simple and cheap option to make your freezers act as fridges by exactly controlling the temperature.

Search on ebay for a device called STC-1000 temperature controller.  Cheapest will be from China for under a tenner but I'd advise using a UK seller with good feedback rating, probably more like 12-14 quid but worth it for the peace of mind.  You'll need one for each freezer.

The way they work is by use of a thin wire temperature probe, which you'd gaffa tape to the internal wall of the freezer, it's thin enough not to affect the door seal (or drill it through and seal it if you don't care about butchering your freezer).  The way the device works is by interrupting the power supply to the appliance, to keep it at the required temperature which you set by means of a digital control.  You just set the freezer to its maximum setting and let the controller do the work.

When you first attempt the wiring it can be a bit mind-boggling but once you've got your head round it you'll find it simple enough.  What I do is rather than cut into the power cable of the freezer, cut up a short piece of spare flex and use a plug and trailing socket which you plug the freezer's power into.  Obviously that adds a few more quid to the cost but the advantage of that is you can interchange the controller between whichever freezers you'd like to control with it, rather than it being permanently attached to one.

The instructions for mine are written in Engrish, reading them in your head using a Chinese accent helps (they might be different now, who knows)

If you want to have a go at it feel free to give me a shout, I'll help you get it set up.  I make it sound a lot more complicated than it is!

[pigeon controller]

Thanks Jim, I was convinced that I would loose a freezer to being a cooler but your method of producing a self contained module which will regulate a normal freezer to the temp I require it is brilliant and just what I want. And can be used on any of my freezers. Thank you for spending the time to reply and educating this thick Brummie!!!

[motty]

35 minutes ago, pigeon controller said:

Thanks Jim, I was convinced that I would loose a freezer to being a cooler but your method of producing a self contained module which will regulate a normal freezer to the temp I require it is brilliant and just what I want. And can be used on any of my freezers. Thank you for spending the time to reply Iand educating this thick Brummie!!!

I have my doubts as to whether it would work with a chest freezer. The pigeons on the bottom may be insulated from the cold.

[pigeon controller]

1 hour ago, motty said:

I have my doubts as to whether it would work with a chest freezer. The pigeons on the bottom may be insulated from the cold.

I understand your concerns but I would probably use it on my upright scientific freezer which as plenty of shelves with cooling pipes running through each shelf. My sons solution was to contact a friend of mine who is an UNDERTAKER !!!!!!

it was a tongue in cheek comment.

[Konnie]

You shoot over a large area, several farms do any of them have cold stores, they are ideal don't freeze but keep controlled temp.

[pigeon controller]

52 minutes ago, Konnie said:

You shoot over a large area, several farms do any of them have cold stores, they are ideal don't freeze but keep controlled temp.

I use to shoot over two vegetable farms with coolers but they both changed to cereal crops to the lack of profit. I'm not aware of any of my current farms with coolers, thanks for the suggestion. It's just with my current customer who requests fresh birds that I require to chill.

[figgy]

You need a room mobile chiller unit for your garage. Have a look art portable air conditioners or try to get a wall mounted unit and fit that. When its very hot your birds can spoil in the field before you even get them home.

Edited June 17, 2018 by figgy

[pigeon controller]

1 hour ago, figgy said:

You need a room mobile chiller unit for your garage. Have a look art portable air conditioners or try to get a wall mounted unit and fit that. When its very hot your birds can spoil in the field before you even get them home.

I have two  electric radiator fans suspended below the roof in the garage they cool well with just the draught. During the recent very hot weather they were not totally effective. I've thought of air con units and making a cool room within the garage but we intend to downsize so perhaps in the next man cave. Bunny_blaster did suggest the rear tub off one of those supermarket local delivery vans??????

[ShropshireSam]

I'm lucky to have access to a walk-in chiller at work.  Put the birds on the concrete floor overnight and well chilled by morning before freezing. 

[Tam]

What about the back off a refrigerated delivery van ? Merc Sprinter type, Asda/Tesco

[pigeon controller]

Just thinking outside the box for a minute , as I've stated previously I'm looking to downsize and the next man cave will be purpose built. I did think of a cool room at the end but is it possible to make the floor a chiller by laying under floor heating type pipes and running refrigerant through it and realy amazingly heating in the winter  Over to the massif to shoot my down.

[Old Boggy]

PC,

You could install an underfloor system (coils) within the slab or thick screed and use a ground source heat pump, providing that you've got sufficient ground for the GSHP primary coils. This could provide cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. The cost of installation/running would have to be carefully assessed to ensure that it is viable.

Normally the GSHP coils externally would have to go to a depth of about 1 metre, I think, in order to provide cooling to 11-13 Deg.C. The amount of heating (reverse cycle) would only provide heating economically up to perhaps 16/17 Deg.C above which more energy is used by the heat pump and so more costly to run. Normally underfloor heating is run at a maximum of 45 Deg.C.

All this depends on the total run available for the external ground coils.

This is what I recall from my experience when working in the commercial heating industry before retiring five years ago, so maybe things have moved on since then and my facts and figures not quite so relevant or accurate now.

In essence PC, it could be viable and worth looking into.

Yammas

OB

 

[pigeon controller]

18 minutes ago, Old Boggy said:

PC,

You could install an underfloor system (coils) within the slab or thick screed and use a ground source heat pump, providing that you've got sufficient ground for the GSHP primary coils. This could provide cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. The cost of installation/running would have to be carefully assessed to ensure that it is viable.

Normally the GSHP coils externally would have to go to a depth of about 1 metre, I think, in order to provide cooling to 11-13 Deg.C. The amount of heating (reverse cycle) would only provide heating economically up to perhaps 16/17 Deg.C above which more energy is used by the heat pump and so more costly to run. Normally underfloor heating is run at a maximum of 45 Deg.C.

All this depends on the total run available for the external ground coils.

This is what I recall from my experience when working in the commercial heating industry before retiring five years ago, so maybe things have moved on since then and my facts and figures not quite so relevant or accurate now.

In essence PC, it could be viable and worth looking into.

Yammas

OB

 

Thanks, I will keep it in mind for the future. It amazes my the knowledge of the massif.