The new hen house

The coop is complete! It has six nest boxes that I can access from the outside, a roost near the roof for safe sleeping and a slatted floor for easy cleaning. We plan on putting skirting around the bottom in the winter to help keep them warm. In all it cost around $600 to build. I was hoping we could do it cheaper but even a building this small is expensive to build. We figure it will take about two years of 5 eggs a day to pay for the coop. Wondering if it was really worth it?

Quote of the day

While building the new chicken coop:
Hubby: do you think this nest box is strong enough?
Me: Honey, it's a chicken coop, they aren't going to be playing racket ball in here.

Chickens

So my little springtime chickens are rapidly outgrowing their pen. Ok, I lied, they outgrew it a long time ago. But the point is, I need to build a decent coop. One that is roomy enough for them and safe as well. The safety issue was brought home yesterday morning when I was awakened by screeching chickens. I jumped out of bed in time to see my neighbors dog drop one dead chicken and grab another as he ran by me. I chased him into the back yard where he dropped the second chicken (now dead) and grabbed my duck. I rescued the duck and captured the dog. The neighbor was horrified and after locking the dog up, helped us clean up the mess. He spent the whole day trying to find the boys new chickens. He gave us the number of a friend who had too many birds and would let the boys pick any they wanted and even as many as they wanted. The youngest chose a nice little laying hen. My oldest son however chose the one bird we have absolutly no use for.

This is a black polish crested, or something like that. The poor bird can't even see past his feathers. I woke up this morning and wondered what ungodly creature was dying in my back yard. Then I remembered that I had an adolescent rooster, he thinks he is tough stuff now that he is the only male in a yard full of hens. Lucky guy thinks he just hit the jackpot.

But I started this post to talk about coops, not freak roosters. We need something that we can move someday if we sell this house, we really don't want to build another one. I think we could figure out a way to build just about any design so it could be taken apart and moved in peices. We both liked the looks of this pen and it would be fairly easy because we have a spare dog kennel to use as the outdoor part of the coop.

What do you think? Does anyone have any good ideas for a chicken coop? I would love to hear them. Oh and the adolescent freak rooster needs a name. We were thinking some heavy metal rock band name because he looks like a head banger to me.

Extreme Home Makeover: Chicken Coop Edition

As of Memorial Day, I no longer have chickens in my garage! Hooray!

Brett the Logger lives on a couple acres in a part of town fondly called "the valley" by the locals because that's exactly what it is. A long, narrow river valley that is still mostly small family farms, owned and operated by what are now the third and fourth generations to do so. Brett lives in a house that was built by his granddad back in the 20's. Also on the property is a good size shed complete with large root cellar, and a chicken coop that dates back just as far as the house.

Until we started our little chicken farm, it had fallen into a sort of disrepair, and was being used mostly to store random junk. But the coop was large enough for what we'd need, and was already semi-equipped to handle the chickens. It also has several little handmade gadgets and jimmy-rigs that we probably never would have thought of (like a detachable roost board). Sean the Crabber is currently staying with Brett and they together had come up with a pretty decent scheme of how to fix up the coop.

Memorial Day morning I went out to the Valley to help the Boys with the last of the renovations. Now, Sean has a lot of grand ideas, but Brett seems to be the one who ends up actually making it work. They had already partially framed out and fenced a large yard for them to run in, but that was about it. The Boys got to work on the yard and I sent about cleaning out the coop.

Inside I luckily found about 50 different handmade garden stakes that are who knows how old, but in perfect shape. We set those aside for use in the garden (which will probably get sent out tonight or tomorrow). I cleaned and swept it out, laid down some shavings, then set up the new water fount and feeder.

We doubled the chicken wire (in preparedness for ninja raccoons) and buried the edges about 12 inches deep in the soil for weight. We grabbed the chicks and threw them in. They seemed pretty timid at first, but head out into the yard and started in on the bugs. I went out to see them this morning, and boy did they fatten up fast! I'm not sure if it's the bugs, the more or less unlimited feed, or a combination thereof, but gosh are they getting big.

Hopefully come September or so we'll start getting eggs. Ryan the 3L's aunt gave me some tips on how they keep they're chickens laying year round, and I found some great nesting boxes that we are going to hammer or in the next month or so.

Cross your fingers!