ingrid

So, it isn’t completely finished, but as the rains seem to be coming in ernest, we moved the chickens into their new home.  Sure, we need to use a chair rather than a nice sliding bolt to keep the door closed, and yes, there is a sheet of metal covering a place where chicken wire should be, but other than that, the house is perfect.  Isn’t it way, super, totally cute?  Don’t look at that storage hatch that is not on hinges yet (yeah, the one leaning against the front of the shed).  And yes, you do see places missing sheet metal… we’ll get to that.  Just look at the overall cuteness factor.  My dad did a great job designing and doing most of the work finishing this chicken mansion.

Not only do the chickens have about 10 times the space as before, they now have a completely fenced outside area that is tall enough for us humans to access without stooping.  We have hay bale storage inside the coop and chicken feed bin storage outside.  The chickens have their own access door on the front there as well as two operating windows for the summer time.  Awesome.

Inside I sort of hacked together three roosts and an access rail for the nesting boxes.  Zephyr is leaning on it and it didn’t break yet, so we might be in business.  The two Francis-es are bonding here: Francie is holding Frankie.

Rather than the one measly nesting box that we had in the previous coop, we have four luxurious boxes!  I know that most of the chicken books say that one box per four chickens is fine, but that was not my experience.  Don’t believe them!  We had so many problems with not enough boxes.

As a child, my family lived for a summer in what later became a chicken coop.  It was slightly bigger than this shack, but not much!  My parents were building our house in Sheridan up in the woods and we were living in a rental in Willamina.  My mother hated the rental and hated living in town, so off we went to a 10 by 12 shed where my older sister and I slept in narrow bunks nailed to the wall and my parents slept on the floor on a roll out cot with (the then) baby, Kendall.  We had an outdoor “kitchen” comprised of a coleman stove and some storage shelves and boxes.  We sat on sawed logs and had a campfire many nights.  We had an outhouse, and got washed up in a concrete utility sink filled from a hose (yes, it was cold!).  On the way to the outhouse one night, I got within 10 feet of two bobcats, which was the last time I saw those in the woods.  Although I was pretty young, living in “the chicken shed” was among the best memories of my life!

My only regret with our new chicken coop was that we couldn’t find a night to sleep out in it before the chickens moved in.  The kids really wanted to, and I thought that would be so much fun, but unfortunately the chickens needed it more than we did, so no sleeping out.

I am pretty pleased with this place though.  Thanks Dad.

In: Chickens Are Super Fabulous, family | | #