Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Coop is finished! finally!

I can finally say I am raising chickens.  I still can't believe it.  Tee Hee!  So the saga of my chicken coop goes like this......

First of all I will go ahead and post a pic so you can see what I done did!

 
You can't see the roof of the coop in this pic.  The actual coop used to be my neighbors dog house, originally built for a bull mastiff (Big Doggie).  Because of the size of the dog house, I was able to convert it fairly easy to a chicken coop big enough to house 4 little ladies.  The original sides of the dog house were ripped off because they were rotting, but the frame was solid.  The roof is also in great shape.  We just had to get it to our house.  Enter my strapping young teenage sons and a lawn cart, and we managed to get it home.  The wood you see for the walls of the coop were actually left from a previous home improvement project.  Aside from the hinges, some PVC, and the poultry netting, everything was scrounged.  If you look to the right of the chicken coop door, you will see what looks like black PVC.  That is actually an old broken broom handle.  It was the correct size and I was short a bit of PVC.  It works! 


If you look along the back of the coop, you can see there are hinges along the middle part of the wall.  This will allow me to let down the wall and collect eggs or put in food and/or water.  You can see the ladies in the run.  They seem to be making themselves right at home.

And here are the ladies.  They are named Meg, Amy, Jo and Beth after the novel "The Little Women".  The coop has been aptly named "The Orchard House" also after the novel.  The Larger of the golden chicken (Far left) is Jo.  She was the first one brave enough to jump out of the coop and into run.  The tiny golden chick (far right) is Amy.  This one is pretty and little, but wants and believes everything should be hers.  She wants the finer things in life.  I haven't decided yet on who Beth and Meg are, but I will get there. 

So those are my ladies and that is my latest endeavor.  What ya think?

2 comments:

  1. Smart use of PVC and the netting. Maybe if you move the "run" from time to time it will work like when we raised the pigs and moved the pen around. Very fertile sort of plowed ground.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's the plan Daddy. The Coop is gonna stay put, but we will move the pen around when weather permits. What goes in the current location, once pen is moved, will be more blueberries.

    ReplyDelete