Backyard Chicken Coop Raising Day 1
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| New backyard chicken coop going up. |
The girls stayed interested the whole 3 hours we were out there with very little fuss and seemed to know to stay a safe distance away. I think they realize it's theirs and must approve of their new abode because they walked over several times as if to check out our progress and murmured softly as if to say, "Good job, Mom and Dad. We like it."
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11 comments:
Oh, what a gorgeous coop! My little girls are going to have to be content with a wee hovel for now. Since code enforcement is a bit iffy in my area, I'm trying not to be too visible right now. :)
That's a fantastic coop!
I came across your blog while reading an article about urban chicken farming on the web site of the Tacoma Weekly Volcano. I'm glad I found it!
My wife & I recently started an urban homesteading blog as well:
http://tacomachickens.blogspot.com
Thanks Kathy. I've got at least similar ordinance anxiety, but I purposely got this coop because it is only 5-feet high. It's looks a little elevated from the picture because we decided to sit it on a cement pad from an old shed we tore down. Seemed like the sensible place to put it.
We've been lucky so far, my dogs and the dogs in the rest of the neighborhood are much noisier than the chickens so I'm not sure anyone's even sure we have them. One neighbor is in the know, but I give her eggs, and she has raised chickens herself in her backyard.
Thanks, David. I must have put a comment on an article, I assume? Your blog looks great and sounds like it will be a great chicken source.
Ara
Did you build that? It's beautiful.
I'm not sure if this will be of help to you or not, but here goes. I grew up on a small farm in northwestern BC, and we always had a couple dozen hens. There were too many hawks/foxes/etc. to let them roam around, but at least they had a roomy 50x50' pen. The problem was that that many hens pecking at any grass or weed that tried to grow tended to turn all of it into a dust bath. Fortunately, I was an inventive soul, and came up with a plan to give all of them a source of fresh greens that worked very well. First, I grabbed all of the old 2x4's that were lying around, and started nailing them together into frames that I then covered one side of with chicken wire/rabbit cage mesh/etc., and laid them together in the run, mesh side up. Lastly, I sprinkled some of their grain thickly in the frames, covered it with an inch or so of soil, and watered it well. In no time at all, tender, young shoots started coming up, which the chickens went crazy over, but, because they couldn't reach the bottom of the frame through the mesh, they couldn't get the whole plant, which continued to grow all summer and fall. I did that every year until we moved to town, and you never saw such healthy, happy hens.
Hope this helps!
They better like it! That house is nicer than the one we live in! :-> But ssshhhhhh, don't tell our birds. They'll revolt. Its raining and I just jad to go and dump the rain off their pens because the lids hold too much water and I haven't fixed the arch in them. If they know what cozy quarters you've got there they will coerce the dog to tunnel them out and will fly the miles to find you!
Homesteading Mommy - glad to see you're up with the chickens like me - actually we're up before my chickens anyway. They don't usually get up till a little after 7. We had to go the kit route because we are not industrious like you and your hubby. We have tried to build things 100% ourselves before and either they never get finished or they don't get made well, so we have come to realize that we do what we can and what we aren't good at we don't even attempt anymore. It's one of the nice things that comes with age (hubby 52, me 47) - we are becoming realistic.
Ara
DeadlyDad - thanks for your info. I don't think it would work in our backyard because it's too small and we don't do a run at all - the chickens run free except when we fence them in while the dogs are out. This sounds like an ingenious idea, though. Makes perfect sense if you have a permanent run.
Ara
Oh, your coop is fabulous! My 9-year-old is thrilled to start her chicken adventure in the spring (much to my hubby's chagrin!) We're in a suburban subdivision but back up to the forest/river, so I hope we can design a great coop like yours without the neighbors noticing! Look forward to visiting your site again!
Julie,
I'm sure you'll do just fine. If you and your husband are handy, I'm sure you can even make one. My husband and I are not the handy type and when we decide to venture into making something, it usually takes 3 or 4 times as long as the instructions say it will. We knew the chickens couldn't wait as the little girls were getting close to laying edge, so we went the easy route and got a kit and put that together on our own.
Ara
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