A Work in Progress.
Before even buying our sweet chickadees, I spent weeks scouring the internet for information. I asked friends, relatives and bought several books on the subject. I was particularly curious about building vs. buying a chicken coop. After reading many reviews about how sub-par the prefab chicken coops were we opted for building our own.
After looking at many chicken coop designs and suggestions, we set to work. We live on a slight slope and had to even up our foundation. This was probably the most difficult and time consuming portion throughout the project thus far. It took an entire day to level, bury and install what you see in the picture above. What you don't see (and I forgot to take a picture of) is "the bib" which is chicken wire that's stapled and screwed to the base wood. Then a trench is dug around the perimeter of the coop. The chicken wire is then put down into the trench and reburied. This deters preditors from digging under your coops foundation and making a treat out of your beloved chickens.
The next day while I was at work, Justin framed in the run, the chicken coop and the door to enter the run. He also added the framing for what would be the floor of the coop. This would be the progress at the end of our first week building our coop.
The next weekend we were blessed with beautiful warm weather. Justin decided that we would build the nesting boxes, the side door and the door the chickens would use to go between the run and the coop. We had done a lot of research about the chicken coop door. I really wanted an automatic door with light sensors. This would let the chickens out in the morning then closes at night when the chickens are in to roost. Since these automatic chicken doors run about $200-300 bucks, we have to do it ourselves for the time being.
The Coop and the Nesting Boxes.
Justin started to frame in the chicken coop and build the nesting boxes. This was another day's worth of work for my handy husband! We knew we wanted a window to add some light, and we wanted it to allow for some ventilation in the warmer months. We found a fairly cheap shed window that slides open and has a screen. We will still cover this with hardware cloth from the inside to deter predators. We also needed a door for easy access cleaning. I had originally wanted a tray that could be pull out for cleaning. After building one and seeing how heavy it would be, we decided against it. I managed to pick up a box of laminate floor tiles for a steal at $4.10 at the hardware store which would allow for easier clean up.
After Justin framed in the coop, he built what would be our nesting boxes. Since we have 6 chickens I read that it would be best to have 2 nesting boxes. He built 2, 12"x12"x12" boxes that have a hinged roof for easy egg collection. Eventually I would like a step on the side with the coop door and the nesting boxes since I'm vertically challenged.
Once the nesting boxes were attached he started work on the chicken door to the coop. He rigged up a pulley system attached to a sheet of plywood that slides through wooden slats. There are a few snags but this will have to work for now. Eventually we would like to upgrade to automatic/light sensitive (hopefully before winter returns, when it gets dark before I get home from work!) I have read awesome things about the chicken guard door system but for now I will just dream of a day when I can afford such luxuries! (Check it out: Chicken Guard Website!)
Next, we needed to close in the chicken coop and add the hardware mesh to close in the chicken run. Justin found an awesome deal on Jet.com for hardware mesh which is also kind of expensive but very worth it from what I hear. I have read horror stories about raccoons reaching through chicken wire and grabbing an easy chicken supper. We have tried to be very diligent when it comes to predator protection. There are a lot of feral cats in our neighborhood, in combination with a fox that snatched a few of our friend's chickens a few streets over.
Throughout the process so far I have been trying to come up with a fun and catchy name for our beloved chicken coop. I wanted to give it a meaningful name, but something that was fun and maybe something that was related to us locally. After a few brainstorming sessions and a stroke of luck we came up with Magnolia Range. There is a local, historical plantation in Chesterfield called Magnolia Grange, we took this as inspiration, add in ranging chickens plus our love for the show "Fixer Upper" and Viola! We have our chicken coop name, the name of my blog and maybe eventually the name of our farm...? Thats all for now, check back soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment