The chicken coop is done!
Everyone, especially the chickens, is happier now. In the last week, they had really gotten too big to be in the space we had for them so we were rushing to get it done. The 43 inches of snow in February really set us back, but I guess that’s part of the whole point of this – the things we do, grow and eat are affected by the weather. Just have to learn to roll with it.
Here you can see the happy chickens inside. The nest boxes, for when they start laying, are on the right and a roost is on the left.
They are really so much bigger and much more like chickens now. Here is one of the Barred Rocks in the front, with the little white Silkie off to the left and two Buff Orpingtons to the right.
The Barred Rocks seem to be the boldest of the birds, it’ll be interesting to see how they develop. I still can’t tell if we have any roosters yet, I’m guessing it becomes painfully obvious at some point. Heh.
The nesting boxes open in the back, directly to the outside so we can collect the eggs without going into the coop.
Here’s a better, but chickenless, picture of the inside. You can see the windows, which we covered with hardware cloth and then made plexiglass inserts for. There are three windows, one people door and one chicken door so we should get some good air circulation going. We will probably add some vents in the roof as summer gets closer too.
Have you noticed how I said “we” through this entire post? Kind of like I had anything to do with the building? Its nice how whoever writes it down gets to decide the story :) David was the primary builder on this and then my Uncle David came in from NC to save us and the chickens last weekend. If he hadn’t shown up, I’m not really sure what we would have done. In addition, they also installed new countertops and sink in my kitchen. You know, all in four 19 hour days work…
