Building a Chicken Coop!

It's been three weeks since we got our first two chicks and they have almost all their feathers! Time to build them a coop, an easy task when you have a general contractor for a life partner; even easier when said life partner is so incredibly charming, he got most of the materials for free! Our friends with a real farm, donated a couple 2x6's & some chicken wire while our neighbor threw us a sheet of plywood. 

People are awesome.

We went with a fairly basic design:

 

This is the Wichita Cabin Coop and was the inspiration for our little coop. Ours is definitely not this nice but for what we had, I think we did really well.

We started by ripping the 2x6's in half , then cutting them to length of course. Since we only want three or four hens, ours is also a bit smaller. We got the frame assembled & painted in a day then put some walls up for the hen house and threw some more paint on those. We're going to add a door to the side of the hen house and one to the whole coop itself; the nesting box still needs a lid and dividers inside but should be big enough for  everyone to have a nest.

 Jay started putting up the chicken wire to enclose the whole structure; this way the chickens can be "out" but won't be vulnerable to predators like cats or raccoons. I think we may need to add a second layer of smaller chicken wire to keep the raccoons from sticking their little paws in there but we'll see.

I'm pretty sure we'll be able to finish it tonight which means we could move the girls in! They're growing real fast and we want to use the brooder for the new chicks we're going to get from Phoenix's school this week. Next, I want to do a garden; it's time to start planting and I don't want to miss the chance for fresh veggies and herbies! But that's another blog...