A Recycled Backyard Chicken Coop

A Recycled Backyard Chicken Coop

Submitted by Simple Home Loving

Okay!  Names have been chosen by you awesome readers after a quicky 24-hour name voting session (sorry if you missed it!), and we have officially completed stage 1 of the coop-build. Here goes...


Step one: Demolish.

Remember this giant pile of junk in our future chicken coop?  On Mother's Day, Mike completely destroyed it with the giddiness of a school boy (fave line of the afternoon: "Hey Love, wanna see me chuck a brick??!?!").

I didn't get a picture of it all cleared out (DOH), but imagine this space- except with nothing in it.  There ya go :)

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Being Watched...

Do you ever get that feeling, like you are being watched? 

Strange enough, we feel that way all the time!

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Friends of a Feather

Buddy would sure like to be better friends with our feathery flock.  He'd like them, to consider him, their friend.  In fact, I am sure he would love to have them over for dinner!   Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for our chickens, there is an ever present barrier. 

That actually doesn't stop them from hanging out.  The chickens like to sit on thepatio furniture and look in,  and even occasionally watch a movie with us.  Buddy likes watching them watch us.

Here they are watching a show with us.

Even Kitty is sorta interested in her two legged-outdoor siblings.

We know they at least have something in common, they both like a good perch.

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"The Others" strike again!

That is right, our "Lost Ladies" are slowly being taken by "the others".

Mostly because they keep morphing into ROOSTERS! Okay, so maybe they were roosters from the beginning, but their manliness was subdued by the other Rooster.... or something like that.

This lovely lady, Juliette, is now Sawyer, James if you will.

James has moved on to greener pastures.

We are suspicious of our last two. Wouldn't it be funny in a really annoying way,

if our 5 hens, turned out to be 5 roosters? HA HA.

So far, the count is 3 for 5, the roosters are winning.
Here are Sawyer's last moments on the island, he is strutting around like usual.

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Cock-a-Too-de-loo

We had a quiet farewell on Saturday night.

Goodbye to Beauty and Penny!

We found a home for our 2 roosters, and so we sent them off in a cardboard box to some greener grasses, 2 acres to be exact. Hopefully it will feel like home in no time!

Penny

Beauty

(We may still have one rooster, but are not sure and at least he is quiet for now, we shall see)

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Guess what...

Chicken Butt!

No, I haven't had my baby. I didn't mean to get anyone's hope up. I just happen to say that randomly throughout the day now that we own chickens. There is the "chicken poo" one too- but I will spare you! No more rhymes I mean it!

How fun!

But seriously, the sad news- ladies and gentlemen, we are almost positive we have a rooster. That is right Beauty, has his looks for a reason. He is a "Cock-y" little man!

(hopefully we don't have more, but I have my suspicions)

Unfortunately this means we can't keep him and my heart is already breaking! But the neighbors will not be okay with his good old cock-a-doodle-doo morning call! (although it is cute, it just makes me sad every time I hear it!)

Without further adieu, here are some pics of our not so little babies.

Beauty, Penny and Chickadee!

Chickadee Close up!

Dirt bathing in "the jungle",

AKA the garden under a tomato plant which they have picked clean!

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Fly the Coop

This blog has been a long time in coming.

I have just been putting it off. We've actually been done with the coop itself for about 3 or 4 weeks, oops. I don't want to forget to record some things, so here are some pics of building the coop, the chicks as they've been growing up and our 2 new lovely ladies (Libby and Sun)

We have the run in the back, it still needs to be painted, but for now, with this heat, there is no way on earth I am painting! We have the big girls in the run to keep them away from the babies until everyone is friendly. (We've collected our first dozen of eggs this week! What a thrill!)

So here are the pics:
This was our baby chicks first outing! Aren't they adorable! I can't believe how much they changed and grown.

Here they are again a few weeks later getting all their feathers, and loosing their fluff, which you can see in patches mostly on their heads.


Here is some of the stages of completion for the coop

(if you'll remember the barn raising post, that left off at the walls)

Justin installing the roof.

I guess I forgot to photograph the siding install. I am really happy because we were able to "reduce, reuse and recycle" for about everything on this project. Justin collected all the 2 x 4 from people who were spring cleaning. So that was free. We only had to buy the flooring and roofing material and 2 sheets of siding. We actually used some siding from our neighbor too.

Of course when I actually helped, paint and caulk it all we didn't get photos either.

Here is an image of the front door. Santiago our neighbor was ripping out an old hot tub surround and gave us the old deck and a bunch of randoms, wood misc. This door was one of the things he gave us. I had Justin add the "X" and we moved the hinges to the side, but it is so adorable now. I would like to get an old piece of weathered wood and paint "EGGS 5 cents" (I can't find the cents symbol on my keyboard....) Then hang the sign in the upper portion of the door!

Again we talked to our neighbor Santiago, who has all the best connections. He introduced us to a contractor friend of his and he got us a deal on all our roofing needs- shingles, felt, nails and fascia drip stuff all for only $30.00. A square of roofing at home-dumpot runs around $25.00 (he gave us 2 squares, plus everything else! Score!)

We wanted to have a vent on the upper tower to keep airflow without any water problems. We checked out our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore to see what they might have we could use. First we saw some vent covers but finally found some prefect shutters for $8.00. I painted them and Justin cut them down and installed them. I think they really add to the quaintness of the structure.

Here is the finished coop. Sorry about the colors, Justin had to work until late in the nights to get anything done, so I usually got pictures around dusk.

On the window side Justin made some adorable shutters, out of scrap woods. Here they are shut:

And opened:

There are interior shutters to keep the chicks in, but get some good breezes during the day.

And finally here it is with the chicken run. I am planning on painting the fencing white. This fencing was also from Santiago. We need to invite him over to dinner!! (the old back fence, I am planning on staining a dark charcoal grey). Justin wants me to paint the siding a color, which will probably be a lighter grayish color, or maybe I'll get creative and go brighter!

Finally here are the babies today:

And here are the new gals:

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Two little miracles...

No, I didn't just find out I'm having twins. Still just the one(that is hiccuping at this very moment)!

But we did pick up two more feathery children. These ladies are quite a bit older than our babies. We thought we might have to wait a day after their "traumatic" removal from their other home... but they made themselves comfy, and here is what we found.

Now, many of you know that hens lay eggs (old news), but this was just so exciting!! Nothing like it. We went out there to the chicken run to check on water levels after church and when I peaked in they had made a little nest from the straw and there these were. I almost cried... (I almost cry a lot lately) But I just couldn't be happier. I was smiling fro about 3 hours, I'm not exaggerating!

What fabulous little creatures God has given us! It was thoroughly wonderful.

(side note:

I taught the Laurels class about proper Sabbath day observance, and how in the past Jewish law was very strict, and one funny fact they mentioned is this:

"There was also a question about whether one should eat an egg laid on the Sabbath by a hen which did not know the law. One rabbi permitted it, and another rabbi did not. (See Albert E. Bailey, Daily Life in Bible Times [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943], p. 255.)" I thought about this and chuckled to myself as I was washing off the eggs, cuz they are definitely not going to go to waste!)

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Raise the roof

For Monday night's family home evening we had a rather special event.

Can you guess from these pic's of my favorite childhood movie?

We had our first "barn raising". We thought it would be fun to make an event out of building the coop. And also much more fun to borrow some children for the event- cuz kids make work a little more exciting. We called Matt and Emily and invited them and the fam. over to play.

But I forgot to mention, we have names for the cheekas-

See if you pick up on a theme,

Penny, Kate, Juliette, Clarie and Charlotte- Any clue?

We named them for the women of Lost. Our favorite TV mystery drama, that we are still clueless as to what is really going on in.

(they each have Sawyer nicknames too, for those that like the show)

The last week or so, Justin has been busy preparing. He laid the foundation first. Built the floor joists and then Saturday, spent his time building the walls for the coop. He built it all out of recycled, free wood, and our left over landscaping bricks that had been laying around the yard. cha-ching = zero dollars. (We did buy the sand and the floor board but 15 bucks is definitely do-able)

He also meticulously planned the coop. It matches our house, that also has a triangular shape off the back, it should be quite charming when it is done.

Of course we dressed up a little. Doesn't dressing up make all events more fun. We donned our cowboy hats and I put on my grandmother's apron and provided one for Emily as well. (course I had to wear it over the belly... but it just made it more funny)

When our friends got there we got straight to business, letting them meet and hold the gals. And miraculously, no one was pooped on.

We quickly got down to the hard work of nailing. The boys took this very seriously, pounding and pounding and pounding. (then, too funny, Matthew started complaining that his back hurt... so dramatic, but truly a part of all building projects)

We danced a little on the new floor, because after all, what is a barn raising without a good dance.

(for proof see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, or Oklahoma, although that was a school)

Then, we started putting up the walls. It was getting dark fast as a large storm approached, so the lighting got kinda bad.

I wanted it to look like I did more than just document the event, so Emily graciously let me pretend to work for the camera.

In the middle of our project, we had another visitor stop by. This little guy that seems to live in our back yard as of late. We really need to get a little fence up around our garden! But dang he is so cute. He is tiny! And he lets us get so close to him!

We finished getting the walls up and still have more to do, but on another day.

With only one minor casualty!

After, we wrapped up the night with Root beer. This is in honor of Justin. When he was little he was in a play of Charlotte's Web. He was a "barn raiser", and his part was to sit on the steps and drink a root beer. So, here's to you babe!

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