Monday, March 17, 2008

The Chicken Coop

The coop is finished except for the top, a little painting and the sunflowers! We worked all day Saturday to get it done. Luckily my neighbors live far enough away not to be bothered, but I don't think this coop looks too shabby. My Brother-in-law has already confessed coop envy.
After reading chicken horror stories on other sites, I told Byron, "This coop must be predator proof!!!" I don't want to go outside and see headless chickens scattered about the chicken yard. So he buried hardware cloth 1 ft below the ground and secured it to the coop. We are also going to put a poultry wire top on the coop before we let the little critters out of the house. I was thinking maybe some roving "chicken tractors" later to allow them to forage a little.
Look at the pretty solar lanterns. This gives me a nice pretty glow at night to check on the chicks without using electricity. The temps have been pretty high recently. Saturday it was 88 degrees. I don't think the chicks are going to need the brooder light any longer. Maybe if we have a cold night.
Here's lettuce I picked for Saturday. With the temps getting so high we need to eat up all the lettuce.

2 comments:

Miss Riya said...

Is that a chicken coop or Maison de Plume? ;-)

Egghead said...

Your coop look wonderful. I have coop envy I must admit. Ours is the original from a previous owner....it could use a little updating. That lettuce looks so great and now I am eager for planting. We are so far behind you there but it will come. I think your chickens will be happy.