Building our Chicken Coop

Future location of the chicken coop, foundation laid

We're getting ready for chickens!  We've been reading up on bees and chickens all winter, and now that Spring is finally here, we're finally getting to DO something to move forward in our goals.  The Top Bar Hive was set up a few weeks ago.  Last weekend we began the construction of our chicken coop, or maybe we'll call it the "Chick-Inn" or something else that would be fitting of Redwoodshire.  Any suggestions?


We've gotten a bunch accomplished, but are still a little ways from being done.  Check out the photos:
The Laird had some help- and as the old saying goes: "Many hands, make less work."  The first day, they built the floor, the walls, and put it all together.

The Laird designed the coop as a 4 x 8 ft, raised coop.  The chicken run is located below the coop.  We intend to let the chickens free range in the yard most of the time- we will see how they fare with the wildlife.  If the wildlife is winning, we may have to build a larger run to keep them more protected.

 This was accomplished on the first day of building.  So much gets done when you have lots of help.  Grateful for all the help we had.  The original design was shorter than the actual version.  All the hired help (friends/ family)- suggested and convinced the Laird to make it 5ft tall so that it would be easier to walk into and clean out.  He heeded their suggestions, but isn't convinced it is better.  I like that I can walk in without ducking.

 The next day, the Laird built the rafters and installed them.  He really enjoyed building them- and they looked really cool installed.

The third day he started with the siding.  Here's the first wall board hung on the back side.  He also built and installed the nesting boxes.  We intend to have about 6-9 chickens to start- as this will be more than enough eggs for us to handle!  It is large enough to expand to about 16 chickens if we ever grow that ambitious.  It's suggested that chickens have about 2sq. ft. each.  3-4 chickens per nesting box.

Initially there was going to be one horizontal window on this side, and one on the South side- but once it was built, I decided it would look better to put both windows vertically on this side.  That day I found another window that fit perfectly on the South side.  The matching windows will be hinged and the Southern window will be fixed.  The more windows = more light during winter = maintain egg production.  The chickens egg laying is determined by the number of daylight hours.  In order to keep getting eggs through Winter, when the days are shorter, we may have to install a light within the coop.  The extra window will hopefully help.

I have to take some more photos of what else we've done.  The roof plywood is installed.  The door and 1 window are cut open.  We were contemplating what to do for the door.  The easy answer would have been to attach some support boards to the siding material.  But I absolutely love making doors- and since this is the part of the coop we will see all the time, a nice looking door is important.  Last night the Laird and I worked on tearing apart pallets and pulling nails to build our coop door.  It's going to be a similar design to the door I made for our bathroom.

  I am really excited to paint the coop, hang the trim & windows, and build some cut little window boxes/ shutters.  It's going to be a cute chicken coop- which was my main hope in this whole process!  I am quite impressed with the coop thus far- the Laird is doing a great job!