The Scoop on the Coop

When our story last left off, Neta and I had cleared the last of the clutter from the side of the barn, we put up siding on 3 sides in preparation for painting the barn and we were making plans for a chicken coop. Well...a LOT has happened since then. Here's all the progress (in chronological order):

It looks 50 years younger...give or take.

Feb 8th - Yup, we painted the barn and added some trim. It makes a big difference.

Feb 16th - Chicken coop construction has been full speed ahead. We've been taking advantage of the mostly cooler temps and the fact that it's being built under the roof (on the right side) so a little rain doesn't affect construction. It all started with building a solid platform that was tied into part of the barn and all of the new posts that were installed previously.

Building the 2x8 framing for the floor.

Feb 18th - Our original plans were for 4'x10' coop, but we expanded it to 8'x10' (taking 4 feet from the run). The run will be 10'x16' which is plenty of room.

Floor complete!

Feb 26th - Once the floor was done, the walls were framed in. It was like an old-fashioned Amish barn-raising...without the Amish.

Walls, windows and "clean out" framed out.

We tried to think of "smart" features to build into the coop to make life easier. One thing that Neta came up with and I added was the rectangular cutout (in the lower center of the above picture). We can sweep the coop out through that opening directly into a wheelbarrow or the tractor bucket so we can transport it to the compost pile. We have other features that we'll get to later, either in this post or later ones.

Mar 4th - Fully enclosed...except for the door.

It matches the barn!

Mar 11th - Some paint and some trim and the coop is almost finished (on the outside). You can now see the "clean out" a bit clearer. It will have a locking door to keep the chickens in and the critters out.

Mar12th - Another smart feature... An automatic chicken door!

The plastic covering has since been removed.

That's right...we're going to be lazy chicken farmers. No getting up at the crack of dawn and traipsing out to the barn to open the coop. The "ChickenGuard" door works on both a timer and/or a light sensor. 4 AAA batteries last about 6-9 months.

There is still the big door to put on, the roost and nesting boxes have to be built and a few accessories to add before the chickens (and guineas) arrive later in the spring. We're just trying to keep ahead of things as there is always grass to cut, gardens to tend to and fruit trees to take care of..

Mar 17th - The most recent item is "predator prevention" which is buried fencing (galvanized hardware cloth) around the perimeter to keep foxes, raccoons and other beasts from digging into the chicken run. It needed to go 18"-24" deep AND wide.

"Trench warfare" as it was a fight to dig all of this up.

Owning a tractor was only partially helpful. Tractor buckets "scoop", they don't really "dig". I managed to dig about half of this with the tractor and the rest with a shovel.

Mar 18th - With the trench dug out, it was time to install the hardware cloth. I have two sides complete.

It was easier to install that I thought it would be.

Once that's done, then we'll take the hardware cloth all the way to the roof on all sides of the run, along with using it to cover vents and openings inside of the coop so nothing can get in that doesn't need to be there.

This is where things stand at the moment. We'll update you in the next blog post when it's all finished. Stay tuned!

By the way, our chickens have been ordered from a local chicken lady. We ordered 4 Lavender Orpingtons and 4 Easter Eggers. We can't wait!