Chicken Coop & Chicken Update

A sweet note from Marilyn reminded me that I haven't given a recent update on the chicks and their new home. Here is the most recent photo I have. There has been more work done, but I haven't taken any more pics-bad me!

The picture above is a picture of the 2 coops that now live side-by-side in the back of our property. The brown one on the right is where our 5 original hens currently live. We built it out of some of the log siding that we took off of the front of our house in preparation for closing in the front porch and knocking down a wall. It was our chicken project last year, 2008, and has served very well. The only problem is that the pen that we put in the front, and built out of old pallets, is WAY TOO LOW for me to get in and clean. And believe me, after all the rain we've had lately, whew! It needs to be cleaned but good! The plan for it is to raise the roof on the pen so that I can get inside. Then we are going to move the precious, silver laced bantam Cochins that the Easter Bunny brought, into it and let them breed.

This is Dandy, a rooster, I hope:

This is either Daisy or Delilah. I have a hard time telling them apart:

The white coop on the left is the new, 2009 coop. Since this pic was taken, my handy man has added another window on the front, painted all the trim black and set 20 posts for the pen. This has all been a challenge, trying to do what we can between rain storms! I promise to get a new picture this week so you can see how great it looks.

Here are a couple of the new residents enjoying their new roost. That's a White Leghorn on the left and a Rhode Island Red on the right. We hope they are both girls! Roosters aren't too good at laying eggs! This is the chic we call #1. We have NO IDEA what she is. Poor thing, she is not very attractive now, but maybe she will get prettier as she feathers out.

One week old:7 weeks old:
And these are my beautiful blues. We don't know yet what they are. Some have suggested Old English Game Birds. Again, I'll know more as they get older.

One week old:

Blue hen (Bonnie Blue), 7 weeks old and still very small and sweet:


Blue rooster (Baby Blue or Blue Roo):

If you are familiar with breeds of chickens and think you know what these are, PLEASE, let me know! And unless you want to get REALLY addicted to a fun hobby - don't get chickens!

You'd never think that chickens could be SO MUCH FUN!

The Chicks Move Out

This is what the coop looked like on Saturday morning. All wrapped up in plastic to try to keep the rain out. It didn't work. The floor got soaked and the vinyl floor now has ripples. But, not to worry. As soon as the sun comes out we will cut it out and try to dry it out. Then we will glue it back down to the plywood sub-floor. We will see if that works out. If not, I can always give the sub-floor a good coat of slick paint.

Meanwhile, we got the siding and the roof up and the insulation installed in the roof. Pictures will come later. There was so much moisture in the air my camera lens kept fogging up. It rained and rained all weekend, making for very poor building conditions. But. . . we ventured forward.



Sunday night we moved the chicks into their new home. As you can see they were not so sure about it. They huddled together in the corner for a while. Eventually they spread out and tried out their wings in their newer, larger space. When I left for work this morning they were running about happily and eating and drinking like nothing was new.




Can you believe how big they have gotten in just a few weeks?!?

Coop Update - As of April 30

This is what the coop looked like at 7:30 p.m. last night.

The exterior door has been installed and all of the exterior and interior walls have been framed. The door leads in to what will be the feed/straw storage area. There will be a screen door on the interior partition that leads from the storage area into the actual coop area. Windows and chicken doors will go in as soon as the weather allows.

The tarp on top was put there to help keep it dry during the rain we are scheduled to have over the next few days. It wasn't very effective during last nights down pour. There was water standing on the floor when I left for work this morning and I didn't have time to deal with it. We are hoping that there will be some periods of no rain over the weekend that will allow us to get the siding and the roof on. Then we can work inside in the dry to finish it enough to move the chicks in. The are really getting big quickly and crowding their current living quarters!

I will post the weekend's progress next week.