Jenjscott's Chicken Coop

Posted 05/06/10 • Last updated 05/06/10 • 3971 views • 0 comments

Mosquito Beach Poultry

So I wanted to get some chickens. DH said I shouldn't get any chickens until I had the pen and coop built. But it was winter and raining, very difficult to build a pen or coop. My friend said DH had it all wrong, get the chickens, and the pen and coop would follow so........

First I got Red star chicks, then I got bantam chicks, OEG, BTW Japanese, and Sebrights. All was well and good, it would be a while before they could go outside anyway, so the pen and coop could wait a little while. Then the river started up.

This is the Mississippi River I'm talking about, The Big Muddy, when it gets up to our house, its over 12 miles wide from levee to levee. It came higher and higher, soon it was up in the yard. Then it was up under the house. Four feet deep under out stilted house. Needless to say, there wasn't going any coop building for a while.

But, of course, the chickens didn't stop growing waiting for the flood waters to abate. So at five. weeks, they had to go outside in a dog pen on the porch, with a cardboarded dog crate for a coop.

After three weeks, we could finally drive in and out again (we had been boating in and out each day). But it was a while before the ground was dry enough to really get serious about the pen and coop. The Banties went under the house in a tractor. I started the coop construction under the house, putting together the floor and walls. When it finally got dry enough, I set up the pen in the location of an old dog pen out in the yard, rearranged the dog pen panels, leaving an opening at one end for the coop. DH finally took pity on me (no, he actually was just tired of chickens on the porch), and he and a friend helped me put the Coop together one weekend.

dh stapling floor frame up front view of framing inside with siding, roof out side front with siding and roof coop inside feeder door w/bin outside paneled and roofed, side view inside coop roost with feed door