Here are pictures of my suburban coop. It house's four hens, one Delaware, 2 Black Australorps and 1 EE. The roosting coop is about 3'x3 1/2' and the total enclosed run area is 33 Sqft. Our birds range a minimum of 5 hours in our yard and garden
There are days that they are out form sun up to sun down. The roosting coop door is an old window that was laying around. I made a screen out of hardware cloth/welded wire so in the summer I leave the window open to try to Keep it cooler. There is a light in the coop that is on a timer from 5 am to 7 am. The main reson for the light is to maybe assisit in egg production. It is a CFL bulb so there is no heat added. I made the feeder out of sheetmetal along with the 2 attached trays that hold grit and oyster shells. I also made the nest box roof out sheetmetal.Our story started in June of 2010 when I approached the our suburban village about having chickens. We are about 35 miles west of Chicago which allows them. With that said I thought it would be a fairly easy endeavour. It turned out to be a 5 month battle and in the end they came around to my way of thinking. The main hang up was one neighbor who decided to make it very personal and write to the papers etc.. Bashing my family along the way. But persisitance paid off.
The "lovely ladies are 23 weeks old as of October 23rd, 2011. No eggs yet, but have been truly a joy to have. I could sit and watch them for hours just being chickens. I never would have imagined I would get this much satisfaction from having them. The kids really enjoy them as well.
3 of the pullets starting laying around 26-28 weeks. Still waiting on the EE who is now about 34 weeks.
