Rehabbing VERY old chicken coop

9blessings

Chirping
Mar 28, 2017
48
27
84
Coastal Maine
Hello all! We purchased an 1829 cape last summer and there's an old building that was being used as a combo chicken coop and shed. We're rehabbing the old place and I thought you might enjoy some pics of our progress. For reference we have 24 Australorp pullets, 1 Australorp cockrel, and 1 dark brahma cockrel (at least until we learn otherwise ;-)

First a pic of the building after one of our snowstorms last winter:



 
I love that building! Beautiful place as well. I have an old shed on my place that I swear was the selling point of m property. Old log and wood buildings just have so much character.
 
Here it is after we took a ton of junk out of it, and I spent a week vacuuming inches of dust and cobwebs...it was divided into three areas: a coop that could access the attached run, a separate coop area that couldn't access the outside, and a shed area. We demo'd the wall between the two coop areas and are making it one large coop.

Coop side:




Shed side (I figure when my chickens start multiplying exponentially, we can expand ;-)



What I desperately needed after ALL that dusty work!!

 
And then there was PAINT! After scrubbing the whole thing with vinegar water and vacuuming once again, we painting everything with two coats of semi-gloss paint for easy cleaning. Was already test-driven when I found a swallow in there this morning, who of course pooped on the wall. Wiped off easily!!







 
And then there was LIGHT!

My dear handy husband upgraded the wiring with a protected GFCI outlet.



Another outlet in the shed area and two LED lights




And here you can see the shelves I have set up in the shed side for all my chicken "necessities."



I had him install outdoor covers on the outlets to keep out the chicken dust...



And that's where we are today!! SO much left to do!!
 
Wow, tons of progress! I like that there are concrete floors. That is going to make cleaning so much easier!
And I like the wine. I Often finish off my day with a nice red... or a good dark beer!
big_smile.png
 
I'm hoping the concrete cleans up nicely....I had to chip away a LOT of crazy hard manure. The lady who lived here before us was quite elderly and I'm not sure she could clean the coop very well toward the end. We did find a large brown egg in one of the nest boxes....it was over a year old!! We were very careful to dispose of it without breaking, LOL.
 
I love your chicken building! I was going to say barn, but that's not
quite it.
I am jealous, we are stuck in the city.

I love watching the rehab, though!
 
We decided to MOVE IN!! My almost 7.5 weekers will be locked up for a week before having access to the run (which gives me time to get it ready, LOL).

Installed the people door and locked the pop door to the run.





Vacuumed one last time and then turned around and poured DE into all the cracks and crevices. I went over these piles with a hand broom to really force the DE into the cracks...



Sprinkled a little Sweet PDZ and three bales of pine flakes:




Moved over their water, feeder and heater (mainly for my little not-fully-feathered brahma):





They seem to like their new digs:

 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom