This is my story of how I built my first chicken coop.
I have a my own accounting business and have a client that has chickens. I would go there every month, do his work and he would give me a dozen eggs or so each time. After about 3 months of doing this, I fell in love with the eggs.
One evening I proclaimed to my wife, "I'm going to build a chicken coop and raise some chickens". She looked at me like I was crazy and asked me if I was having a mid life crisis.
So the journey began there and here is my story.
First, I am not one that picks up a hammer and nail very often. Give me a computer and asked me to figure out your upcoming year budget, no problem. But hammer, saw & nails? But I had an idea and I was going to do it.
I found the BYC web site and looked at every coop I could find. I printed off several pictures and told my wife and kids, I am going to build a chicken coop similar to these. No drawing or plans, just a concept, determination and some pictures for help.
I found a nice place in the yard, away from the neighbors and started digging, laying timber to form the outside of the run and filling it with some gravel in. It took me 2 days to do this and my back was killing me about half way through it.
(Note - that's not one of the chickens in the picture. That's Duke, a different kind of chicken)
I then started putting up some walls, (all by myself since my wife won't help).
Then another wall.
At this point, Duke is wondering why I am building a house for him.
Now time for framing a roof. It wasn't easy putting the sheets of plywood, by myself, up, but I got it.
I started framing out the chicken coop when I ran into a little problem. At this point I called over my neighbor for some help and advice. He does carpentry for a living.
And help he gave me. I learned a new vocabulary word that I have never heard of before and will never forget. Being Square and I am not talking the nerdy type. Apparently when you create a "box", you should make sure your square all round as it helps with building it with even cuts. As you can see by this picture, my neighbor is going "what the XXXX have you done".
So, with his help and more importantly, his POWER TOOLS, he took over and started building the coop. Cheap labor, in that all it cost me was having a full Budweiser in his hand when he put his hammer down.
OK - now its starting to look like a chicken coop.
Now let's add some paint.
Wait - I hate white. That's BORING. Let's add a little color to it.
Now that's better. Duke is tired of seeing me busting my butt with this.
Let's add some wire to make it secure.
I put some "flooring" down inside the coop to help me with clean up. (Got this on BYC)
Finally the day arrived and I picked up 4 chickens from Southern States! Rhode Island Red's they called them.
My kids decided to name them. It was only after they named them that I reminded them they were girl chickens not boys. But the names have stuck. My son named two and my daughter named the other two.
This is Fabio. She is the smartest out of them all. Always the first to do anything.
Next we have LaFonzo
And then there are Beavis & Butthead
So where all settled in and I can't wait for them to go into this nice coop I built. Why wouldn't they.
So we camped out and watched for the big moment.
That's to close Duke, we have to get farther back and they will go in on there own.
And we did this for the first 2 days. Except the girls had another idea of their sleeping arrangements.
I was heartbroken. The girls didn't like my coop I built for them. I searched and posted on BYC for answers. Several people told me to put them in the coop each night, lock them in and after a week, they'll get in.
So I did that for 1 week. You should have seen the first night of me trying to catch the chickens. My wife was rolling over laughing so hard of me trying to catch them. After that exercise, the second night I figured out, let them go to sleep and then put them in the coop.Still they would not go in by themselves.
After 1 week, still they were not going in by themselves. So I came up with an idea.
I made some hanging feeders, put them near the roost and next thing I know, they are going in all by themselves!
So here is my first Chicken Coop.
Oh and yes, even the chickens are Steeler fans.
Hope you liked my story and coop.
I have a my own accounting business and have a client that has chickens. I would go there every month, do his work and he would give me a dozen eggs or so each time. After about 3 months of doing this, I fell in love with the eggs.
One evening I proclaimed to my wife, "I'm going to build a chicken coop and raise some chickens". She looked at me like I was crazy and asked me if I was having a mid life crisis.
So the journey began there and here is my story.
First, I am not one that picks up a hammer and nail very often. Give me a computer and asked me to figure out your upcoming year budget, no problem. But hammer, saw & nails? But I had an idea and I was going to do it.
I found the BYC web site and looked at every coop I could find. I printed off several pictures and told my wife and kids, I am going to build a chicken coop similar to these. No drawing or plans, just a concept, determination and some pictures for help.
I found a nice place in the yard, away from the neighbors and started digging, laying timber to form the outside of the run and filling it with some gravel in. It took me 2 days to do this and my back was killing me about half way through it.
(Note - that's not one of the chickens in the picture. That's Duke, a different kind of chicken)
I then started putting up some walls, (all by myself since my wife won't help).
Then another wall.
At this point, Duke is wondering why I am building a house for him.
Now time for framing a roof. It wasn't easy putting the sheets of plywood, by myself, up, but I got it.
I started framing out the chicken coop when I ran into a little problem. At this point I called over my neighbor for some help and advice. He does carpentry for a living.
And help he gave me. I learned a new vocabulary word that I have never heard of before and will never forget. Being Square and I am not talking the nerdy type. Apparently when you create a "box", you should make sure your square all round as it helps with building it with even cuts. As you can see by this picture, my neighbor is going "what the XXXX have you done".
So, with his help and more importantly, his POWER TOOLS, he took over and started building the coop. Cheap labor, in that all it cost me was having a full Budweiser in his hand when he put his hammer down.
OK - now its starting to look like a chicken coop.
Now let's add some paint.
Wait - I hate white. That's BORING. Let's add a little color to it.
Now that's better. Duke is tired of seeing me busting my butt with this.
Let's add some wire to make it secure.
I put some "flooring" down inside the coop to help me with clean up. (Got this on BYC)
Finally the day arrived and I picked up 4 chickens from Southern States! Rhode Island Red's they called them.
My kids decided to name them. It was only after they named them that I reminded them they were girl chickens not boys. But the names have stuck. My son named two and my daughter named the other two.
This is Fabio. She is the smartest out of them all. Always the first to do anything.
Next we have LaFonzo
And then there are Beavis & Butthead
So where all settled in and I can't wait for them to go into this nice coop I built. Why wouldn't they.
So we camped out and watched for the big moment.
That's to close Duke, we have to get farther back and they will go in on there own.
And we did this for the first 2 days. Except the girls had another idea of their sleeping arrangements.
I was heartbroken. The girls didn't like my coop I built for them. I searched and posted on BYC for answers. Several people told me to put them in the coop each night, lock them in and after a week, they'll get in.
So I did that for 1 week. You should have seen the first night of me trying to catch the chickens. My wife was rolling over laughing so hard of me trying to catch them. After that exercise, the second night I figured out, let them go to sleep and then put them in the coop.Still they would not go in by themselves.
After 1 week, still they were not going in by themselves. So I came up with an idea.
I made some hanging feeders, put them near the roost and next thing I know, they are going in all by themselves!
So here is my first Chicken Coop.
Oh and yes, even the chickens are Steeler fans.
Hope you liked my story and coop.
