New....er....really old....coop remodel!

When we moved into our new house and got permission to have chickens, our landlords jokingly mentioned that they had an old chicken coop on the property that needed a new roof. We never figured out what they were talking about....until recently.  

They have a big 3-room coop (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) that their grandsons collapsed the roof on years ago (they were playing on the roof and it fell in on one half of the coop). The building is old, but, with a new roof and one new interior door, we'll be in business!  I'm so excited! My hubby is pretty stoked, too. He was going to have to build me a new coop to fit my chickens after I hatch them (18 eggs in the incubator).  So, instead, all he has to do is put on a new roof for me.  There is some garbage inside the coop (they used it for storage for a while after the roof incident), but, I started working on that today and it should be cleaned out in no time.  While I was cleaning it out, I even found the old roosts behind a pile of mattress springs.  I'm thinking we can have the biggest room be the "general population," the second room be the brooding room, and the third room/entryway will be the storage area.

BONUS:  the landlords are so excited that we want to do some more work on the property (we refinished the entire house when we moved in) that they are not only willing to pay for the remodel, they want to pay for the materials to add a big run to the outside of the coop!

I'll post some before pix soon.  I was going to take the pix earlier, but, it started raining.  My chicks are "due" in two weeks, so, we'll see how much we can get done before then!

OH!  BONUS #2:  Tonight, hubby said that, as soon as we start getting some fertile eggs of our own, he wants to start doing regular hatches!!!!  I think that we'll have room for about 25-35 chickens in the "general population" area of the coop, plus the broody area.  Bring on the chickens!!!!

Thanks!  I was hoping to get DH to build a coop 1/5 the size (if I was REALLY lucky).  I'm just so excited to have a coop that will hold more than 5 or 6 hens.  Now I get a huge coop!  I'll try to snap some before pix today.  It looks pretty rough right now, but, what can you expect when the roof has been caved in for years.  Yesterday, while I was cleaning out the coop, I found rabbit records from as early as January of 1979.  I'm not sure how long ago the grandkids caved in the roof, but, our landlord is close to 80, so, I'm assuming that his grandkids must be a little older now (old enough to maybe have their own kids?). I'm guessing the roof has been caved for at least 7 or 8 years.

Progress is slow and steady.  The bad half of the roof has been torn off.  It looks like we'll be replacing one wall and two 4'x4' sections of the floor.  I took some pix, but, it's about 12:30am here, so, I'm heading to bed.  I'll upload before pix and (hopefully) some progress pix soon!