Hi Maria,
I spent three months living in Tromso! My avatar photo is of a Sami earthen winter shelter used by my friend as a chicken coop.
We used to let our chickens free range, but so many of them were eaten that it stopped making sense. They are all now in a predator-proof coop (not so predator-proof though when the kids leave the gate open like last weekend when a husky got in the backyard and killed a hen before I could stop it...) all day and night. It's a little depressing and we all miss watching the chickens run around the yard and act silly. We have two wooden coops inside a large chain-link dog run with a corrugated metal roof we put on to keep hawks and climbing predators out. It sounds like your used coop idea would work and you could still let the hens out as long as you or the kids are right there to keep them safe. Lykke til!
I spent three months living in Tromso! My avatar photo is of a Sami earthen winter shelter used by my friend as a chicken coop.
We used to let our chickens free range, but so many of them were eaten that it stopped making sense. They are all now in a predator-proof coop (not so predator-proof though when the kids leave the gate open like last weekend when a husky got in the backyard and killed a hen before I could stop it...) all day and night. It's a little depressing and we all miss watching the chickens run around the yard and act silly. We have two wooden coops inside a large chain-link dog run with a corrugated metal roof we put on to keep hawks and climbing predators out. It sounds like your used coop idea would work and you could still let the hens out as long as you or the kids are right there to keep them safe. Lykke til!