Our Coop Story
We are Billy and Bridget, and we have 8 chickens in the making – 2 silver laced wyandottes, 2 light brahmas, 2 red star sex-link, 1 black star sex-link, and one buff cochin.Here is our henhouse. Bridget, let me do most of the planning. This was my first attempt at building a permanent structure and it took a few weekends and evenings and kind of evolved as it was constructed. The “plans” are on graphpaper and really just laid out the dimensions (4X3.5X8) and where the nests would be, but again, I improvised after it was framed and the windows and back wall were installed. It is about 2 feet off the ground.
The roof covering, cement and front 4X4s were already there as this was a dog kennel a few years back. I left the front of the frame off to facilitate working on the interior.
Next pictures are after the interior walls are up and the nesting boxes are in. I insulated the walls, but did not read about vapor barriers until they were up. We will see what happens this winter. The framework for the roosts is also in place. I put ventilation holes in the back wall and covered them with hardware cloth. The nest boxes are accessible from the outside.
I have electricity running from the garage (behind the henhouse) for heatlamp, fans etc. We put the chicks out after a week and a half in the garage because the temperature in the garage was averaging 90 degrees. Did I mention we got the chicks on June 23rd? Today is July 17th and the temperatures have been in the mid to high 90’s since before the chickens went out (July 4th). There are two small fans suspended from the ceiling and occasionally a heat lamp.
The next shots are of the finished coop. The windowed door on the left is an actual door sawed in half that I liberated from someone’s trash on my way to work. There is a ventilation vent above the chicken door (not open in the picture, but between doors). The interior shot is of the chicks’ first day in the coop.
This picture shows two silver laced wyandottes (in center), our super friendly light brahma (foreground), and the buff cochin – silly rooster – that the hatchery threw in as our free exotic.
These are the same birds in the same order (at least the left brahma and same red star) only maybe 4 days younger – man, they grow fast!
That’s it. We have more chick pictures but that is a different thread.
Billy and Bridget.
