Sometime this April, my wife informed that our family in a household of mostly girls will grow once again....Once I got over my original panic, I realized that then new girls would be staying outside so I would not be any further outnumbered in the house (6 to 1 currently
)The rationale went something like this, we eat lots of eggs have lots of veggie leftovers, lots of empty land and the kids love animals - what can possibly go wrong?
Additionally, I would also 'get' to build a coop for our new additions that . And thus begins the story of the poultry mansion that took me a summer to build after work (I blame the slow progress on the fact that I had some unsolicited help and had to restart a few times).
The challenges: frequent predators in our area include foxes, raccoons, weasels, falcon, coyotes, the occasional bear and of course the kids who were convinced that I was building a playhouse for them...still are....
With that in mind I set out to build a coop that has more of a fortress setup but user friendly enough so that the little ones can get in and out.
Coop size is 10L X 8W X 8H, with an overhang roof of 1 extra foot for each side. In this picture the roof was not finished yet, I have since shingled it.
the basics:
our winters are 6 months long with lots of snow so I didn't want the coop to be sitting in water for half the year. I dug 8 inches down and built a 10 X 8 foundation out of cinder blocks. This allows for some drainage and it also keeps the coop wood framing elevated and off the ground.
