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This is a work in progress, feel free to follow through!
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This could be a very long post but I'll just give a quick overview of my chicken-keeping history. We got our first 4 in early '17 (how is that already 4 years ago?!):This is a work in progress, feel free to follow through!
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- Mai (promptly dubbed Princess Lay-a when she laid on the journey home from picking them up)
- Pearlie (a Light Sussex named for her colour)
- Autumn (a Speckledy named for her obsession with falling leaves)
- Belle (originally 'Fred' because my little brother wanted a boy chicken to lay him eggs)
Do you know, I could sit here for hours talking about how our girls and boys got their names... but that's a topic for another day.
So anyhow, the coop and run have gradually expanded and we're now looking at a big extension since we recently cleared part of our garden. Also in this area is our playhouse... plus a space marked out for an attached run. I've been given the go-ahead to buy some Silkie hens to help us hatch our own fertilised eggs (some of the breeds we keep are not typically good mothers). This playhouse and the run will be their home. I'm drafting up plans for the interior of this and will regularly update this article to show thought processes... et cetera!
Anyone with ideas they would like to share, or lessons I can learn from, please PM!
I've drawn up a list of some things that either I or the chickens MUST have in this coop/playhouse, hopefully they can inspire some of you.
- Ventilation. And plenty of it. This is for obvious reasons.
- Tall enough to stand in for easy cleaning. I really don't want a bad back OR chickens deciding my shoulder looks like a good roost. At least not when I'm cleaning out in there
- I want a poop tray. Mostly so I can keep the mess reasonably localised
- I also want low roosts, because Silkies aren't great with flying
- I want spacious nestboxes, because I plan (this could change) on having broodies hatch in the main coop
- I want access from outdoors to the nestboxes
- I want to raise the feeder and waterer slightly because I don't want to be clearing it of bedding every day
- I want a space for indoor dustbathing - yes I know that could be messy - because in winter, it'll be seriously wet outdoors. Perhaps I'll just use sand for bedding for the entire thing. Anyone got experience with sand in a playhouse?
Some photos of the playhouse (the 'potential' as I call it)...
^ Ignore the nosey bunny! She's very determined to be in every picture! She's also my demolition agent, as seen by the wreckage of the hay rack behind her
^ Yep, this one again...!
^ if you look closely, there's a chicken wire divider right there. I have wondered about this compartment becoming a brooder/integration area. We'll see.
- Next page: Final Plans!
