In the beginning, we thought this small coop would be enough room. The box said 2-4 chickens. We actually got 6 chicks in case 1 or 2 died. This is only about 42" tall. It was perfect for little chicks but as they grew bigger, we had to have something bigger!
Another pic of the smaller coop with the run built.
View from my bedroom window of the first coop and run finally finished.
Our dog, Mo, watching chicken TV.
Beginning to build the 2nd larger coop. We're building it to the right of the existing coop and will join the runs together.
Framing the 2nd coop.
Inside the bigger coop.
Outside the coop with the window cut out and the posts in the ground for the chicken wire frame.
The roof after staining it. We did put shingles on later.
Inside the coop with stick on tiles and a ramp.
It looks like the window is framed with lattice work but that's actually about 2' away from the window. We wanted privacy from the neighbors.
In this picture, you can see the lattice work on the front of the run. We put chicken wire around the bottom part about 3' high. Before I put the chicken wire on, the girls were poking their heads out of the holes. I was afraid our cat would grab one.
This picture shows how we removed the screen door from the first run, joined the two runs together and moved the door. They now have 1 small coop (which I keep closed) and 1 large coop with 2 runs. Since we built the first run around the smaller coop, we're just going to keep it in there in case of a sick chicken or new babies.
One big lesson we learned: paint or stain BEFORE you put everything together. We didn't stain the first rum and it was so hard to do it later. My husband put some stain in a spray bottle to get to the places a brush wouldn't reach. Later that evening, we noticed our dog, the plants and one of the chickens had brown freckles!
