Hooray!!!! On Tuesday we got our chicken permit, finally (it's been since May that Olivia has been working on getting the City Council to allow pet hens...)
Our hens are:
Olympia- Black Australorp
Hazel- Rhode Island Red
Rita- Red Sex Link
Vanda- Silver Laced Wyandotte
Phoebe- Plymouth Barred Rock
They are almost 19 weeks old and a couple are getting bigger/red combs and wattles. We're eagerly watching for eggs.
Here is their coop. We built the hen house inside our existing garage. It is fully insulated. Behind the garage is the run. We got this awesome clear plastic corrugated roofing since it is quite dark and shady back there. We also bumped it out past the garage in order to try to get some winter sunshine in there.
First, framing in the new walls (we used a corner of the existing garage) and insulating all walls and ceiling:
looking into the garage through the side door, you see the big coop door (and storage shelves for garden/chicken supplies
Looking in through the big horizontal window that faces the front (car door end) of the garage. Both this window and the big window we cut in the door have 1/2" hardware cloth on them. This window closes and has an extra storm window pane to make it super-insulated, the door has a storm window pane only. The window is also weatherstripped. You can see the roost to the left and the pop-hole straight ahead. it has a sliding door that slides into a track I made of aluminum angle iron.
Looking in through the big door at the roost and droppings board, and Olivia's mural. The floor of the henhouse as well as the droppings board are covered with linoleum.
4 of the 5 girls with the mural:
OK, Now we construct the run. It's framed with 2x4s and 4x4s, and has SunTuf corrugated roofing. 1/2" hardware cloth for the bottom 3', 2x3 fencing above, poultry netting buried 12" deep.
Finished! Waterless hand cleaner on the door. That nice sand (which only covered about 1/3 of the run) didn't stay clean long, they immediately scratched it into the dirt!
After they had gotten sufficiently used to the hen house, we opened the sliding door to the run. here they are wondering what's out there:
And from outside:
Olivia had to lure them out with a piece of bread... look how happy she looks! She worked HARD for this day:
Enjoying their freedom:
We are having an "Open Hen-House" party thie weekend for our supporters, neighbors, and even the city councilors are invited! Yay, chickens!!!!
Stacey, Neil and Olivia
Our hens are:
Olympia- Black Australorp
Hazel- Rhode Island Red
Rita- Red Sex Link
Vanda- Silver Laced Wyandotte
Phoebe- Plymouth Barred Rock
They are almost 19 weeks old and a couple are getting bigger/red combs and wattles. We're eagerly watching for eggs.
Here is their coop. We built the hen house inside our existing garage. It is fully insulated. Behind the garage is the run. We got this awesome clear plastic corrugated roofing since it is quite dark and shady back there. We also bumped it out past the garage in order to try to get some winter sunshine in there.
First, framing in the new walls (we used a corner of the existing garage) and insulating all walls and ceiling:
looking into the garage through the side door, you see the big coop door (and storage shelves for garden/chicken supplies
Looking in through the big horizontal window that faces the front (car door end) of the garage. Both this window and the big window we cut in the door have 1/2" hardware cloth on them. This window closes and has an extra storm window pane to make it super-insulated, the door has a storm window pane only. The window is also weatherstripped. You can see the roost to the left and the pop-hole straight ahead. it has a sliding door that slides into a track I made of aluminum angle iron.
Looking in through the big door at the roost and droppings board, and Olivia's mural. The floor of the henhouse as well as the droppings board are covered with linoleum.
4 of the 5 girls with the mural:
OK, Now we construct the run. It's framed with 2x4s and 4x4s, and has SunTuf corrugated roofing. 1/2" hardware cloth for the bottom 3', 2x3 fencing above, poultry netting buried 12" deep.
Finished! Waterless hand cleaner on the door. That nice sand (which only covered about 1/3 of the run) didn't stay clean long, they immediately scratched it into the dirt!
After they had gotten sufficiently used to the hen house, we opened the sliding door to the run. here they are wondering what's out there:
And from outside:
Olivia had to lure them out with a piece of bread... look how happy she looks! She worked HARD for this day:
Enjoying their freedom:
We are having an "Open Hen-House" party thie weekend for our supporters, neighbors, and even the city councilors are invited! Yay, chickens!!!!
Stacey, Neil and Olivia
