So, it's been a while since I posted. We regularly talk about how the chicken coop was easily the best project we've done.
Our coop has held up really well and has been virtually zero maintenance other than the "burden" of having to collect eggs every day.
We built our coop during the pandemic and started with 10 hens. 8 of them are still with us and are still regularly laying eggs! They've started slowing down and some of them only lay every other day, but still, we've been very pleased with them.
This year we wanted to get more baby chicks, but couldn't quite figure out how to introduce them to the rest of the flock, so I repurposed this dog run so they stay safe while they grow up and get used to each other. Or so I thought...
We got 10 new baby chicks in the early spring and once they were fully feathered set them out in this fortified dog run. However, I didn't fortify it enough. As you can see in the pictures, I put up hardware cloth and plastic panels to keep as a wind block. I added a perimeter skirt around 90% of the perimeter assuming that the chicks would only be in there a short while and didn't think it was very likely that some animal would try to burrow in that one uncovered spot.
Well, I was wrong. In the middle of the night a fox got in on almost the first night and obliterated all the little chicks. Or so I thought...
For days my wife and daughter were devastated. But by some miracle, one chick had escaped and survived (the all black one, my daughter's favorite)! We found her two days later walking around in the back yard with clearly a broken wing and who knows what else. We took her to the vet and now our miracle chick is doing quite well.
We ordered another 10 baby chicks, I fortified the attached run 100% and we've had no other issues. We're just waiting for them to finish with their baby chick feed and will be introducing them in to the main coop soon.
Having backyard chickens has been an absolute blast. We love it and now that we have a good pipeline for introducing additional chicks we'll probably have them forever!
Our coop has held up really well and has been virtually zero maintenance other than the "burden" of having to collect eggs every day.
We built our coop during the pandemic and started with 10 hens. 8 of them are still with us and are still regularly laying eggs! They've started slowing down and some of them only lay every other day, but still, we've been very pleased with them.
This year we wanted to get more baby chicks, but couldn't quite figure out how to introduce them to the rest of the flock, so I repurposed this dog run so they stay safe while they grow up and get used to each other. Or so I thought...
We got 10 new baby chicks in the early spring and once they were fully feathered set them out in this fortified dog run. However, I didn't fortify it enough. As you can see in the pictures, I put up hardware cloth and plastic panels to keep as a wind block. I added a perimeter skirt around 90% of the perimeter assuming that the chicks would only be in there a short while and didn't think it was very likely that some animal would try to burrow in that one uncovered spot.
Well, I was wrong. In the middle of the night a fox got in on almost the first night and obliterated all the little chicks. Or so I thought...
For days my wife and daughter were devastated. But by some miracle, one chick had escaped and survived (the all black one, my daughter's favorite)! We found her two days later walking around in the back yard with clearly a broken wing and who knows what else. We took her to the vet and now our miracle chick is doing quite well.
We ordered another 10 baby chicks, I fortified the attached run 100% and we've had no other issues. We're just waiting for them to finish with their baby chick feed and will be introducing them in to the main coop soon.
Having backyard chickens has been an absolute blast. We love it and now that we have a good pipeline for introducing additional chicks we'll probably have them forever!
