had to move my flocks heres the new coop!

[AHappychick]

if you saw my other thread you know why I have been away working.

In a few weeks I managed to buy this shed and attach 2 kennels to it and covered the entire kennel in hardware cloth (top, bottom, sides) I framed out various pens finally getting some help from a friend of a friend who by the way is very cute and maybe I will go fishing with one night.

I am still far from done but each pen now has working pop doors on strings that I can open and close from the outside and I will be installing an automatic water system soon.

most flocks are barely laying as they were just moved in last week but so far so good.

I miss Marty being at my home though very much and this also put a huge crimp in my lav project as all are not laying now.

here are some pics of what I did

over all pic

first day of framing pens inside

Finally someone to lend a hand... this is the cute guy I mentioned

as you can see we finished the framing that day

I thought I had taken more pics but you get the idea. I divided the 10x10 shed into 4 pens of various sizes and then have a few smaller coops inside the longer kennel where I am housing some of the silkies for now. I also have my Araucana trio in a seperate tracter that Peepsinc built for me a few months ago. Now if I could just get used to driving a half hour each way to see my flock....

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

It looks good! You have done a lot of work in what sounds like a short amount of time! I am very impressed! Your hens will start laying pretty soon, especially if you give them access to their favorite treats and such, and I think that helps them re-adjust to new environments faster.

 

[AHappychick]

thanks I still need to fill in the runs with 2 inches of sand and put bricks around the sides to keep the sand in. (I had just finished doing that to my runs at home and as really liking it until I was told they had to move) Also I bought shade cloth remnants super cheap on farmteck and will put those in strips over the half of the runs as well. In time I will come up with a way to free range in a fenced in area where I will grow chicken fodder) them in the meantime I have flower boxes with harware cloth over the top where I am growing clover and other fodder. Those can be in the runs and eaten when they want.

I ideally would have one more large kennel so I could divide up the silkies better using my small coops inside the completely covered runs.

I am hoping that covering every inch in addition to closing them up at night in the coop (but if for some reason that was forgoten) that they will be safe. They are way out with woods behind them and I have even heard that there was a family of bears seen near

so I am very worried.