After ten years of living in the city and moving...and moving...and moving...we bought a house in the country last spring.
So, of course, the next logical step is to get a chicken house.
We ordered our barn from Mast Mini Barns, which is an Amish-owned cottage industry in Holton, Michigan (northwest of Muskegon). They deliver all over Michigan, so if you're interested, check them out! The price was more than fair and the quality seems to be nicer than the barns you can get at Lowe's. http://www.minibarnsonline.com/ The barn was delivered to our house and put down in our yard exactly where we wanted it.
You won't find our exact design in their catalog, although it is based on a design called the "Dutch Barn." They were able to adjust the design and add other features that we wanted. We were also able to choose the paint colors and roofing colors.
I don't have an exact layout drawn up to share, but the dimensions are 10'x20' and there is a dividing wall down the middle so that the interior is actually two 10'x10' sections. If you are *really* interested, let me know and I'll take the tape measure out there and measure some other parts of the structure if you want the info.
We put down a gravel foundation, because pouring concrete would have meant raised property taxes for adding another "permanent" structure. No thanks!
The barn came on a trailer, along with another one headed to Detroit later in the day. The trailer had either hydraulic or pneumatic lifts on it that tipped the barn up and slid it off the trailer. It was really cool to watch how they unloaded it. They put wheels under one end of the barn and used a small forklift machine on the other end to pick it up and tow it around the yard.
Here it is in its final location. The two doors on the right lead to a storage room for our lawn equipment and garden tools. We were getting tired of having all that stuff in the garage along with our cars (especially in the winter). The door on the left is for the chicken house. I love the colors we picked out because it looks like an old-fashioned "little red barn."
This window and the pophole door face the south for light in the winter.
There is also a window on the west side of the chicken house because the wind here is usually from the west. That will be helpful for ventilation. (There is also a roof vent). Right now, there are only screens over the windows, but I am thinking of making a hinged frame with hardware cloth that will cover the windows from the inside and can swing open and shut so that I can open and close the windows, but can keep the chickens off the window ledges and the predators out. (I will post pics when I figure out how to build that...LOL).
View of the interior... (The pophole door opens from the inside -- this is how the Amish have theirs in their community north of here. The Amish gentleman who designed our barn has chickens, which made it very easy to talk about what I wanted for the chicken coop).
Here is a look at the pophole door when it is opened. Yup, that is metal there, bent on the bottom part of the opening to protect it from getting worn out (there is metal underneath the human doors, too). The little red knob holds the door shut at night. It fits very tightly in the opening.
A look inside... There is lots of interior work left to do to get it ready for the chickens.
The dividing wall... There is no vent between the two rooms, so I'm hoping that will keep any industrial odors out of the coop from our lawn tractor sitting on the other side.
Thanks for looking!
So, of course, the next logical step is to get a chicken house.
We ordered our barn from Mast Mini Barns, which is an Amish-owned cottage industry in Holton, Michigan (northwest of Muskegon). They deliver all over Michigan, so if you're interested, check them out! The price was more than fair and the quality seems to be nicer than the barns you can get at Lowe's. http://www.minibarnsonline.com/ The barn was delivered to our house and put down in our yard exactly where we wanted it.
You won't find our exact design in their catalog, although it is based on a design called the "Dutch Barn." They were able to adjust the design and add other features that we wanted. We were also able to choose the paint colors and roofing colors.
I don't have an exact layout drawn up to share, but the dimensions are 10'x20' and there is a dividing wall down the middle so that the interior is actually two 10'x10' sections. If you are *really* interested, let me know and I'll take the tape measure out there and measure some other parts of the structure if you want the info.
We put down a gravel foundation, because pouring concrete would have meant raised property taxes for adding another "permanent" structure. No thanks!
The barn came on a trailer, along with another one headed to Detroit later in the day. The trailer had either hydraulic or pneumatic lifts on it that tipped the barn up and slid it off the trailer. It was really cool to watch how they unloaded it. They put wheels under one end of the barn and used a small forklift machine on the other end to pick it up and tow it around the yard.
Here it is in its final location. The two doors on the right lead to a storage room for our lawn equipment and garden tools. We were getting tired of having all that stuff in the garage along with our cars (especially in the winter). The door on the left is for the chicken house. I love the colors we picked out because it looks like an old-fashioned "little red barn."
This window and the pophole door face the south for light in the winter.
There is also a window on the west side of the chicken house because the wind here is usually from the west. That will be helpful for ventilation. (There is also a roof vent). Right now, there are only screens over the windows, but I am thinking of making a hinged frame with hardware cloth that will cover the windows from the inside and can swing open and shut so that I can open and close the windows, but can keep the chickens off the window ledges and the predators out. (I will post pics when I figure out how to build that...LOL).
View of the interior... (The pophole door opens from the inside -- this is how the Amish have theirs in their community north of here. The Amish gentleman who designed our barn has chickens, which made it very easy to talk about what I wanted for the chicken coop).
Here is a look at the pophole door when it is opened. Yup, that is metal there, bent on the bottom part of the opening to protect it from getting worn out (there is metal underneath the human doors, too). The little red knob holds the door shut at night. It fits very tightly in the opening.
A look inside... There is lots of interior work left to do to get it ready for the chickens.
The dividing wall... There is no vent between the two rooms, so I'm hoping that will keep any industrial odors out of the coop from our lawn tractor sitting on the other side.
Thanks for looking!
