Oh for the love of chickens --- Chicken coop finally 99.9% done!!

[Tala]

The coop is essentially DONE! Finally!
I have to lay down a wire skirt on the back side that is solid tin, otherwise it's finished.

Today I went up on the roof and caulked the former nail holes, so it should leak considerably less next time it comes a flood.
I also put up leftover tin along the base on 2 sides, to help keep rain from blowing in and raccoons from reaching in.
I added a piece of hardware cloth to protect the birds at the ends of the roost from raccoons reaching in.
We also adjusted the gate so that it now hangs and swings properly, and I added a lockable latch and padlock.

some interior pix I took with my new phone:

Three of the black sexlink babies are spending the night with the big birds, but safe from pecking inside a dog crate:

My new coop wasn't even finished before I had to start the SSS graveyard beside it. I figured beside the chicken coop was the appropriate place

Losing chicks will make you a little crazy, I think.

 

[Tala]

I received an email with a request for me to create a BYC page about my coop!
Some of the links in this post are broken now, but the pictures are all up on my BYC page about this coop here

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=27985-open-air-design-coop

 

[nature nut]

Been waiting to see your progress! Looks great and your coop page turned out very nice. The tin around the bottom was a good touch for protection from predators and drafts. I bet they appreciate it a lot when it gets breezy cool. Very creative nest box

Do you put veggies in your little suet holder? What did you mean by SSS graveyard?

 

[Tala]

Quote:
thanks!
I got the nest bucket idea from another BYCer!

I put suet blocks in the suet holder. The ones that are about $1 at WalMart. I usually get 'em one on payday, but I haven't been getting them since I started free ranging them. I mostly used it when I had the chicken tractor, and it's just in the big coop because I'm not giving many treats to the babies yet.

(SSS graveyard = predator graveyard)

 

[nature nut]

Ahhh... the predator graveyard! I started to joke with you about the predators that took your babies a while back being put into your predator graveyard but didn't want anybody to take me seriously. So lets just say may all their wheels fall off

I bought one of the suet holders a couple of months ago but never put anything in it until this week. I tried some broccoli and they loved it. It lasted them longer than just putting it in their treat pan too. Do yours like the suet cakes? Which ones of the flavors do you use? I tried to make mine some peanut butter treats with peanut butter, cornmeal, and some wheat grass powder. It looked just like chicken poop

but I tried it on them anyway. Let me tell you I got stinkeye X 6! They grabbed some up and then slung it right out shaking their beaks like eeewww! Then they gave me the: are you trying to poison us look. So it was back to raisins again.

 

[Tala]

Quote:
Mine like regular ole suet & bird seed blocks from WalMart. I sometimes get the peanut flavored ones. They're like ~$1.20 so I could afford them even when I didn't have a job.