Sorority Row opens for the summer. (Pics)

[NewEnglandChick]

A few pictures of the new accommodations for everyone (well, almost everyone). I think my 4 adult hens were jealous at the new space that all the teens & babies were getting today!

Our coop is 10x10 (because any bigger and the town adds taxes to your property!) and was originally designed for our pigs that we had. When we got chickens we converted 10x5 of the back side for chickens - adding roosting bars & next boxes. This year, with all the chicks I have, DH needed to add a space for the teens when they got too big for their garage box. That came rather quick and today we built a 5x5 space for them inside the coop, next to the big girls. For less than 2 hours worth of work I think he did pretty good!

These pictures were taken today.
The Barred Rocks are 6 weeks old, the Wyandottes are 5.5 weeks old and the Buff Orpingtons are 2 weeks old.

Here's a pic when standing in the doorway of the "big" coop looking at the new teen coop. Welcome to Sorority Row!!

A view from above. Even though they were a little shell-shocked at the new digs, it didn't take long for them to start running around, finding food and enjoying all the space!

Gotta throw an "awkward teen photo" in there somewhere!! (I know she's thinking, "Thanks a lot Mom!!

)

I'm 98% sure (and have thought so for the last few weeks) that this little guy is a rooster! It took me awhile to figure out that I'd finally have to grab him to get a good picture of his face. He's too cute, super protective, absolutely gorgeous and I hope he really is a rooster - I think he would take good care of his ladies!

These are my babies - the BO girls. They got moved out of their nursery box and are in the adolescent box. I'll give them a few more weeks before they get to move out to Sorority Row.

They're already super friendly & settle right down in the palm of my hand when I pick them up.

So sweet!

Thanks for looking!

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Great set up and super cute chicks, even the teen one!

 

[AdrieeC]

All very nice! Is it a stand alone structure or did you build into an existing one?

 

[NewEnglandChick]

The teen coop is built within the original 10x10 structure. The adults have the back half of the building (about 10x5) and the teens now have approximately 5x5 - which leaves me enough space to store food, water buckets and maneauvering room (not easy at 7 months pregnant!!)

The adult coop is just on the other side of the left wall in the aerial view. Soon we'll add the babies in with the teens and eventually have a pop door between the two coops so that when winter comes there will be no question about enough space!

The adults already have a pop door to get into their run, though most of the time I leave their run open and they free range all day. The teens also have a pop door but mosquitos are heavy in this area so the run project was put on hold until a "less buggy day"!

When they're all big and the two coops are connected, they'll be able to go back & forth between the two coops and the two runs. But if I need to, I'll be able to close off the smaller section (the teen section) if someone needs isolation, gets broody, or if we add more chicks next year (okay, not really IF but WHEN).

I would take pictures of the rest of the coop, but I had 3 hens sitting on eggs who already weren't impressed that we were out during "laying" time with hammers, saws and whatnot and I didn't want to disturb them anymore than I had to. Also, the clean-up of the front of the coop wasn't done and who wants to see debris laying around?!

Thanks for the compliments! My husband's the handy one & is not a fan of my chickens so I was just so excited to get a little more space & have it come out so nicely!

 

[Serrin]

You're going to love having BO's! In my humble opinion, God never made a finer chicken than the Buff Orpington. Absolute sweethearts!

Love your set up too. I really need to do something similar just in case I get a wild feather up my hoohaa next spring and decide to incubate again!

The last time I dragged out the incubator, I ended up with 18 little hooligans that my big girls still aren't thrilled about!

A partition in the coop would have done wonders for the integration process.

 

[NewEnglandChick]

Quote:
I can't wait to put the BO babies with the rest of them and have quite a little colorful flock. I have to say that all my Wyandottes have sweet personalities too, so I'm excited about these two breeds together. The BR teens I've got are a little flighty right now so I'm hoping they'll settle down. My very first flock were all BRs and they would follow me all around the yard just to keep an eye on what I was doing so I know they CAN be extremely friendly. My husband thinks I'm crazy but I really want all my chickens to LIKE me...and not just for food & treats!!

The girls were really quite interested in all the peeping when they finally came in last night. They all sat on their roost looking over the half wall to see what all the commotion was about. I've got 3 RIR's and 1 BR and while the BR has always been friendly these RIR girls are a bit stand-off-ish...so I'm hoping that integration will go well, but at least I'll be able to keep them seperate longer if I need to.

We decided to make the whole door with chicken wire (instead of just the top half like we have on the adult coop) and it seems to be working nicely because the teens can see me walk in, walk around, get food and whatever so they're not jumpy at all. They actually all come running to the door and want to come out when I open it to see what I'm doing. My RIR girls aren't that friendly, so I was hoping that by making the doorway something the chicks could look out and see what was going on they'd get accustomed to me a lot easier...and I would say it's working already!