Articles by FrontPorchIndiana

Construction Begins The first phase of any construction project includes gathering materials. In our case, we also needed to make some repairs to the doors and windows we found. All the old glazing needed replaced along with a few pieces of glass (oops). Since this type of work can be done...

The Chicken Garden by Mike & Christine One of the greatest benefits to raising chickens is the abundance of fertilizer they so freely provide while eating weeds and bugs. So it only makes sense that chickens and gardens should go together. Or should they? Follow along through the trials and...

To give the kids a place to play while we built their permanent run we constructed this lightweight movable run. Once the run construction is finished it will attach to a chicken hutch that we'll use as a hospital pen or bachelor pad. The permanent run will be 14' x 28' x 6'. We used landscape...

Since we live in Indiana, and the winters here can last half the year, we decided to install insulation. With it, we believe a lot of frozen water founts can be avoided. We also installed stick on vinyl tile on the floor for easy cleaning. ***UPDATE six months later, the tiles were a bad idea...

During the coop building process and the months following several things came up which we will call "lessons learned." BAD IDEAS 1. Do NOT use stick-on vinyl tiles! The chickens will scratch them up and tear them apart in no time. A solid sheet of vinyl would be an excellent choice though...