Summer project - Chicken coop
Last year, my mother-in-law started toying with the idea of getting a couple of egg-laying chickens. This summer, we helped her make that a reality.
First there was much cleaning of the site, a bit of land under some pine trees that was overrun by brambles, ivy, and pokeweed. The MIL and I were alone for this bit:
Look at those mounds of ivy runners. I had to use a weedwhacker to cut them because had we continued pulling, we would still be trying to get them all and would likely have uprooted the yard all the way to the house:
Future hen yard all cleaned up and staked out:
MIL and I then did a lot of research and planning and taking apart transport pallets. In the end, we didn't use the pallets. J's brother was able to get a lot of the wood for free. We took the work-in-progress photos with his camera, so I don't have any of that to show.
Putting in a stone path in hopes of keeping MIL's boots more or less muck free when she goes to inside the hen yard. She can collect the eggs without entering the enclosure:
Remember those 4.5 tons of gravel I talked about shifting? We used the extra to try to keep the perimeter of the enclosure from being overrun again by ivy:
The two ladies, Lily and Cerise (Cherry), named by Sprout because "Lily has a pointy comb like a lily and Cerise's comb is round."
All the workers:
I can take most of the credit for the building design. J's bro did the plans, all fancy like on his computer, and then built the coop. :P J did the fencing and gate (he went up the mountain and fetched wood for all the posts, etc, more money saved!).
Good practice for the Someday Farm...only our coop will be much bigger!
First there was much cleaning of the site, a bit of land under some pine trees that was overrun by brambles, ivy, and pokeweed. The MIL and I were alone for this bit:
Look at those mounds of ivy runners. I had to use a weedwhacker to cut them because had we continued pulling, we would still be trying to get them all and would likely have uprooted the yard all the way to the house:
Future hen yard all cleaned up and staked out:
MIL and I then did a lot of research and planning and taking apart transport pallets. In the end, we didn't use the pallets. J's brother was able to get a lot of the wood for free. We took the work-in-progress photos with his camera, so I don't have any of that to show.
Putting in a stone path in hopes of keeping MIL's boots more or less muck free when she goes to inside the hen yard. She can collect the eggs without entering the enclosure:
Remember those 4.5 tons of gravel I talked about shifting? We used the extra to try to keep the perimeter of the enclosure from being overrun again by ivy:
The two ladies, Lily and Cerise (Cherry), named by Sprout because "Lily has a pointy comb like a lily and Cerise's comb is round."
All the workers:
I can take most of the credit for the building design. J's bro did the plans, all fancy like on his computer, and then built the coop. :P J did the fencing and gate (he went up the mountain and fetched wood for all the posts, etc, more money saved!).
Good practice for the Someday Farm...only our coop will be much bigger!