On Saturday, it was raining. It was cold, and it was raining. Sigh... Brandon and I fortified ourselves with some hot food and the last episode of season three of Bored to Death, and made ourselves get out there in the cold rain and work on our new chicken coop. You know, like real farmers would. It doesn't take long wrestling a big spool of wire before it's not too cold anymore, despite the drizzle. And, since we finished the roof first, we sometimes had our heads out of the rain.
With hot dog sized weasels in mind, we fastened some wire with small holes to the bottom of the coop.
We re-purposed some of the old windows from the house, and made the top of both long walls glass. We only broke one window in this process, so I think we did pretty good!
I raided the scrap lumber pile and selected three boards to be the roost perches, and Brandon attached them to the cross pieces. I think there should be room for more than twenty chickens to roost here, should our flock grow.
While I worked on stapling the wire to the walls, below the windows, Brandon built a nest box to hang on the outside of the coop.
The nest box has a hinged lid, and is conveniently placed so that Brandon risks slicing his eyebrows off with the jagged metal roof upon approach. It's a good thing egg collection is one of my favorite chores!
Our last step, before we called it quits, was to cut down an old closet door we pulled from the house during the demolition, and attach it to the side of the coop on a frame made from salvaged trim boards. I like that bits of our house are making the chickens a house. After a hot shower (I miss my hot tub!) to chase away the chill, I traveled to my parents house with a plan to bring chickens to their new home the next day.
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