Bringin Home the Chickens!
After many weekends of hard work out in the heat, Justin (and me! I helped some, but mostly Justin) finally finished our chicken coop & run (well almost, we still have some nesting boxes to put up inside the coop - but it's enough to bring the chickens home!). In the back corner of our yard, we have a ten stall mare motel that sits 7.5ft. from the fenceline. The 7.5ft. between the mare motel and the fence has always been overgrown with weeds, grass, and hornet nests. I thought it would be a great place to put our chicken run since chickens are great at keeping the ground clear of anything but dirt (they'll eat anything small and green, as well as just about anything that moves) and we wouldn't have to try and maintain this area anymore. The mare motel runs 60ft. long, so it is a great distance to give the chickens lots of space to run (and did I mention without the tall grass the hornets wouldn't have a place to nest?). We've got Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, ISA Red, and Americana chickens, a good fun mix!
Before we could close off this space, however, Justin realized he had another big project with the ditch that runs along the back of our property. The area where we were putting the chicken run is the only easy access to the ditch on that side, and the ditch was in need of serious repair, so Justin had to fix the ditch before putting the coop in. Justin had brought home a big 20ft. black pipe from a land development project several years ago, and it turned out to be a great solution to our ditch problem. We enclosed the ditch with this pipe and now we don't have to worry about maintaining it or the weeds anymore!
The most awesome thing about this project is that we made almost the entire coop with items that we already had (leftover wood from building the house, an older 8ft. x 3ft. metal shed that came with our property, leftover corrugated roof panels (mare motel maintenance stuff), etc. The only thing we had to buy was the plastic garden mesh to tie to the fence and the mare motel wall, and we got that on clearance for about $100 for about 25 rolls of mesh.
The shed is for the nesting boxes and to keep the food away from all the neighbor birds that love to come and steal chicken feed. Justin cut out windows on either side of the shed and put mesh over it to keep birds out and allow fresh air to circulate. Below is the roost for the birds to sleep on at night since birds like to sleep perched off the ground.
My neighbor Susie gave us a dog door that she wasn't using and it is perfect to allow the chickens in and out of the coop.
Below is a picture taken towards the end of the chicken run. The run measures 7.5ft by 60ft. Prior to this my chickens were living at my mom and dad's house in a 4x12 coop with no run. They are in heaven now!
We hope that our chickens can be one way we can teach our kids responsibility and to not be afraid of getting their hands dirty. We've told Brighton that these are his chickens. He is responsible for feeding them and collecting their eggs. We figure we might find a few families around or in the ward that might want fresh eggs every week and Brighton can earn $1-2 a dozen selling them. With 13 chickens we definitely won't be short on eggs...
Brighton trying to catch a chicken below. They are pretty wild since we never played with them while they were growing at my parents house (you should've seen us rounding them up!) We just went over their to feed and water them, but not play with them because that coop was stinky and dirty! Birds are just gross anyway...
After many weekends of hard work out in the heat, Justin (and me! I helped some, but mostly Justin) finally finished our chicken coop & run (well almost, we still have some nesting boxes to put up inside the coop - but it's enough to bring the chickens home!). In the back corner of our yard, we have a ten stall mare motel that sits 7.5ft. from the fenceline. The 7.5ft. between the mare motel and the fence has always been overgrown with weeds, grass, and hornet nests. I thought it would be a great place to put our chicken run since chickens are great at keeping the ground clear of anything but dirt (they'll eat anything small and green, as well as just about anything that moves) and we wouldn't have to try and maintain this area anymore. The mare motel runs 60ft. long, so it is a great distance to give the chickens lots of space to run (and did I mention without the tall grass the hornets wouldn't have a place to nest?). We've got Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, ISA Red, and Americana chickens, a good fun mix!
Before we could close off this space, however, Justin realized he had another big project with the ditch that runs along the back of our property. The area where we were putting the chicken run is the only easy access to the ditch on that side, and the ditch was in need of serious repair, so Justin had to fix the ditch before putting the coop in. Justin had brought home a big 20ft. black pipe from a land development project several years ago, and it turned out to be a great solution to our ditch problem. We enclosed the ditch with this pipe and now we don't have to worry about maintaining it or the weeds anymore!
The most awesome thing about this project is that we made almost the entire coop with items that we already had (leftover wood from building the house, an older 8ft. x 3ft. metal shed that came with our property, leftover corrugated roof panels (mare motel maintenance stuff), etc. The only thing we had to buy was the plastic garden mesh to tie to the fence and the mare motel wall, and we got that on clearance for about $100 for about 25 rolls of mesh.
The shed is for the nesting boxes and to keep the food away from all the neighbor birds that love to come and steal chicken feed. Justin cut out windows on either side of the shed and put mesh over it to keep birds out and allow fresh air to circulate. Below is the roost for the birds to sleep on at night since birds like to sleep perched off the ground.
My neighbor Susie gave us a dog door that she wasn't using and it is perfect to allow the chickens in and out of the coop.
Below is a picture taken towards the end of the chicken run. The run measures 7.5ft by 60ft. Prior to this my chickens were living at my mom and dad's house in a 4x12 coop with no run. They are in heaven now!
We hope that our chickens can be one way we can teach our kids responsibility and to not be afraid of getting their hands dirty. We've told Brighton that these are his chickens. He is responsible for feeding them and collecting their eggs. We figure we might find a few families around or in the ward that might want fresh eggs every week and Brighton can earn $1-2 a dozen selling them. With 13 chickens we definitely won't be short on eggs...
Brighton trying to catch a chicken below. They are pretty wild since we never played with them while they were growing at my parents house (you should've seen us rounding them up!) We just went over their to feed and water them, but not play with them because that coop was stinky and dirty! Birds are just gross anyway...
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