Today I had time to work on getting the chicken coop built.  I have decided to put the coop in the shop.  This will allow me to watch them closely, have them in a safe enclosed area that is close to the pastures, and wouldn’t take too much work to build.

This is what we had to start with, 3 wall, uncovered windows, and a wood floor.

It took a little cleaning and moving around of some items, but I was able to get everything moved around.  What I needed to do was to build a wall with a door in it to close off the area.  This wall will also have the nests in it.  With the nests on this wall, we’ll be able to collect the eggs without going in the coop, and that should make it a little easier to collect the eggs.  Last summer we took down part of the fence and replaced it with a woven wire fence. Here you can see where we replaced the fence, and you can see the type of wood that the fence was:

It was made of 2×4’s.  I save the old fence, and took it apart this week and set it inside to dry.  I was able to use this wood to make the wall as well as a 2×4 we had left over from making the barn in the back pasture.  Also, there was an old coop that was just in a bad place but it had a nice door on it that I was able to salvage and use as the door.  It moved over perfectly.  So all in all, the wall has cost us nothing so far to make!!  I like that cost!! 

I put down a footer and a header.  Framed in the door.  I will be using old 5 gallon buckets for next boxes (all free so far!!) and I was also able to build the framework for the nest boxes as well.  As you can see below, I am not completely finished, but it is coming along.

Door in and framed:

Where the nest boxes will go.

I also built one more shelf above this row of nests for a 2nd row.  I’m planning on around 8 nest boxes.

I was also able to take the lights from our garage in Eugene and use one in with the chickens.  It has just been sitting in our garage here for a while, so it will be nice to use.  I will put this light on a timer once the chickens start to lay to give them constant light year round.  Hopefully this will help them to lay better in the winter.  If I can give them 14 or so hours of light a day, they might do better. 

UPDATE ON CHICKS!!

A quick update on the chicks, they are doing great and getting BIG!!!  They seem to be enjoying being out in the larger brooder.  It will be nice to move them over in to the coop in a couple of weeks and then to let them out in to the yard for the first time.

They are enjoying the roost a lot as well.  I turned the rungs on the roost so the larger side are now flat.  They seem to be enjoying this more now.  They can now sit on it without needing to balance much.

Also, this might be my last post on the Chicken Blog!  I think I’ve decided that it is too much to have 2 blogs.  I’m going to move all my chicken blogs back over the the Silk Creek Alpacas Blog.  All my next blogs, chicken/alpaca/farm/family/etc. related, will be on the Silk Creek Alpacas Blog.

Today I had some time after dropping the girls off at the church to start work on the coop.  The first thing I needed to get done was build the brooder.  Our older chicks were getting too big for the brooder we had in the laundry room, so it was time to get them out.  Like I showed you yesterday, there was already a small area that had been used for probably baby pigs or sheep.  It had hay in it when we moved in, and was just a small area about 3.5′ x 5′.  This would be a good size for older chicks.

The first thing I had to do was to enclose it.  You don’t want any drafts on young chickens.  I added 1/4″ plywood to the bottom of the gate and side wall.  This would keep the drafts out.  I then finished it out by adding hardware cloth to the top so the chicks couldn’t fly up and roost on higher rungs.  I then decided that they would need a roost so I found some wood that would work well and have a 2 rung roost.  I screwed/nailed it to the wall so they couldn’t move it around.

We had to run to Eugene today to pick-up some stuff so we stopped off at Wilco and I picked up a larger feeder and larger water that we will use.  This will help so I don’t have to fill their feed daily!  Water I’ll still clean daily, but it should last longer if needed.  I got a 3 gallon waterer and a 12 lb feeder.  I hung the feeder from the ceiling and the waterer I just set down on some wood.

I think took out the chicks heat lamp, and hung it from the ceiling as well from a chain.  I have it a little closer to the ground than I did inside, but this will give them a nice warm area if needed.  So here’s some pictures once I got the chicks in there.

I put some wood on top of the feeder because I didn’t want them to jump up inside there. I’ll probably cut it down some more once I move my skill saw out to the shop.

They sure like the roosts.  None of them have jumped up on the top on yet, it might be a little too high right now, but the’ll get there.

Just got back in from checking them out, and they were all laying around the roost and enjoying the heat from the lamp.  So I think they like all the extra area!!