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Laurene's Chicken House

Phase 1

Edited May 2005.

This page is OLD!

Please go to this page --> Baby Chicks <--- for the final update!

There will be no further updates on this topic.

Update May 17, 2001 - My baby chicks are on order! Ron let me order them as my Mother's Day present. With any luck they should be here May 23rd. I will post pictures of my baby chicks as soon as I get a chance. In the mean time, here are some pictures of grown chickens of the same breeds that I ordered. http://tinyzoo.50megs.com/Chickens/chickens.html

Okay, so it's the final stages, and not actually photographic evidence of the progress from start to finish... Sorry. This is how my chicken house looked on April 3, 2001. Ron got me some wire cutters and I got the screen up on the windows, and Ron helped me put the wire fencing over the "roof" of the coop (not pictured). I'm still waiting for some long boards to finish the door to the coop. Anyway... here is the show for those few people who are ACTUALLY interested in how I've been getting my exercise this pregnancy (yes, I really have built this MY SELF!) and how close I really am to finally getting chickens!
The entire hen house is built out of scrap lumber that had been discarded at construction sites. (Yes, I asked for permission from the workmen before taking their wood!) I had to buy nails, and the wire for the floor (that was the most expensive part) and I still have to buy a couple hinges for the egg door. So far though, I have only spent about $30 on the whole house - not including the hammer or jigsaw which I already owned. Not bad considering the pre-fab hen houses start at about $300 for a tiny one and go WAY up from there!!! It makes the cost of keeping chickens a lot lest prohibitive when you can find way to build their house for free, or nearly free. It also saves some perfectly good lumber from rotting in landfills! You just have to be somewhat flexible in your design, and willing to change your plans as you go along to make the pieces you have fit the gaps in your structure.
I've been wanting the birds for 10 years now. The past year and a half I've been researching the various breeds to find out which ones are more quiet and least likely to disturb the neighbors (yes, I live in town! No, I'm not allowed to have roosters). I've come up with quite a list if any of you get a "bug in your ear" to keep chickens in town and you know your city regulations will allow you to have them. I've listed them on this page: Baby Chicks If you have trouble viewing the Baby Chicks page, you're welcome to write to me.
-Laurene

This is the view as it is seen as you come around the corner of the house from our deck.

Full view of the front of the chicken house. The door for human entry is open here. There is a piece of wood lain on the floor so people can walk in there without bending the wire floor. That will be removed when the chickens move in so their droppings will fall through to the ground. Periodically I will be able to rake out the droppings and add them to a compost tumbler or trash barrel of some sort, along with the discarded straw from the nest boxes, and use these as mulch in the garden and around the trees. Supposed to be one of THE BEST fertilizers!
You can see the roll of tar-paper on the roof that I need to tack down if the sun will ever dry out the wood enough between rain showers for me to do that without risking trapping in moisture that will rot the wood twice as fast.

Here you can see the row of nest boxes (there are four) inside the hen house (and Zephan's toy Wolverine motorcycle), and get a better view of what I'm talking about with the wire floor. The house is basically built on a wooden frame, but no solid floor at all.

Ventilation window facing East. There will be wire screen over this to keep the chickens in, the cats out, and hopefully to prevent Zephan from climbing the wall and falling on his head - as soon as I locate some wire cutters for the fencing. There is another ventilation window very much like this one facing West. Not sure if this will be TOO much ventilation for them or not, but I have more plywood, so I can always cut a piece of wood to cover up one or both of the windows if I need to. There is a small gap along the rear ceiling as well (by default, not so much by intention), that may have to be dealt with in some way as well. Have to see....

This will be the access door to the nest boxes so I don't have to crawl around in the house to collect their eggs every day. It isn't completely cut out yet (thought the bracing is already nailed in place) because I haven't gotten the hinges for it yet.

Here you can kinda-sorta see the "coop" or "chicken yard" that I have double fenced (because I didn't think the existing cedar fencing was close enough together to be safe for the chickens) that the chickens will have free access to any time they want to go outside. In the picture you see the NW corner of the hen house on the left, the SE corner of the storage shed on the right, and the boards overhead will (hopefully) be the supports for the fencing I'm going to put over the top to keep cats out of the coop. I intend to build a human access door between the coop and the shed. This area will be TOTALLY fenced in. Weeds are growing back there now, and it doesn't get much sunlight (enough for bindweed to grow, but I think bindweed grows about everywhere!) but I am thinking about trying to plant some millet or maybe just some random birdseed mixture back there as plants for the chickens to forage on when they are scratching around in their cage.

This is the Chicken door, where the chickens can get out into their coop whenever they want. I still have to build their ramp. It's a little taller than it really needs to be, just kinda worked out this way.

This is the view of our back yard from the front of the chicken house. This is where the chickens will be let loose to catch bugs when I have time to stay out and watch them (and guard them from cats and kids). The yard is completely fenced. We have lots of bugs (seem to have a LOT of spiders this spring too, do chickens eat spiders?) so I think the birds will be very happy hunting insects! They should have fun here. Then I will shoo them back into their coop through the door (this is my grand plan anyway!) when I have to go back in the house. My husband is trying to convince me that we need a herding dog, like a Sheltie, to help me herd the chickens back into their pen when it is time to put them away... we will see what happens with that. He hasn't ever really wanted chickens anyway, he wants a dog.

This is the narrow strip of yard on the south-facing side of our house, the side closest to the chicken house. That is our espalier apple tree in the black pot there, and a Mary Lane Seedless Fig tree in the blue pot. And last years Christmas tree to the right still waiting to be hauled off to the Smurfit paper mill.

Well, that's the end of the tour folks! Check this page --> Baby Chicks <-- to see my baby chicks!

-Laurene

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