The Coop for the Troop

We have our first “farm animals” out here.  Chickens.  We figured they were the easiest, would have the quickest “reward” (eggs), and would be a good start in our little venture.

We started with 6 and two days later, I added 2 more (they were just too cute to leave at the store).  We thought we’d have 8 hens, but, alas…we have one cock.

Hubby thought it would be easy to build a coop and enclosure.  “One weekend.” he said.  “It’ll be easy.” he said.  We looked at pre-built coops, we looked at plans, we looked at Pinterest.  Hubby had a plan…an epiphany, if you will.  I just went along for the ride.

That was at least four weeks ago.  Near as I can figure, we have put over 50 hours of work into the coop.  Hubby designed a beautiful chicken penthouse.  A chicken oasis, if you will.  It is beautiful, but holy hell was it a lot of work!

The first weekend, we got it all framed up.  That’s got to be the hardest part, right?

All framed up

Oh, no!  It had to be insulated, roofed, sided, painted, and vented.  Windows had to be built, nest boxes built and attached, a fence installed….  Holy crap, what a long list.  I began to wonder if the chickens would be paying rent to start paying for their poultry penthouse.

Hubby finished the coop and fence this past weekend while the kids and I were out of town.   Maybe I need to go out of town more often!  We moved the ladies (and gent) in.

The dog was PISSED!  She thought we were building her a dog house.

The first chicken checks it out.

For me??

The chickens and recess monitor

So much room!

We even have a happy cock!  He started crowing this morning…happy guy.

Happy cock

Not surprisingly, we still have some work to do.  We need to put permanent roosts in and re-do the nesting box lids.  But, we have happy chickens and are happy people.  The dogs are less happy about the situation.