Chicken Coop Madness

I had every intention to write a post over the weekend with more ridiculously cute photos, but I was busy with other things, including some intense coop designing. I promise to post more photos soon, there are plenty to make you ooh and ahh, as we've been shooting them everyday since we got them. They're definitely getting bigger and starting to have more personality. Their wing and butt feathers (pin feathers) are coming in pretty quickly, and the feather pattern is already established on the golden laced wyandotte - I'll try to get a photo of this, but it's difficult to keep her still long enough to capture this. Regardless, it's pretty cool to see. They're growing so fast though, I'm anxious to get a move on with the coop.

After searching the internet for possible coop plans, we decided on a variation of the "playhouse coop," which was designed by a chicken keeper, the plans of which cost $30. Some fun examples and variations on the theme can be found at Backyard Chickens. Thinking that the design looked simple enough, I decided to take a shot at some drafting. This is where the "intense" coop designing part comes from, over a rainy day I spent close to 5 hours using Google Sketch Up to get the bare bones frame designed with the dimensions we were wanting. We decided to make the coop a little smaller than is suggested (about 3 Sq feet per bird instead of 4), so we could have a larger run area for them - something which different sources say is legit. Having never built anything this complicated, it's a fun process trying to figure out all the essential elements, and realizing what you're missing - like a door.

Tim is more experienced with construction, and he helped a ton with some fine tuning. The whole thing is going to be 4' w x 12' l x 6' h, with the coop being 3.5' x 4' x 4'. We were able to see a couple coops this weekend (more on this later), and it was really good for us too see how adaptable chickens are to a variety of spaces, so we're not so worried about everything being perfect. The chicken owners made it clear they're animals, not delicate little pets that need to be pampered. We technically broke ground on the coop this weekend and bought paving stones to serve as a foundation, so over the next few days we hope to have the stones all setup and level in preparation of some weekend building.

I promise more photos soon!