A Lover of Chickens
I lost my first brood of chickens to a possum. He took ten but spared one…Clara. To raise these little creatures from day one and have them all disappear in one night was truly heartbreaking. We got one egg only.
When I moved to Austin and decided to build my own chicken coop, it was because I wasn’t going to let that ever happen to me again. I was going to build a fortress. No possum, no raccoon, no fox was ever going to get my chickens again.
You see, once you fall in love with a chicken, you can never go back.
My daughter, Izzy, and Jo Jo
Cleopatra
After much contemplation and lots of reading on chicken coop mechanics (it’s amazing how much there is to learn!), I decided the best way to do this was to use an existing shed in my backyard. It has a poured concrete foundation. One of the main ways predators can get to your chickens is by digging their way in. I decided to sacrifice 1/3 of my shed to create the indoor hen house, and then build an outdoor covered chicken run for them. Eventually they will roam around my yard and be “free range” hens, but I always want to have a way to let them be outside if I can’t be around to keep one eye on them. Streamlining the process is the part I spent the most time on:
I should be able to go outside in the wee (freezing) morning hours in my pj’s and let them out of the hen house.
I don’t want to have to crawl in/enter the coop to do this.
It should have cross ventilation to make it a place one might want to be inside of. OK – Chickens are stinky! Fine. I said it.
I started and stopped this project several times over many months, as I seriously debated buying a very stylish/sturdy chicken coop out in hill country. But I finally committed, and knowing I was finally going to use that screen door I built using reclaimed materials from my ranch or that hen hotel I built to house 12 birds, was all the more gratifying!
First came the outdoor coop.
And than I finished it off with a clear roof.
The inside was tough to frame (thanks to my mother-in-law’s genius!) but I finally got that door I built in.
It’s amazing how, when you get it all done, chickens just automatically know what to do. They come up and down the ramps you build, jump up on perches, and take it all in the way a new homeowner would when they get to do a first walk thru.
I couldn’t be happier with the way it all turned out. They come in at night. I close the little door and keep them safe. I can pop out in the morning and lift the door to let them out in a flash…
My hens are thriving and happy too!
Song of the day: Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles
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