Chickens - Part 2

So to update on our chickens...last time I posted about them they were still in our house and we were in the process of building them a coop in our backyard to keep them in. We have so many chicken stories to tell and for some reason I haven't taken any pictures of our chickies all grown up now. I will save that for another post..for now I will talk about building our chicken coop.

Like most things, I search the internet for some inexpensive way to build/make/create something and find these great ideas to which I then turn to my super handy husband and say "Isn't this neat? Can you make it for me?" And like a great husband he always agrees. And can I say he is amazingly handy. 

So my "great" idea was to make a chicken coop out of pallets which most businesses are trying to give away for free (I won't even go into all the other projects I want to make using pallets as well). The whole point of keeping the chickens was to raise them and collect their "free" eggs...not to spend hundreds of dollars on a chicken coop and make it the most expensive eggs we have ever eaten. So Jason started out with a stack full of pallets and disassembled them.

Then he constructed the frame of the coop using one whole pallet as the base. Then he used the disassembled ones to make the slatted sides.

  Then we (actually it was he) drug the super heavy structure up the hill, before it got too heavy to move, and built a foundation for it to rest on. He added more slats for the roof and an egg box on the side. At this point we had spent $0 for our coop. The rock foundation was from our yard from another project we were working on that required digging out part of our hillside to add a swing set.

 We added the "run" part of the coop and I decided I wanted a bright yellow and white coop so even in the winter our backyard would have a bit of color. At this point we paid for 3 bags of cement to stick the rocks in place, 3 locks and 4 hinges, chicken wire, a few extra shingles (the previous owners left a stack of them in our shed) and exterior paint.

 These are the kids putting the chickens in the coop for the first time. They were very encouraging. Poor chickens were scared to death being in such an open space.

And this is the final picture with two coats of paint on it. I believe that is Pillow at the door...Ansley named her because she is all white and looks like a fluffy pillow. So there you have it. We are now a chicken family.