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| Kirsten's Chickens | |
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All 7 Girls: September 2007. We are currently collecting 5-6 eggs per day. |
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Gilda and Edith - Our 2 Buff Orpingtons at 5 days old. |
The first chicks! 5 days old here in late March, 2007! |
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The chickens spent the first 5 weeks of their life upstairs in our guest room. They started in a plywood box, then moved to the dog crate. Pictured here are my son, Samuel and his friend, Wendy, (both age 2) visiting the chickens. Samuel and baby Little. |
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| This is all 8 of our chickens, squashing themselves into their 2 nest boxes. They slept like this all night for the first 2 weeks after they moved outside. Pictured in the front row from left to right are: Hickety Pickety (Black Sex Link), Lola (Americauna), Barbara (Americauna), Edith (Buff Orpington), Gilda (Buff Orpington) and Ryell (Barred Plymouth Rock). Hard to see, but in the back row are: Claribel (Rhode Island Red) and Little (Americauna). | |
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This is the unfinished coop. It doesn't have the wire in the vents, ismissing the roof and the painting is unfinished. You can see the bar that will hold the roosts, and the roosts on the sawhorses on the right hand side of the photo. My son, Samuel, and my mom, Ruth, are pictured here. |
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My son loved exploring the unfinished coop. These photos are taken through the side clean out doors. You can see the nest boxes and get a sense of the size. Samuel is 3' tall. |
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| This is the completed setup. The chicken yard adjoins our shed on the lower side of our yard. It is totally enclosed with wire on the sides and the roof. There is a 6' tall x 3' wide door that allows comfortable access for us, along with our wheelbarrow for cleaning. The nestbox protrudes outside of the yard so that we can check for eggs without going inside. The roof of the coop is made of 1/2 galvanized metal and 1/2 tinted plastic (to allow more light). Food and water are kept under the coop. | |
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These two views give a sense of the nest box space and the side clean out doors. |
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| Inside, the birds are now roosting at night. Barbara and Little came inside to see what was going on. These photos are taken through the clean out doors. The roosts are removable, as is the long bar the spans the opening here. They just pop out for cleaning (Thanks for this great design innovation, Tony!). | |
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| This is how the chickens enter the coop. This is also the high side. The coop roof slants towards the exterior of the yard, allowing rain water to run off. | This side provides more air, and is covered to protect against rain. |
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| The door of the coop has lots of latches. Two are placed down low for stability, and to give my 2 year old son a way to participate in opening the door. A maple syrup jug weight closes the door behind you. | This gives a sense of the "roof" of chicken wire; it is supported by the 1x2's and the bamboo. The "walls" extend down into the ground 3-5" (the depth varies with the slope). Much of the perimeter ditch was filled in with rocks and sand as well as soil to allow for drainage. |
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| THANK YOUS!: This chicken coop and yard - and chicken names - would not have been possible without the help of many friends and family. Special thanks to Tony Hoilman for major construction and design help. Thanks to Julie and David Plotner for sharing their yard, tools and time with us as we jointly built our chicken coops, and also for great ideas and morale support. Thanks to my wonderful husband, Chris, for finishing the coop and completing the yard. Thanks to my dad for building the door of the chicken yard and helping with the yard building. Thanks to Chris's dad, Keith Horton, for help with yard building (and lots of wire stretching!) Thanks to Amy Armbruster, Kathleen Horton, Ruth Reberg, Koren and Jimmy Morgan, Samuel Horton and Chris for naming chickens. Thanks to my mom, Ruth, Chris's mom, Maria,and our sisters, Kathleen and Koren for providing childcare during various days of coop and yard construction. Thanks to the Bradleys for chicken watching when we go out of town. | |