Chicken Coop Progress #4

Chicken Coop & Yard February 2016

As promised, here is the long-awaited update on finishing the chicken coop.  Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of pictures-especially of the chicken yard construction.  I think I must have been busy with harvesting from the garden and canning season by that point.  

May 2015- Chickens are approximately 6 weeks old here

We had quickly finished the front side of the chicken coop with the main door so that the chickens could be moved inside.  We set up a temporary fencing for them so they could explore while still being contained and protected.  

May 2015-  Finishing the siding on the other 3 sides of the coop

While the chickens were contained on one side of the coop, we were able to finish putting the siding on the other 3 sides.

May 2015- Digging the trench to bury the hardware cloth along the edge of the coop.

May 2015

Now that this side of the coop is finished and the hardware cloth attached to the bottom edge of the coop, the temporary fencing was moved to give the chicks a larger space in what would eventually become their large enclosed yard.

June 2015- Adding trim to finish off the corners

 June 2015

I can't believe I don't have any pictures from when the above photo was taken and when the below photo was taken.  I know I took some, but it must have been with my phone and I can't find the photos now.  We turned the pigeon coop and moved it over to form a corner of the chicken yard.  Then we started by constructing one "wall" at a time using 4x4 posts and 2x4 braces.  Once the walls were up, we stapled half inch hardware cloth around the bottom 2 feet and everything above was enclosed with chicken wire.

To support the chicken wire that creates the "ceiling", we ran heavy wire through screw eyes that crossed from each side and the corners.  Then we stretched the chicken wire across, stapled it to the wood frame and used heavy wire ties to secure the "seams".  It's held up pretty well for the past two years with only needing a few minor repairs due to the weight of snow accumulating (which thankfully, we don't get a lot of).    

December 2015

The pigeon lives with the chickens now instead of in her coop.  She really seems to enjoy having a lot more space and can actually fly inside the chicken yard.  Buster, the Flemish Giant rabbit was moved into the old pigeon coop.  He likes it outside and gets to run around the yard for a little while on nice days. He's drinking from his water bottle in the above photo.  

I have some pictures of the interior of the coop as well.  I'll share those in a following post.