He's At It Again

Phil is at is again. Or I guess I should say he was at it again with another project. This time the project was in our backyard. When we bought our house, there was a really ugly dog run, as you can see below, that we knew we were never going to use. We thought about selling it, but knew it wouldn't be worth a whole lot. If any of you know Phil, it won't surprise you when he thought of the idea of getting chickens. 

That's right, chickens. Monday we decided we would give chickens a try and by Wednesday, Phil had built a chicken coop and bought 4 Rhode Island Reds chickens. The best part of building the coop was the price. Phil was able to use scrap wood and chicken wire that we already had, and got the pullets for free from a guy who was trying to get rid of a few. So all together we only spent $23 for everything!

The chicken coop can house up to 9 chickens if we decide we want to get more in the future. We also really liked the idea of putting the coop inside the dog run so chicken poop doesn't get all over our lawn.

Here is Phil showing off the finished project with all of it's bells and whistles. The large door is just for us, in case something inside needs to be cleaned or repaired. The chickens will use the ramp and small door, which can be shut at night during the winter when it's cold. On the right side you can another door that open. Behind this door are the nests where they will lay their eggs. 

Here is the close up of the nests. Nothing fancy. We still need to put some straw or something inside them before they start laying eggs. Our chickens are only 10 weeks old, so they won't lay any eggs until July.

This picture show the nests from the inside. The plank along the back is called the roost and that is where they sleep at night. There is another along the left side of the coop too.

And finally meet, Pearl (she's the biggest), Penny, Flo & Fiona. Right now they are a little bigger than a quail and have just started to get their adult feathers.