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Chickens and Chicken Coop, May Leave post 2

OK at this point we needed to switch gears, so far we had lost 3 of our 50 chickens from what I understand that is not a terrible amount considering they were mail order, what we quickly evident is that the small starter brooder we made was not going to last long they were growing so fast, as we did not have coop yet and meant another intermediate brooder.  Part of the scrap wood that was left with the house when we bought it was 2 boards about 10 feet long and roughly 18 inches or so high.  The chicks very much seems to like all the extra space, and they seemed to thank us by increasing their rate of growth!  It was very quickly evident that we would need to come up with a normal coop very quickly.
Out intermediate brooder when we first moved them! about 23 March

The previous owners did have a small coup but it would not fit our needs at all, they only had a couple chickens (4-5) compared to our 50 (well 47 now).  Their coup also had an overabundance of nesting boxes but no roosts, so we needed to come up with another idea, after a couple days of thinking we would need to build one from scratch, it occurred to me that we had an old shed that previously had only been used pretty much as old storage, it had a newer tin coat, but the rest of it was probably about 60 years old.  The catch is between the tin and the concrete floor it would probably keep predators out.  The catch was we would have to cut through that nice newer outer shell to put both a chicken door and a vent, plus we would be splitting it in half (chickens did not need that much room yet!) which meant building a wall.  The more I think about it however, we could have just made one big ass coup!!


So, with a lot of help from my brother in law harry and other members of the family we spend the next few days putting that together.  Initially I thought I would be able to transfer some of the nesting boxes from the other coup but that did not work out as they were pretty well secured, that cost me another day trying to remember enough carpentry skills to put the boxes together!  At the end, it turned out well, Harry did the openings and the vent and the ramps and put up most of the chicken wiring.  I did the nesting box, roosts and we all combined on the wall, including Lexi and Terri was a family effort.  Chris also helped a lot the last couple weeks between his classes. By the way, Harry is blind, has been since birth but the only thing I have not seen him be able to do yet is drive on a pubic highway (notice the qualifier is only about WHERE).  So, this is how this turned out, let me know what you think! For those with a lot of experience with chickens I would be great full for any advice! 

Here are some pictures for your consideration and comments, again, anyone with advice or see something I forgot let me know!  Right now the birds are a little less then 4 weeks old.

The separating wall, we did not have long enough 2x4s so made due!

The rosting area, the heat lamp will be disappearing replaced with a hanging container water soon

Their Ramp to get outside as well as the dusting box in the left hand corner

Roosting bars with nesting boxes in the back ground

The new vent, what I do need to figure is if we need to wire up the top area.  The building should be predator proof

The chicks first venture outside, not sure if they like it yet or not This was from the first couple days in January.




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