Cute Chicken Coop

The new coop. . . complete with fake plants.  The chickens ate the real flowers!

 

I have chickens.  I actually should say that Little Papi has chickens.  We got them in March when they were tiny and fuzzy.  Now they are huge and beautiful.  Right now they are laying 4-6 eggs a day, but the best part is just having them around.  It makes me feel more grounded and self-reliant.  In a true emergency, we'd still have eggs.  And a stew if we got truly desperate.

Chickens are pretty hardy characters and are pretty easy to care for.  They need a coop or some shelter with roosts to keep them safe from predators at night.  They need laying boxes or they will lay eggs wherever THEY choose.  They need food, water, and room to scratch. 

This is the coop and the run. We keep food in one can and treats/supplies in the other.

 

There was no way that I was going to have some ugly ramshackle coop in my backyard.  I buit a smallish coop out of a large cabinet and the girls have lived in that for four months, but they needed something larger for winter.  I've looked at plans and made decisions about what I wanted, but I just never got around to building the coop. Last week I bought one!  PDog and his buddy, the WingMan brought it home for me  and the BandMan helped me paint and shingle it.  If you undertake a project like this, I strongly recommend that you own a pneumatic nailer/stapler.  It is a life saver!

A little ornamentation makes all the difference.  The wrought iron rooster on the coop was purchased at Hobby Lobby and then I used satin white Valspar paint to give it a happier look.  I love how it spruces up the coop and everyone exclaims about how cute it is.  The chicken sign on the run started with a piece of sheet metal that had holes in all four corners and the sides rolled over.  I bought it at Wooden Connections in American Fork.  I used paper to make the circle stencil and used Glossy Red Valspar spray paint to make the circle.  I used a chicken image that I found online, enlarged it, printed it in sections, taped it together, and cut it out to make the chicken stencil.  That was painted with Glossy Black spray paint by Valspar.  I used stainless steel zip ties that I found at WalMart to attach it to the fence becaust the sharp edges of the holes would have cut right through the plastic zip ties. 

All in al I highly recommend keeping chickens.  They are hilarious and worthwhile.  And my 14 Y.O. has a great sense of accomplishment from taking care of HIS chickens and selling the extra eggs to neighbors.

  The eggs.  Rinsed and labeled with the day they were laid.