The Chicken Coop (with Chickens)


The chicken coop already existed when we bought our new (to us) ranch. In order for us to have chickens, we needed to clean up the coop. Tammy, excited about the prospect of having our own chickens and our own eggs, took this project upon herself. cleaning the coop.  
filling up the wheelbarrow Tammy took several wheelbarrow loads of nicely composted chicken manure out to our garden (another project).  
  Looking at the roost As shown here, there is a very nice indoor roost for our soon to arrive chickens.
Then there was the addition of some nice new straw. And we added a feeder for laying mash, a hanging automatic water dish, and voila! A nice chicken coop. A nice view of the laying area It looks a lot easier than it was. Tammy worked for an entire day to get the coop all clean. And Joseph made sure everything was in good repair. All the windows and other openings had to be wired tight. We have owls, hawks and other predators who would think quite fondly of a nice raw chicken dinner.
a look at happy chickens Finally our chickens arrived. They came from Willa's daughter who had to move. We were very glad to get them. There are 12 chickens. We have 1 rooster, and 11 hens. The hens are mostly Leghorn/Rhode Island Red mix. But we also have an Americauna chicken (blue eggs), and a banty hen.
Currently we get around 7-9 eggs a day. So we've started selling the extra eggs.		  

Our flock came through the winter very well. They look very glossy and full feathered. Tammy is still in charge of cleaning the coop. Willa and Dree do most of the day to day care. Hopefully this spring we can allow some of Hens to lay and increase our flock by hatching our own chicks.

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