Chicken Coop Craziness

Ammon finally got the chance to work on our new chicken coop. We still had all of our chickens in our small little chick coop and the birds were starting to mutiny. Below is a picture of the space on which Ammon started the coop. We had a shed there and a wooden fence (see it leaning on the left there).

Ammon got the fence back up and then framed up the structure.

He also decided to build a larger feeder so we wouldn't have to feed the chickens twice a day.

Here are the nesting boxes he made to encourage them to lay eggs. We put old golf balls in there to show them where to lay and to discourage them from pecking at the eggs. So far its working!!

Apparently chickens are supposed to like sleeping high. Ammon built this roost for them... but they prefer to dig holes in the dirt. Silly birdies!!

Here is the finished coop. It is huge and Ammon got it done in less than a week!

I was so proud of him!!





Here's the interior of the coop before the roost and nesting boxes were put in. The rooster is standing in their old coop. Imagine eight chickens in that little spot.

Here's a photo of our first egg. It's much smaller than it looks in this photo. Our chickens started laying within a few days of moving into the coop. It was so EXCITING!!!

Here's a photo of our first dozen!!! It took about a week since only three of the chickens are currently laying. Lok at that little tiny little one on the right. Ammon thought it was a poop since it was so small and brown, but NO there was a yolk in it!

Well, we were so thrilled to have everything all organized with our new coop. The chickens really liked it and were starting to lay... then one of our chickens died. Dont know why. Kinda creepy. SO we were down to eight hens and a rooster. Then our rooster died, probably of heat stroke. Wasn't a terrible loss since we didn't want a rooster in the first place. Then, the next day, a friend of ours decided to move and she couldn't take her chickens with her. Ammon had three days to make our one coop into two. (Chickens will fight to the death if they are defending the territory of the flock so we couldn't put them together). SO now we have seventeen hens and get 6-8 eggs a day. It's so awesome to see all of the work finally bring fruit... or EGGS!!