Well, so, here’s the thing. I have a whole post on farm updates that I’ve been working on for you–but it was feeling a little lame to write which is usually a sign that it’s going to be lame to read– and I’m up past midnight for the fourth day in a row this week, which, actually, kind of wrecks my life more than it used to when I was a young little insomniac… But I still wanted to give you guys a quick update on some things that have been going on around here. So. This isn’t a farm update (that’s coming soon, I swear) but it is a quick look at another thing I’ve been working on after midnight this week:
Those are not my chickens, obv…not a black feather to be seen among them. That flock of pullets belongs to one of my friends who has a farm down the street. He texted me on Monday night and said that he lost a chicken to a coyote the night before and was understandably worried the coyote (or other predator) would come back repeatedly and continue to break into the coop he had set up, which is both fair and likely. Keeping chickens is a pretty constant battle against things that want to eat them.
He also happens to live on farm with a lot of awesome barns on the property (I’m a little jealous) and one old shed that was previously used as a chicken coop. I suggested that we could “pretty quickly” build a coop similar to the one I built in my own barn that would keep his chickens all snugged up and safe. I have done this before, after all…
So here’s what we did:
I bolted a couple of 2x4s to the ground, and then built a “wall” with 3′ spaced studs to hang 1/2″ wire mesh on.
I also spent a fair amount of time balancing on a 2×4 rafter, doing things like knocking a decades worth of walnut casing and squirrel poop off of the loft…
Don’t worry. I’m an expert.
We also tacked up a ton of wire mesh…
And then, on Day 2 I built some nesting boxes, a roost, and finished off the wire. Then we lured the Nugs in to check it out…
One of the most fascinating things about chickens is that if you build the coop right, they intrinsically know that this is their space. Even after only being in there for a few minutes…
These girls took almost no convincing to hop up on the roost and settle in for the night, even while we were still tacking wire mesh up on the wall…
I can’t even tell you how much fun I have on projects like this. Maybe because I spent so much time stressing about and building my own coop, that it’s such a relief to be able to build a second one using all of that know-how in half the time.
Either way, the chickens are happy (and you know I have a soft-spot for Nugs), I got to use my power tools for a project that was both fun and farm related, and we can all get a good laugh out of the fact that I didn’t think I was going to be building any type of “coop” this year, and have already finished a duck house and this emergency chicken coop. The joke is definitely on me, but so is all of the fun… Can’t ask for more than that.
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