A little more about this later, but I’ve promised pics of our chicken coop for a while now — this is the run being built, where the girls spend most of their day when they’re not sleeping or laying. We have a (metal) screen door at the end so it’s easy for us to enter. The slope of the tin roof keeps water away
It’s surrounded by concrete patio stones so predators can’t dig underneath to get in.
Their “house” is a play-pretend house like one would have in a backyard. We outfitted it with nests for egg-laying and dowels running the length for them to sleep on.
et viola! This was built in 2014 and has done so, so, so well. This year, we reinforced the bottom of the playhouse with plywood for protection against coyotes and raccoons, which we have since there are woods behind our home.
This is the late, great Nelle Harper Lee, who I named because she really did enjoy her privacy. She was an Americauna and layed beautiful blue/green eggs.
Her sisters are Tallulah and Zelda, who are 8 years old now, old for a bantam hen (their life expectancy is 4-8 years). Many sources will discuss how bantams only lay for 2-3 years, but our girls layed for over six years. Even now, Zelda will lay the occasional egg! I know it’s her because everyone else either lays brown, peach, or blue/green eggs, and hers are beautiful white and more oblong.
We use sand as the floor media as it dries so quickly and we almost never have to do anything to it. No smell. It’s great. Any questions, just email me!