Tour de Coop

It's like the bicycle race but not quite.

Okay, it's nothing like that, I just thought it sounded clever.  The last post was getting excessively long so I figured I would make a second post that was just pictures and happy thoughts.

Behold, the coop from the inside out!

The interior door that will allow the chickens to enter the run or coop at their leisure during the day.  At night they will be locked up because they are delicious.

The door opens up to a ramp for the chickens.

The nesting boxes.  Somewhere in June or July I will start finding eggs in here!  I'm not really sure how the chickens know to lay eggs in here, but apparently they'll just do it.

The windows.  John used 1/4" acrylic because its really durable and has a less likely chance of accidental breakage.

The hardware cloth in the eaves of the coop allow for ventilation in all seasons without compromising the interior temperature.

Coop from the outside.  I love the fancy hinges on the people door, and you can really see the ramp.

With the run attached.  They can go in and out all day even if I'm not here and nothing can eat them.

Nesting boxes.  We used carabiners to secure all of the latches instead of locks.  They require thumbs to open, so as far as the animal kingdom is concerned, they're locks.

Looking into the coop from the nesting boxes. 

Other side of the coop with the run attached.

From the front of the coop.  We attached a people door to this as well (shown later).

All finished!  Just paint and trim to go yet.  We cleaned up all of our tools after this picture.

Roof sides and vent.  

Pine shavings for comfort!

Adding the chickens!!  They really enjoyed this part.  Not.

It was a bewildering time considering how large their brains are.  We didn't know how to explain what was happening.

Inspecting the door to the run with some trepidation.

It looks like they went down here on their own and are happy, but really I picked them all up and shoved them through the hole in the floor one by one.  Now they can't get back up.   If chickens could pout, that's what they'd be doing.

Happy times!

Gilbert's favorite show is always on.

The people door for the run so that I can access it if necessary.

Possibly the most fun color I will ever get to pick from Home Depot!  Licorice Stick!  We are going to add white trim to make it look like a barn, but this is it for now.

And there you have it.  Two months in the making and probably more money than we should have spent, but what a fun project!

I did a little math and to re"coop" our losses (sorry for the bad pun, it's genetic) on the coop and chicken set up in eggs alone it would take roughly 15 years.  At which point we will have cycled through two or three more batches of chickens.

Still worth it.