Backyard Chickens

We had talked about getting backyard chickens for some time now, and a few years ago, our county started to allow them in residential areas. Our daughter works at a farm and feed store and this year, she helped us make the jump to light speed in the realm of chickens. The store gets chickens and ducks every year to sell to local farms and residents. They had a very sickly little chick this year that she fell absolutely in love with, so she brought it home and thus started our experiment with backyard chickens. We opted to get a second chick so she would have a companion. They lived in a large Rubbermaid container in our guest bathroom tub. Sadly she was too sick and only lived a few days, so it was off to the store to get a companion for the other healthy chick.

We now have three chicks, as I understand that is how chicken math works. They have since grown and graduated from the bathroom to the backyard. We bought a metal coop/run for them and a smaller wooden coop with nesting boxes and we built them out to house the hens.

Moving Them Outside

The next step was to purchase a strong metal coop for them to reside in long-term. Our County allows for backyard hens once you submit drawings, get them inspected, and receive your permit. That part was actually very simple. We set up the coop in the backyard and got it ready for the girls.

The metal coop is 12×8 and wrapped in metal chicken wire on the sides. Because we live next to some woods, we wanted to protect the hens from wild predators, so we put a metal construction mesh (23 gauge galvanized mesh with 1/4″ holes) floor on the coop and we put the same mesh 3 feet up the sides. This mesh will be impossible for any predator to chew through. We used heavy zip ties every few inches to connect everything together. To reinforce the simple tarp roof and to add strength to it for better snow removal, we put sheets of corrugated plastic under the tarp material and extended them a foot over each side to help with rain runoff (the front is extended even further to make a cover for us when we are opening or securing the door to the coop). We then put zip ties every few feet to tie it all together.

We noticed that an animal could pry open the door to the coop, so we reinforced the door by using bungee straps to keep the door closed.

Now we had the metal coop ready, we placed it and we put 1x4s around the inside edge and filled it with clean dirt and diatomaceous earth, and a small sandbox for them to dirt bathe in. We built out the smaller “night-time” coop reinforced the floor with the construction mesh and added a lock to the top and the girls now have a safe and secure place to sleep at night (just in the event something penetrates the main coop). This coop gets saw dust/shavings material put in it. The girls get locked in this smaller coop at night, it has a roost for them as well. The main coop has 13′ of roost space created by natural tree branches.