Nothing but the best for our birds

We have a chicken coop! Or most of one, anyway. We started work mid-morning Saturday when our construction crew arrived: Mike's parents (Jeff and Debbie) and twin brothers (Todd and Parker) and their friend (David). I still don't know how the twins suckered their friend into coming along to help, but he was a great sport and knew his way around a construction project, so he was welcome.

Here's Parker, David, and Jeff getting the frame in place. I would like to note that I'm not doing the work in any of these pictures because, having studied and edited the plans, I was job foreman and got to spend most of the day measuring and cutting wood and telling other people how to do the hard labor.

More supporting beams were run underneath, and then the plywood floor was meticulously measured and cut and laid into place. 

The coop is based on rough plans Mike found online, and it was at about this early point that the instructions kind of tapered out and got vague, so we pretty winged it from here on out. Figuring out the roof pitch and how to attach the rafters was a bit challenging, but with Jeff and Debbie's building wisdom it came together nicely. By this time it was also clear what a time saver a nail gun is. If Jeff hadn't brought two, this much alone probably would have taken all day.

As shown above, the coop is not a comfortable height for a person to walk around in. But since the nest boxes will be accessible from the outside, we won't need to spend much time inside there. And keeping the structure small will help the chickens stay warmer in winter.

Plywood boards topped the rafters, and then roofing felt and shingles came on. Although it might have been nice to have a hand in every task, I was thrilled not to have to handle shingles at any point during the day. Jeff and David spend 3 or 4 hours on the roof, Debbie and I improvised a door frame and wood paneling, and Mike somehow persuaded Todd and Parker to take a couple hours and go help him dig a raised bed in the garden. 

When Mike returned, he and Todd built an adorable front door for the coop, and we installed it and completed all the paneling on the front and back sides (including a little cutout in back for the chicken door). And at this point it was 9 pm and we hadn't had dinner, so we packed it up and went to Subway. And then I slept for 12 hours.

The open spaces on the sides will take me and Mike a fair amount of work to finish. The top opening on either side will be a very wide shutter that opens up (with screen underneath) for light and ventilation when the weather allows. The bottom opening will be filled with nest boxes on one side and with a storage area on the other side. We also need to build a series of bars for the birds to roost on at night, fill all the cracks between boards with insulation or sealer of some kind, and paint the exterior. We'd also like to cover the floor with cheap linoleum to help extend its life. As the checkout woman at Lowe's said when she rang up most of our materials Friday, these chickens had better lay a lot of eggs!