Summer project - Chicken coop
20 Aug 2015 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wayfaringwordhackLast year, my mother-in-law started toying with the idea of getting a couple of egg-laying chickens. This summer, we helped her make that a reality.
First there was much cleaning of the site, a bit of land under some pine trees that was overrun by brambles, ivy, and pokeweed. The MIL and I were alone for this bit:
Look at those mounds of ivy runners. I had to use a weedwhacker to cut them because had we continued pulling, we would still be trying to get them all and would likely have uprooted the yard all the way to the house:
Future hen yard all cleaned up and staked out:
MIL and I then did a lot of research and planning and taking apart transport pallets. In the end, we didn't use the pallets. J's brother was able to get a lot of the wood for free. We took the work-in-progress photos with his camera, so I don't have any of that to show.
Putting in a stone path in hopes of keeping MIL's boots more or less muck free when she goes to inside the hen yard. She can collect the eggs without entering the enclosure:
Remember those 4.5 tons of gravel I talked about shifting? We used the extra to try to keep the perimeter of the enclosure from being overrun again by ivy:
The two ladies, Lily and Cerise (Cherry), named by Sprout because "Lily has a pointy comb like a lily and Cerise's comb is round."
All the workers:
I can take most of the credit for the building design. J's bro did the plans, all fancy like on his computer, and then built the coop. :P J did the fencing and gate (he went up the mountain and fetched wood for all the posts, etc, more money saved!).
Good practice for the Someday Farm...only our coop will be much bigger!
First there was much cleaning of the site, a bit of land under some pine trees that was overrun by brambles, ivy, and pokeweed. The MIL and I were alone for this bit:
Look at those mounds of ivy runners. I had to use a weedwhacker to cut them because had we continued pulling, we would still be trying to get them all and would likely have uprooted the yard all the way to the house:
Future hen yard all cleaned up and staked out:
MIL and I then did a lot of research and planning and taking apart transport pallets. In the end, we didn't use the pallets. J's brother was able to get a lot of the wood for free. We took the work-in-progress photos with his camera, so I don't have any of that to show.
Putting in a stone path in hopes of keeping MIL's boots more or less muck free when she goes to inside the hen yard. She can collect the eggs without entering the enclosure:
Remember those 4.5 tons of gravel I talked about shifting? We used the extra to try to keep the perimeter of the enclosure from being overrun again by ivy:
The two ladies, Lily and Cerise (Cherry), named by Sprout because "Lily has a pointy comb like a lily and Cerise's comb is round."
All the workers:
I can take most of the credit for the building design. J's bro did the plans, all fancy like on his computer, and then built the coop. :P J did the fencing and gate (he went up the mountain and fetched wood for all the posts, etc, more money saved!).
Good practice for the Someday Farm...only our coop will be much bigger!
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Date: 20 Aug 2015 11:36 am (UTC)I love that S saw Lily's comb and thought of a lily flower, too, and I love that the stones for MIL come with moss already growing on them :-)
As a PS, I didn't realize there was pokeweed in France!
As a PPS, news out of Egypt had me thinking of you guys and hoping J in particular was working nowhere near the newsworthy event.
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Date: 20 Aug 2015 01:32 pm (UTC)Thankfully, J was safe. The blast was in the north of Cairo. He works in Giza, near the Nile, which is "westbank" and further south than the trouble.
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Date: 20 Aug 2015 05:39 pm (UTC)And I love the picture of you all!
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Date: 20 Aug 2015 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Aug 2015 08:32 pm (UTC)Nice coop. :-) Lucky little hens!
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Date: 21 Aug 2015 07:54 am (UTC)I thought this would have been a good idea, too, but my MIL preferred to keep the stuff in her garage, next to the house.
This was a very good experience because it made us think about the things we'll want later down the road.
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Date: 21 Aug 2015 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2015 11:00 pm (UTC)I love theory, but nothing compares to practice. :D
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Date: 21 Aug 2015 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2015 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2015 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2015 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Aug 2015 08:39 pm (UTC)