Around the house in North Dakota...a wordless post

DIY shed to chicken coop

So you got your cute little chicks they are so fun and cuddly and they can live right in the house with you. Your children love playing with them and life is good.

But before you know it they will be getting feathers and looking a little funny. They will get a little stinky and you will start to feel frantic about the chicken coop.  

And then your husband starts working Saturdays and your dream pallet chicken coop goes away and you need something so much faster.

A chicken coop is basically a shed with chicken stuff inside. So if you buy a shed all you have to do is add the chicken stuffy stuff and your ready to go.

Essential chicken stuffy stuff

Chicken door and ramp

Nesting boxes

Roosts

Ventilation but no draft

Optional but awesome chicken stuffy stuff

Windows that open

Paint

Insulation

For us insulation was a must.  North Dakota winters can get cold!  Plus, I'm a wimp in the cold, so I think my animals are wimps too.  And after I spend all this money and time on these chickens I would hate for them to die because it got too cold on a blizzardy winter night.

 

Insulated is an easy step, just shove it between the framing.  Anyway you can.  It's a chicken coop, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Our shed came with a vent in it, lucky us! One less thing for us to do!

Next cover the insulation with wood of some kind.  Fancy mahogany, red cedar, hand carved works of art.  Doesn't matter just make sure it's all covered, you don't your chickens eating the insulation. We used plywood, cause it's slightly more cost effective than mahogany.

My next job was to paint paint paint.  I used deck paint because that stuff is strong! And it's meant to take a lot of weathering.  So it stands up well to chickens.  The plywood sure sucked up a lot of paint.  This 8x8 shed took nearly 3 gallons of paint! 

My handy hubby added the roosts...and I painted that too.

 Next he added the nesting boxes...and I painted them too.

I painted the inside a dark brown so it would make a darker spot for the hens to lay their eggs. Look the lid even lifts up for easy cleaning!

After my husband built the framing for the partition I painted that too.  Starting to get the theme? I painted every bit of wood on the inside to protect it from rotting away due to moisture.

We had some leftover laminate flooring from our downstairs bathroom so we added that to the chicken side.

 

Now we are getting close to done! We added chicken wire to the partition framing and a door.

We have a shelf above the chicken side for storing stuff.

Then quick! Lock your kids in!

The girls loved it and wanted to have a sleepover out there, they settled for spreading some straw around for the chickens.

Tada! Add food, water, and chickens!

Now go air out your garage where the chickens used to be...it stinks, or at least mine did!

 And now you can see we have awesome storage on the 'human' side of the coop. On the other side there is room for a few straw bales. And sometimes chickens use the human door too.

Our beautiful coop!

Time flys when you're watching chickens grow

This post has been a long time coming, we got our chicks back in March and somehow I haven't posted a single chicken related thing. Shame on me.

Aren't they just so cute! We ordered 35 day old chicks from efowl, I was very surprised when every single chicken came alive.  This was my first experience mailing chicks. One little gal did appear to have a few chicken seizures but she is happy and healthy now, maybe she was just really clumsy and would freak out when she fell? Who knows.

Chicks are way more fun then you would think. (Adult chickens too!) Sure they are cute and fluffy and as much as you'll have fun holding them you will have way more fun just watching them. These cute little guys had fun multiple times playing keep away with a wood chip.

Even your animals will get entertainment from these chicks.

We had our chickens in our house for the first month or so, March in North Dakota is cold! Even our heated garage is a bit too chilly for the little guys. It was also more fun for the girls and I, when could watch them whenever we wanted.

Aren't these guys the cutest?

But soon the day will come when you will be so excited to get them out of your house.  And soon after that, you will be so excited when they moved out of the garage and into the coop.  No more stinky animals in your space...and then you get ducks.

 

And when they move to the coop and are big and not quite as cute, they will still be lots of fun.  I find myself having 'reasons' to go to see the chickens several times a day. I never thought it would be so entertaining to watch lettuce get eaten one small peck at a time.

 

I'm really not sure what this guys problem with me is but he only has a problem with me.  Not my kids and not my husband.  But if I go out he seeks me out and tries to eat my entire foot and sometimes my calf too. I can't wait til he is big enough to eat. If he doesn't knock it off I'll be having myself a really small roasted chicken next week. He is mighty lucky he doesn't go after my kids.

Chickens are good for a lot more than just eggs and meat, they are also good entertainment. Both for the girls and I. I love our little farm on the prairie.