Our finished chicken castle... the Coop (with a capital "C" – thank you very much). Made out of scrap wood and spare parts, it was one of the least expensive projects we've ever tackled. Sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed when faced with animal housing. The time, expense, and the worry if it is actually right for your needs. We purchased several books which claimed to have animal housing plans. They did not. We felt cheated and discouraged. We could draw pictures of barns and chicken coops ourselves ... we decided to just wing it. Preflight was discouraging but our spirits recovered before landing.

Josh and I made several trips to the massive wood pile on Post and found old Stryker parts boxes (translation: an infantry fighting vehicle whose parts require commercial kitchen refrigerator-size wooden boxes). We had no idea what we were going to do with the thing but we knew we were going to base our coop around its use. That's how scrap projects work -- you must plan and build to your supplies instead of building to plans. Not for the novice builder ... nope. Good thing I married a pro, huh? Actually, he isn't a professional builder ... he's a Ranger with a lot of good old fashioned common sense who is not afraid of a little hard work. And what did I do? Why, I took pictures, supplied iced tea, and acted as the designer for both the interior and exterior.

While we will probably never be able to replicate this coop, our chickens love it and we are very proud of the silly thing. Everyone who comes to the house admires its functionality and good looks. The chickens love the roomy nesting boxes, doors along the back for ventilation and alternate exits (also for collecting eggs), and the log perch with its neat branch for the bantams.

This design would not work for folks in the far north to winter their birds but for a Southerner interested in raising a small backyard flock … it rocks like KISS (or the Charlie Daniels Band, Alabama, or – insert a totally kickin’ band here – ).

Please, tell us about your chickens, coop, or small-scale farming dreams. We want to know!  There's a bar of soap for a lucky reader!  Your comment is your entry!

Congratulations, Applie!  You won a tote bag commenting on the quark post!  Please contact us with your mailing address!

Watch the coop go up:

Scrap lumber made nesting boxes for laying hens.

Here the coop is on its back. Josh added side boards to support the nesting boxes.

Chicken wire on the bottom of the nesting boxes

We used an old parts container to make panels.

Sweet tea & GRIT Magazine: two items that make farm projects enjoyable!

The boxes and floor are lined made with chicken wire and stapled into a frame.

This is an easy solution to a perch ... a branch that fell doen in a storm -- trimmed to fit.

Doors to Nesting Boxes Easy to make and VERY useful!

A large door on both ends makes for easy cleaning and viewing.

We like the red barn look -- cheerful. Be warned: paint is not cheap. Painting turned out to be the most expensive part of the project.

Don't forget to stop in and visit the Razor Family Farms Web site. 

The evening began with Josh running around the house gathering the emergency kit, Nalgene bottle, and boots. I followed behind peppering him with questions about the child that had gone missing at the old Christmas tree farm down the road which we knew about because of a police roadblock Josh passed through en route to the house. We drove down to our friends’ house (because they were a quick jog to the area being searched). Upon pulling up, we saw a lady in the yard and I rolled down the window to ask if we could park at the house while helping with the search. She told us that the little girl had just been found curled up by the electric fence about 100 yards from her home. The child was fine and quickly returned to her parents. Relief washed over us, and we sat in the driveway chatting with our friends while a long line of cars belonging to volunteers streamed by.

This community is not the type to bring you a ham when they find out your grandmother died or even invite you over for dinner to welcome you when you've unpacked your last box. In fact, you may never see them unless they are riding a lawnmower alongside the road and you can just make them out through the red clay dustcloud. BUT if your child wanders from your sight or a powerline is down and has struck your vehicle or your house just burned down – in a few short moments, you will be surrounded by altruistic country folks with gentle south-Georgia drawls who heard about your situation and dropped everything in their lives to help you.

And that is exactly what happened that night.

Of course, while all of that was going on … one of our guineas was plotting escape. Maybe it was the flashing lights in the distance and Little Man (our wayward guinea fowl) thought the disco was in town.  He was certainly dressed for it.

After Josh finished eating, I went to close up the guinea house and discovered that Little Man had bedded down in the neighbor’s lot. Now if he had been up in a tree, we would have left him alone but this winged and flight-capable bird decided to abandon all logic and curl up a few yards from the fox den (certain death for a ground-dwelling guinea fowl). Josh brought out a blanket to throw over Little Man, and I held the flashlight beam in his eyes. So Little Man waited patiently for his daddy to scale the fence and come within one foot of him to launch himself deeper into the dark woods. Josh and I ran with flashlight beams darting this way and that as we tripped, leapt, and fell over fallen trees, kudzu, wild grapevine, tropical soda apple, and brush.

This is where it would have been nice to have my pick of superpowers. (Come on, like you never thought about it…) I’m thinking that x-ray vision, invisibility, and super-speed would have been just about perfect for guinea wrangling. What do you think?

We crashed around the front lot and attempted to herd our winged fugitive towards the guinea house where our three normal birds were snuggled on their branch with tiny white heads tucked into gray polka dot wings. Just as we rounded the corner of the house, the flood lights came on and away Little Man ran. It was close to midnight when Josh and I finally cornered Little Man between the house and backyard fence. Josh threw the blanket over our runaway, picked him up, and carried him to the guinea house. All was well on the Razor Farm. The best part? I got to cuddle up safe in the arms of my Superhero on the front porch after he’d saved the world. Golly, I love my husband.  And there we sat, watching the stars and thinking about the family of the little girl, our neighbors, and how very blessed were to be in our tiny corner of rural Georgia.