Chicken Coop Building: The Rise of the Mega-Coop

Reader Contribution by Cevan Castle
Published on July 31, 2009
1 / 10
2 / 10
3 / 10
4 / 10
5 / 10
6 / 10
7 / 10
8 / 10
9 / 10
10 / 10

There is an advertisement for Horizon Structures on the Community Chickens website that says, “Before the chicken OR the egg … You need a coop.” Acknowledging that the famous “which came first” puzzle may never be solved, I can assure you that Horizon Structures is on to something here. The coop properly DOES come first, else you may find yourself thinking unkind things while scraping the remains of the day from your bathtub.

The coop in Phil’s backyard did not get built over the Memorial Day weekend. Family outings and other projects took precedence for us both. The chicks remained in my bathroom for another week, after which time I retrieved a decommissioned puppy kennel from the attic and installed it in the living room. The birds moved to the front of the house. It was not really an imposition because they were still very small and relatively tidy creatures, and while I have relaxed attitudes towards housekeeping (yes, this is a euphemism), I am not good at sharing bathrooms. I made a cozy home of the kennel by layering generous amounts of straw over newspaper and adding a thick dowel across the cage for a roost. As long as it was cleaned every day, there was no problem with odor. The cats and the dog were overjoyed at the spectacle. It was during the chicks’ first two weeks of residence in the living room that we really got to know each other.

 I saw their first clumsy attempts at roosting, we watched television together (they fell asleep during The English Patient, but were delighted by a documentary on Calatrava’s Lyon-Satolas TGV station), they ate their first slugs and berries from my garden, they took tiny dust baths in my hands. I fell in love with our little chickens.

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-803-7096