The chickens have been living in this mess for quite a while now, but they don’t seem to mind living in a chicken construction zone.
Last summer, we built a 2nd chicken coop with a built in brooding area. Now, we have moved it facing the original coop, and are constructing a covered run for all the chickens.
Coop #2
We, with the help of lots of Wwoofers, built this coop with three separate sections. The first section is for brooding. The other two can be used to house young birds growing out, or to separate breeding groups.
Brooder area
The Brooder area is dedicated to raising chicks. We incubate them in the house, and they spend their first couple of days in a Crate Brooder in the living room.
The young chicks are moved to the top shelf brooding area when they are about 2 days old. They have a brooder plate there, as well as their food and water.
We have the middle area for another hatch group, or feed storage.
When they are 4-6 weeks old they move to the floor and get used to roosting.
Doors 2 and 3
When the are old enough to fend for themselves against the bigger chickens, they are given access to the run and moved into a grow out room.
These two rooms are just separated by chicken wire. Each of them has a pop door, roost bars and poop boards, Roll out Nest boxes, as well as food and water.
Roof for chicken Run
It may take us a while to get the roof completed for the chicken run. We have not yet figured up how to get the heavy 32 foot beam up on top of the 16 foot posts…
Give us some time, I’m sure we will figure it out! They won’t be in a chicken construction zone for ever.
