Chickens!

We just recently were given 4 Americauna chickens (all hens) at no cost to us. Now we just need to find a place to put them (and I need learn how to care for them). They're chickens, how hard could it be? I ask because I've never in my life cared for a chicken prior to it going into my grocery cart at the store. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there experiencing this.

Like I said, we have a fairly small piece of property, with lots of kids, and available space is at a premium. So, It's time to get creative and try to make the space we do have available pull double duty.

What does it take to raise and care for a chicken? 
I'm not sure, but if you find out will you let me know? The basics (outside of food and water) are... shelter/protection with plenty of ventilation, a place to roost, a place to nest, and a place to scratch. A properly built shelter should take care of most of these.

Planning...
I started taking a look around at what I had to work with. A dilapidated garage on the edge of our property and a somewhat unusable space full of sticker bushes in between it and the property line. Since Liz needs ample room in the rest of the yard for her gardening ambitions, this spot will be perfect. I'll build the roosting and nesting spot inside the garage and the run can be outside. Perfect!

First we have to clear some space though.... One of the biggest hurdles we faced- other than the abundance of sticker bushes, was the soil. Previous owners of the property treated it like a junkyard and we were constantly pulling car parts out of the dirt. Windshields, CV Shafts, Master Cylinders, tires, ammunition, roofing material, tarps, etc... we've found it all. It's like our own personal Hanford waste facility!

So after we (by we- I mean Liz) pulled out the sticker bushes, I got busy cleaning out the inside of the garage and building a sifter for the outside dirt (which by the way has come in very handy since then).

Once all of that was cleaned up and cleaned out, it was time for the coop build.

The Build...

This was a little scary... I actually bought some pretty elaborate plans, but since I was working on a pretty meager budget (as close to free as possible), I decided to forgo the plans and create something with all of my scrap wood-which I had a lot of. There was various sizes and thicknesses of plywood and plenty of random 2x4's cut to different lengths. None of which were very long.

When it comes to the build, I knew there were a few design features that it needed:

Roosting poles - This is where the chickens sleep.
Nesting boxes - Where they lay those delicious eggs.

Since I knew I was getting 4 hens, I decided to make two nesting boxes and try to squeeze in two roosting poles. It took a lot of trial an error, but I got it done.... I even added a little flood light to keep them warm and add a little bit of light to the inside.






CHICKENS!
We finally got them on Super Bowl Sunday. Great timing, I know.... Needless to say, they were quite skittish and were really unsure of their new surroundings. You can see in the picture how they are all trying to burrow under each other.

They also probed their new enclosure and found every weakness it had. I think I spent the majority of the third quarter chasing chickens through my neighbors yard...










It was a bit of a rough start, but they started getting the hang of it. 

After about a week and half we got our first eggs! 

After about a month they are now quite comfortable and have started to venture far from their enclosure. I can occasionally get one of them to eat out of my hand. The others, well they're a little CHICKEN.