Update on the Coop and Chickens

 I know it's been a week or two, but I'm proud to say that I have plenty to share with all of you! We've been working on the chicken coop and hen house for some time now (and when I say we, I mean Aaron...for the most part) and I'm pleased to announce that we finally got the coop moved outside, shingled, and covered with chicken wire this past weekend. Yippee!

Here's Aaron working on the frame of the chicken coop/hen house.

After finishing the frame, he added the elevated floor of the hen house.

Haha...I just HAD to post this picture. I think Aaron's expression is hilarious! We decided to take a picture inside of the finished hen house. Yes...we climbed in through the small chicken door and then made fun of each other as we tried to get back out again...

Aaron was much more "graceful" at exiting the coop...me - not so much.

Once the coop was built, Aaron added wheels and we moved it across our backyard on plywood sheets. The coop was sooooo heavy that by the time we had gotten it into place, the wheels had been ruined! Here, Aaron is adding shingles to the roof.

 (The "orangish" lighting is due to the setting sun.)

The next couple of photos are of the coop as it now stands. Due to declining weather conditions and the incoming Rhode Island Red chicks (that we're picking up tomorrow), we've had to quickly put up chicken wire. When the weather warms up a bit, we'll take the chicken wire down and paint the coop! I've bought a creamy yellow and barn red to do the job...now it's just a waiting game for some nicer weather!

Here you can see the full coop run, the egg-laying boxes, and the ramp with pegs for the chicks to enter and exit their hen house.

Here's the coop with the door closed. Aaron even attached a nice latch to keep the door closed.

Here's the area beneath the hen house.

And here's a closer view of the egg laying box and hen house ramp.

The egg laying box top has hinges for us to easily collect eggs. Aaron also took the time to partition the hen house extension into two egg-laying boxes. (I'm aware that the mini-dowel setup seen in this picture is much too small for our chickens to perch on. The two new, larger dowel perches are still in the making.) Aaron has also been working on getting power to the coop, so that we can hang a heat lamp. All I can say is that these are going to be some SPOILED chickens! :)

Here's the coop from the outside.

I made Aaron pose next to his handy-work. He's quite modest about how much time and effort he's put into this project, but I'm very thankful that I'm married to a man who knows how to build and fix things! 

And for the finale...here's some new pictures of the chicks! These were taken about a week and a half ago, but they've changed even more since then.

Gweny (L) and Bobba (R) have molted most of their baby feathers and have grown quite rapidly. We've been slowly introducing them to being outside and they love it! Hopefully tonight they will sleep in their new hen house!

After looking through my blog posts, I realized that I hadn't posted many pictures of our house. With school drawing to a close (and therefore substitute teaching jobs too), I'm hoping to post soon about the progress we've made with the inside of our home. For now, here's a view from the outside. (FYI: The three holes in the front yard are for incoming trees.)

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. There are definitely a lot of pictures to roam through! I'll be back soon for a crafty post.