So it’s been a little more than a year since we got our first flock of chickens and had our contractor build the world’s most expensive chicken coop/run.
The chickens, unfortunately, have downsized. We started out with six. One died as a baby chick. Then two more died when they were fully grown. We think they might have gotten worms. We’re still trying to figure out this whole “keep the chickens alive” thing. I think we might be getting a little better, because we still have three.
Here’s a team photo. They’re hiding out in a corner of the backyard, probably because they’re embarrassed by all their molting. Henrietta, in particular, looks like she’s been ridden hard and put away wet. And yes, we do name our chickens: Henrietta, Pauline, and Freddie. And when I say, we, I mean Jodi.
Next week, we’re supposed to be getting three more chickens, so hold onto your butts for that.
So this is how the whole chicken coop/run thing started…
And here’s how it’s going…
We had our contractor build a whole new addition, to serve as a nursery/immigration center for new chickens that we get (and when I say we, I mean Jodi). The gutter guys are coming tomorrow to put the gutters back (chickens MUST have gutters, you understand).
We also added a new fence so that the chickens get that whole back section of the yard all to themselves, and so that Mabel and Gilbert no longer have a free run of all the chicken poop they can eat. No more Golden Corral for them.
We put in doggie doors so that the chickens can come and go throughout the day. We open up the doggie door first thing in the morning and close it up as dusk when the chickens go back inside (and when I say we, I mean me). Oh, and the doors to the coops are yellow to match the front door of our house, because that’s what the baby Jesus wanted us to do. Check out the fancy slideshow below.
We had our contractor run electric to a thingie under the main coop. And then I bought a big green cable box thingie online, cut a hole in it to fit around the plug-em-in thingie, and screwed it to the bottom of the coop.
“Why’d ya do that, Paul?”
Well, because of the electric heaters that I put up in each coop, with thingies that make ’em go on automatically when it gets down to 38 degrees. And for their electric water thingies, so that the water doesn’t freeze in the winter and the chickens don’t all die from thirst and worms. And so the chickens don’t peck at all the cables, thinking that they’re really long rubbery worms. I mean, this takes a lot of thought y’all!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the updated story of our grand chicken experiment.
As a bonus, here’s a picture of Mabel feeling a little sexy.
