So on my journey of self-sufficiency and as many of you have seen, I last post was about my chicken brooder.   I’ve been working on my chicken coop for quite a while now.   I looked all over Pinterest, did a whole bunch of research, I read books and I think I watched every video related to Poly-Face farms and their chickens.

More than anything I wanted the chickens have a nice place to live. I don’t know why I thought that, the chickens probably don’t care but, I did. I also wanted the chicken coop to be a esthetically pleasing as my neighbors would definitely see it I didn’t want them to think,” that chicken coop looks like crap.” And did my usual style I wanted it to be sort of rustic, you be capable of holding up for many, many years, and I wanted to integrate some technology into it.

After a whole bunch of contemplation and looking at various different coops, I decided on my version of a tractor coop. I started off with and 8’ x 4’ x 6’ trailer and I replaced all of the planks on the floor with new 2” x 4” redwood. I created walls that were standard 8 foot tall by about 6 foot long on either side and just under 4 foot wide at each end. Once the walls were up I she did everything in half-inch plywood and wrapped a few sheets of Tyvec waterproofing around. To give it a nice finish look, I used to some 1” x 6” tongue and groove redwood siding on the exterior at all the way around.   The doors and windows were very graciously given to me by a friend of mine who collect such old things and was willing to part with them. I’ll so I have another friend of mine who happens to be a roofer and for a small fee he agreed to come over and finish the roof for me. And installed an automatic door which opens at about 6:15 AM and closes at about 6:15 PM each day.   I built for roosting boxes out of the leftover plywood that I had and used branches from the yard as perches.

I think it turned out fantastically well. It’s a little top-heavy possibly as when I told with my tractor at sort of rocks back and forth and occasionally I worry about it in the wind.   But, I think that we will work out just fine.

I’m grateful to www.the-chicken-chick.com as her ideas are fantastic and I’ve incorporated many of her suggesti

ons into how I raise my own chickens.

I appreciate you reading my post and hope it was helpful to you. As always I’ll encourage you to take baby steps in your self-sufficiency.   This really is a journey and truly empowering to be able to determine for yourself how you’re going to live, the food that you and your family are going to eat take back control of your life one step at a time.

The finishing touches from my kiddo.  He wanted to make sure the chickens slept well.  His rendition of a starry night 😉