In light of the Juneau Chicken Summit
tomorrow, I thought I'd write about my chickens. I've had chickens for
four years and have gone through a few different set-ups for them.
The
first year (2009) I had 9 birds. I had started to build a coop out of
pallets when I got a call from my husband's uncle. He was on a
construction job out at the Silverbow Bakery and said he had to haul off
their old dumpster cover. It was a three-sided house-like structure
painted pastel yellow. It had a purple bagel painted on one side and
"Order here" (with an arrow) painted on the other. It had seen better
days. It got fork-lifted into the back of our truck, we drove into our
front yard, tied it off to a tree, and drove away. Where she landed she
lay, for it was too heavy and wobbly.
We lifted a
corner at a time and set bricks around the perimeter to keep the wood
from rotting on the soggy ground. I knocked out the rotted cross braces
and replaced them. I added a fourth wall, a second side to the roof, a
short person door, and a chicken door. In my naivety, I dropped the cash
and added ridgid foam insulation between the studs and sheathed the
inside. I had a gallon of electric yellow paint laying around (a
70's-themed kitchen gone bad), so I used it to brighten up the inside. Atlin wanted outside to be barn red, so
seven coats of paint later, it was red! I
added a couple of perches and a light, ran an extension cord and a gutter, built an
automatic feeder, and voila! It's about 3x8 feet and is
probably my favorite coop.
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| Automatic refilling feeder and the third generation of nest boxes (these finally worked) |
It was a great coup that got
used for one full year before I expanded my
flock and moved my chickens up the hill and gave their cozy quarters to
the turkeys. Eventually it became a rabbit coop, at which point the
fence was added. When the birds where there they were completely
free-ranging all the time. They knew where home was and kept themselves
safe. Most of them roosted in the huge spruces above the coop at night.
It sat empty for a while,
and now it's the annex chicken coop. I put three chickens in it so we
can enjoy watching our birds from the window again.
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| (stock photo--I wish I had a flat space like that!) |
Chickens can take a lot. The
second year I had chickens, I moved them up the hill near our
newly-built barn. I put them in....a Shelter Logic. I didn't even
realized until I got home that it was an ugly yellow one either. I wish I
had photos of the sorry scene, but you'll just have to believe me that
the chickens thrived in it, even through a cold winter. This is my proof
that chickens don't need insulated coops or heat lamps.
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| The barn |
In 2011, after a year of
milking goats, I passed them on and space opened up in the barn. I
turned the chicken tent into a composting tent and moved the girls into
the vacant stall. The stall is 3x8 feet. It worked well enough, but when
the sheep got passed on, a bigger spaced opened up, so they moved
again. They now resided in the main stall of the barn, which is 8x12
feet. It's a nice space for them, and it's easy to clean with a pitch
fork. They are fenced into a big (Juneau-big) "pasture," which is
divided into two sections. They fed in one section last year and they'll
feed on the other section this year. More on rotational grazing,
creating pastures, and foraging to come later....
The perched chickens. (on 2x2s)
Australorp in a crate--the chicken-preferred nest box
So the moral of the story is, work with what you have and it will probably work out!
So the moral of the story is, work with what you have and it will probably work out! 