New Chicken House

A story that began when Alan was nearly struck by lightning and bent the barrel of his brand new shotgun has nearly reached its conclusion.... He set a lot of stock in that gun (no pun intended) and felt really bad about bending it when he threw it away from him to roll down the hill and miss getting struck. However, he couldn't quite scrape up enough money to buy a new one.

Enter big sister Becky. She had the money and she hated hauling hay.
And she wanted a new chicken coop so she could have more chickens.
Therefore she bought him the barrel last fall in trade for taking hay to the horses all winter and for building her a chicken coop. I suggested that it would make more sense and be infinitely cheaper to clean out and remodel an existing building, instead of new construction, so that has been the plan.




For the past couple of weeks Alan and I have hauled out ancient harness, an old shop vac, campaign signs from the boss's tenure on the school board, brooders, a seat for a horse breaking fore cart and any number and variety of other trash and junk to make way for this....the ultimate low-cost hen house.



Alan scavenged the door and nest boxes etc. from my old hen house, wire from everywhere it could be found and paint from a long ago project. Lumber came from some we had lying around and parts of the same old chicken house.

Chick Pea, the Buff Orpington hen and Satan the evil-tempered Americana rooster aren't quite sure how they feel about it yet, but reaction is mostly positive. Now we need to find a few more hens and we will reach my ultimate goal in the whole affair...our own egg supply.