Building a Log Chicken Coop: a story in pictures

It was Ben who had the genius idea of building a log chicken coop. I admit, I was a little skeptical, but only because I had never seen any chicken coops like it before. 

We got a free (for the price of Ben's time and energy clearing the trees out of his Grandpa's property) load of pine logs to use for the coop.

On a warm Saturday in March, we hosted a barn raising. I contributed the world's best pork roast feast and a case of beer to the event as payment for our friends' time and efforts.

With one day of work done, the barn was about halfway built, and the door was framed in.

Ava sat and assisted with picking bark off of the logs.

Another day and more friends' help later, all the logs were in place and the barn just needed a roof.

The long chainsaw cut down each side to even the logs out for the roof beams was one of the most tedious parts, and made me the most nervous.

After the roof was installed, Ben framed out half of the barn and added a door, two windows, nesting boxes, roosts, and a nice floor to keep the chickens up out of the mud. We had such a wet spring that the ground in front of and inside the door was just churned into a mud pit, so we had to add some pallets and boards to walk on.

I think the finished coop looks so fantastic. I am so proud of all of Ben's hard work that he put into it!

Inside the chickens' pen we added two log roosts, though they are being stubborn about using them right now. You can see a rope stretched across the ceiling: that is Ben's genius pulley system for the trap door that leads to their run. All I have to do to let them out is pull the handle on the outside of the coop and hook it onto its support to leave the door open for the day.

Some of the chickens use the roosts. Others have started preferring the nesting boxes! Oops.

I can't wait until these nesting boxes are full of eggs each morning!

The run for the chickens is 20'x20' to allow as much room as possible. We can't really free range them too much. If we let them run inside our picket fence then we have issues with our dogs, and if we let them run outside our picket fence we risk issues with our neighbors.

They are very happy in their log home though. They love watching me garden and they get so excited when I bring them table scraps.

This is the lovely view when you walk toward the back of our property. Our big raised bed garden is being planted this week, our chickens are happy in their run, and I can't wait to start harvesting fresh veggies, fruits, and eggs!

Spring Time and Chicken Math

There are crocuses blooming outside! I don't think there is anything that says 'Spring' to me quite like crocuses. Seeing those tiny little flowers gets me in the mood to clean all the things and plan my garden.

You know what else says 'Spring?' Chicks. Which brings me to Chicken Math. What is Chicken Math, you ask? Allow me to share an example.

So initially Ben and I were going to get six to eight laying hens and a few meat birds. We looked up some mail order hatcheries and discovered Minimums. You see, in order for your mail order chicks to stay alive, they need to be shipped with at least 25 in the box. After reconfiguring our desired number of birds, we decided to order 15 laying hens and 10 meat birds. Easy, right? Nope. I then realized that the meat birds would be ready for harvesting around 6-8 weeks old which would have been... well, now actually. We decided that we didn't really want to be harvesting birds right away in March, so we scratched the meat birds off the list and decided to just get 25 layers. After all, what are ten more going to hurt?

We found a hatchery locally where we could purchase less than 25 for a pick up order, but due to quantity discounts the Hatchery Choice assortment with 25 chicks was the same price as choosing 15 individual chicks. So we got our assortment of 25 adorable chicks and I was hooked! I got all our breeds figured out from our mystery assortment and it turned out that they were all brown egg layers. That's good, right? Not when I was hoping for Easter Eggers, the breed that lays blue or green eggs.

I decided I needed some Easter Eggers, and then I found out about Marans. French Copper Marans, to be precise. They lay a gorgeous dark chocolate brown egg. It literally looks like a real chocolate egg. I decided to get two Easter Eggers and two Marans. But.... TSC has a six chick minimum! So I got six Easter Eggers. Then I found out that the Marans were straight run, meaning they are not sexed. So obviously if I want two hens I need to buy more chicks to help my odds. So I have four Marans now.

Have you kept up with the math here? So via chicken math we have:
8 chicks + 7 meats = 25 chicks
2 EE chicks + 2 Maran chicks = 10 chicks
Total chicks in my basement brooder = 35

The really great part about Chicken Math though, is that certain types of chickens don't really count toward the total. Roosters, for instance. Three of my Marans are roosters and probably two of the Easter Eggers are as well.

35 chicks - 5 roosters = 30 chicks

Also, any hens that aren't laying don't count, and young chicks don't count.

30 chicks - 30 chicks not yet laying = 0

So really, I don't have any chickens. Hmmm, maybe I need to go to TSC now.