Moving to the New Coop

The new coop was ready for chickens and the day arrived for moving the flock from the woodshed, where they’d spent their whole lives to this strange new place.

 I put all the chicken equipment in the truck late in the afternoon & moved it to the new coop. We didn't move the chickens until after it was dark—sleeping chickens are calmer chickens.

I nabbed them one by one from their roost and put them in a cat carrier--they got transported three or four at a time. We decided a cat carrier would work better than hand-carrying them individually since it would hopefully keep them from freaking out or escaping.  Still they weren’t happy birds. Here Sam and Charlie ask, "What are you DOING to us???"

First trip to the new coop - Paul is the first one out.

Rhoda jumps into her new home

First batch: Confused & frightened.

Eventually there were more in the new coop than the old coop. Frightened chickens at both ends - in the new coop they huddled together in one spot & didn't move from that spot.

Finally they started to explore & discovered their huge new roost.

Amazingly, not only did Paul manage to get on the roost, he managed to flap his little frizzled wings hard enough to get to the very top. Even Courtney managed to roost - though in her case, getting on the roost was more a matter of some heavy-duty jumping rather than flying. When they had all settled down, I turned off the lights—that caused about fifteen minute’s worth of really forlorn clucks and peeps, but they eventually went to sleep.

The next morning I threw open the door to their new run. They all cautiously went out except for Jennifer who could not figure out that the giant hole in the wall was a door. It took major vocal encouragement and arm flapping from me to finally coax her outside.

They love the new run—fresh dirt to scratch in! This is more fun than an amusement park on the 4^th of July!!

More Coop Progress!

I just finished building this people-sized door into the coop, next to the chicken-sized pop door.  They will both open into the yet-to-be-built chicken run.  I made the door out of 100-year-old tongue and groove pine boards that I rescued from an old grain bin on the farm I grew up on.

A view of the door from inside the coop.

Bailey inspects coop construction progress.  The roost and the nest boxes are done - I recycled old cat litter containers for the nest boxes.

I've been enduring mosquitoes the size of birds and August heat and humidity to reassemble this prefab dog kennel into a chicken run fence.  It is slow going due to the need for frequent ice cream breaks.  It still needs a top, plus I need to bury some fencing around the perimeter to keep predators from tunneling underneath, but I will hopefully be done enough to move the chickens from their temporary quarters in the next week or so.