Coop Deluxe: A Chick’s Dream
Some chicks dream of a sporty red number with 4 on the floor. Not me though. This chick dreams of a large red number with sawdust on the floor.
Last winter my chickens invaded the barn. Granted, chicken math had been at work on our farm and chicken coop version 2.0 was too small.
The girls decided they needed more space and began roosting in our barn. In fact, they completely abandoned their rooster, Penguin.
The sole squatter.
It wasn’t too bad except for the fact that it was a never-ending battle to keep the goats out of their feed…
How to tell your got has been naughty: her head is stuck inside a chicken feeder.
And the mammals were constantly bombarded with dung bombs from above.
Wait, it was pretty bad.
I dreamed of a separate coop large enough for my flock, with some additional bells and whistles, of course. This past spring, we made it happen.
Introducing Our Coop Deluxe
We bought a shed, painted the inside all white, added a linoleum floor, perches, nesting boxes and a chicken (and sometimes goat :/) accessible door.
But my coup of the coop, so to speak, is the poopdeck.
A paper covered deck under the perches for easy cleaning: just roll up the paper and replace.
We’ve had the coop deluxe for well over 6 months now. It’s been an eggcellent investment, but maybe it’s not quite what it is all cracked up to be (see what I did there?).
For instance:
- I am in a never-ending battle to keep the smaller goats out of the coop. To deter them I have hung the feeders above the perches. However, they still nibble on the paper for the poopdeck and sometimes pull it off.
- It was way too hot in the coop. Spouse installed a fan controlled by a thermostat. It’s a bit small though and we have to replace it with a more powerful one in the future.
- Because of the heat, it is very moist in the coop which increases the smell of ammonia. For the remainder of the summer I took out the poopdeck, but I put it back in for the winter.
For these reasons, the coop deluxe is till a work in progress. But at least the girls aren’t having target practice in the barn.
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