Thursday, June 4, 2015

Many Changes and a New Coop!

Life has been fast and furious over the last year. We outgrew our home and purchased a larger one in the middle of last summer. The hens and coop went with it so this spring we bought a new batch of birds and I'm getting started on the new coop.

I liked a lot of things about our first coop, but it was too small. We want more birds this time and I want to store the food and supplies inside. No more chicken feed in the garage.

I started out with an 8'x10' design but that quickly grew to 10'x12' then 12'x12'. We've talked about getting goats in a few years, so this might transition to a goat barn.

The coop will sit on 3 12"x4"x12' pressure treated timbers, called sleepers, that I got from a friend. Then the floor built of 2"x6"s will be surfaced with reclaimed plywood I got from a contractor. They used these sheets to pour the foundation of an amazing home right on the water up the coast from us. It's 5/8" plywood so it's very nice for a floor.

The 4"x12"x12' sleepers in place and leveled up.

My "inspectors"

The cross bracing and floor joists in place

It's a full size jigsaw puzzle trying to figure out how to best use the reclaimed plywood