Bonnie's chicken coop reflects the well-kept suburban development she lives in -- see right. That's Bernadette getting Lila out of her car for the chicken advenTOUR. Bonnie painted the chicken coop, below, the same color as the house. Bonnie's spent $800 on the new materials to construct the chicken building (coop seems too cheap a term for it) and fencing. which she buried to discourage predators.
I did like the setup.I didn't like the price tag.
I liked how there are doors for humans and for chickens.
When humans can easily enter, it's easier to clean and maintain the coop.
Her coop is not on wheels.
Turns out that chickens like to scratch in the dirt. They even have special feed called "scratch" to give them something to scratch for. They're easily amused.
The chickens have room to roost on the bar. The slanted box on the left gives chickens a private place to hatch eggs. The silver can is a heated $40 water can, that Doug thinks can be replaced by pans of fresh water.
Hatching an egg is kind of like human love-making. Well-socialized chickens don't like to do it in public. They seek a safe, dark, covered nook to deposit their eggs.
AHA! The chickens have been fooled into thinking they had a safe, quiet, remote place to lay eggs. Bonnie built a waist-high hinged door to their love nest so she could easily rob the hen-house! THANKS for the tour, Bonnie.
Brilliant. My chicken coop will be convenient for humans to get the eggs and clean because I want this to be as easy as possible.
There are two upcoming chicken advenTOURs. During the information-gathering period, Bob and I are building a mental layout of our coop.
No comments:
Post a Comment