Week 4

Tomorrow, Saturday June 27th, marks exactly four weeks, one month, and countless laughs with my six chicks! Wednesday my disassembled coop and run were delivered to my house, and yesterday my boyfriend, John, and I (well mostly John) put it all together! Unfortunately my run did not come with screws like I thought it would, so John and I ran to the local hardware store to pick up screws and a small electric drill...easy fix. We brought a piece of the run with us so that someone at the hardware store could best advise us on a screw that would not split the wood, which I recommend. I also recommend assembling your coop and run with galvanized screws, which simply means the screws are weatherproof and will not rust. 

Putting together the run took under an hour...after all, the run was made up of only 7 pieces: the front/door piece, 2 pieces for each side (4 total), a top piece, and the back piece. The eighth imaginary piece that completes this shape is the ground! The coop is 15 sq-ft, which is about half the size I eventually need once the girls are full grown. In other words, to live a happy and healthy outdoor life, each chicken needs 5 sq-ft to roam. Since I have 6 birds this is 6 x 5 = 30 sq-ft. I plan to build a larger run out of chicken wire and stakes later in the summer. After this was all done, we brought the chicks out to play in it!!! The chicks were a lot more hesitant than I expected, each of them was afraid to go on the grass...but it was the cutest thing. I opened up their current guinea pig cage door, and matched it up with the door of the run, so that they could easily fly from one to the other, but none of them budged. So what did I do? My 5'5" self hopped into the 5' long coop and laid down all curled up in the grass and the girls came to mama. It was funny to watch them all fly to me (literally fly onto my arms and legs) to avoid the grass. Eventually, after a half hour the girls were all on the grass exploring and loving it. So I crept out of the run and went to go help John put together the coop. 

The coop probably took 2 hours total--a lot quicker than I had expected. The coop is made to fit 6-10 chickens, but I think my coop is perfect for 6 chickens...if it were any smaller I'd want a larger one. For those of you who aren't sure how big to buy/make your coop (the actual indoor roost), each bird should have 2-3 sq-ft. The thing that attracted me to this coop was the fact that it contained 6 nesting boxes! Normally one nesting box is good for 2-3 chickens, but now all of my girls have their own (who knows if they will actually use all 6 or have a favorite 1 or 2)! I was so excited once the coop was finished being put together, and I carefully moved it to a spot in my backyard that was...

A) far away from my neighbors on both sides of my property (if you have a rooster, which I don't, this is especially important because of the noise he will be making daily)

B) a place that received plentiful shade AND sun daily 

C) a place where I could see the chickens from my back porch/back windows

I didn't have the girls explore their coop just yet. I want to let them grow for two more weeks (they'll be 6 weeks old then) and enjoy their run for now. Feel free to comment on any/all of my posts!

Love, 

Kayla & her Six Hot Chicks :)

P.S.--A lot of my information comes from a reputable source, Storey's Guide to Raising Poultry, by Glenn Drowns.