If You Build It, They Will Come

...Chickens, that is! 

Farmer Chris has built an incredible chicken cottage! The first image in this series shows the entire 16x8 foot fully enclosed run.

Construction officially started on May 18 and the girls moved into the run on June 19. We moved the small chicken coop into the run for the first month. 

The run is built with lumber, hardware cloth, and the roof is chicken wire and lattice. It has an 8x8 concrete pad for easy cleaning and an 8x8 sand box for foraging, growing a chicken garden, dirt baths, and just because.

The chicken's feed and water stay in the run so that inside their cozy sleeping quarters (the actual coop part of this beauty) remains clean. Well as clean as you can get with birds pooping all over the place all of the time. They are very much like little poop pez dispensers. LOL!

This deluxe chicken cottage boasts a mini barn door for the chickens of the house to access their private coop from their run (a.k.a. play yard). 

The girls love running around in crazy chicken circles in the run, chasing each other, digging around for food (they do especially love the fallen muscadines), singing chicken songs, and exploring their coop. 


There is also a screened window high off the ground that allows air and light into the coop. The chickens can just barely look out of the window into their run when resting on the roost in their coop.

Farmer Chris completed the sleeping quarters fully-enclosed and highly-secure coop and the ladies moved into the addition on July 26. (Photos in upcoming posts.)

Being inside the run is like being in a screened-in open-air porch. People being able to confortably walk into the run and the coop was a critical factor in our construction plan. The food and water system is so much easier in this big run than inside the tiny

first coop. The food hangs on a chain over the sandbox section of the run while the water perches on a stand Chris built that stays on the concrete. Stay tuned for more pics & the final project in the coming days!

See more pics & chicken fun...

Chicken Cottage Construction

Chicks Growing Up & The Chicken Coop

Chickens! Facebook Photo Album

The Chicken Cottage Facebook Photo Album

Thanks for visiting our blog! Come back & see us!
~Ramsey & Chris