Backyard chicken coop and pen photos #WordlessWednesday

Well, it was almost wordless ;)

Last week Super Genius and I spent a day readying our little flock for winter. We used the tractor to pull the old coop out of the mud pit it was sinking into. The poor chickens had been up to their knees in muck after the month of rain. YUCK! The coop should last until next spring, then we’ll have to seriously start thinking about building a new one. Since the babies {not so little anymore! check out the third and fifth photos!} have never learned to properly put themselves away with the other hens in the evening — and Super G. was getting increasingly frustrated with having to go out after dark to chase them from the porch rafters so they would stop pooping on the grill — we decided it was time to build them all a proper pen.

All of the girls have been running the yard all summer and ignoring the three foot tall fence. I think we succeeded in building a pen that the little suckers sweet feathered babies will not be able to get out of. Since they are now trapped, trapped like rats in the eight foot tall enclosure mwuahahahahahahaha safely confined to their own special area of the yard, it’s much easier to keep track of them and let them get used to being in a smaller space come winter. Of course, they’ll be allowed to roam again before snow flies. I just need to keep them locked in for a week or so until “the babies” learn that the coop is their home, not the rafters, especially since we lost one little barred rock baby last month to the unknown wilds :(.

We still have to add wire over the top which will be easy to do once we add a center support and another board over the coop area. I wanted to leave the pen open until I noticed a red tailed hawk perched on the board farthest from the coop the morning before last. I’m thinking a cover over the pen would be a better idea than staring out the kitchen window in wait with a broom. Maybe.

Anywho, that’s our cobbled-together-from-bits-and-scraps chicken coop and pen. It works, and that’s almost better than being pretty!

p.s. If you’re wondering why you don’t see Mr.Eastwood in the pen…. he’s in solitary confinement at the moment, don’t ask!