Well after a bit of a hiatus during the last couple years, we are back to tell all! We built our own chicken coop and bought a cheap run online for, at the time, 12 chickens. As you can see, the run didn’t even survive one winter.
We also outgrew our coop! We went from 4 chickens to 12 chickens, and now we have 29 hens and 1 rooster! We took an old shed on the yard, cleaned it up, built a run in front, and turned that into our new chicken coop.
I also added in a chick pen. I will be able to use that in the coop for baby chicks (no more chicks in my bathtub!!!) It has a mesh cover to keep the older chickens out so they don’t pick on the babies.
The coop still has a little way to go but it is functional and aleady in use. We are looking to add some insulation to the roof to help against the brisk winter days. I’m also looking at adding in some roosts in addition to the rafters that will be easier for the smaller chickens to reach. In July I will add some meat birds to our dual-purpose flock so we can continue to let our current hens lay for another year or two. I also want to add some guineas as a protector for our flock.
Now I know I always said I didn’t want any animals since moving out to our acreage. But here I am fixing up our paddock to get some larger critters. We have 6 bottle lambs set to be picked up on Sunday!
I was lucky and we were able to reuse most of the posts we found. We only ended up buying a few posts and one cattle panel. The roof on the lean-to is still missing and we won’t be able to replace it for a while. Until then, the lambs will be with the chickens overnight, and hang out on grass during the day.
We are very excited to keep growing our farm! These sheep will provide us with wool and meat for our family.