Building our Chicken Coop

Before - Digging out trenches for drainage

Cement and skirting

Drainage complete!

Base & Platform

Walls

Walls complete

Final Building

## Building Our Chicken Coop: Without a Clue What We Were Doing

Constructing our chicken coop became a significant family endeavor—it involved the whole farm team, and I must admit, it was much more difficult than we expected!

### The Great Drainage Dilemma

First things first, we had to dig trenches by hand. We chose the location to give the coop shade durring the summer months, but the location was a swamp. We channeled our inner bog witch and got to work digging drainage ditches. As we laid down hardware cloth around the perimeter, we felt like we were building a moat. But as for protecting our feathery friends from any sneaky predators. Cement? Oh, you bet! We reinforced it like we were preparing for a chicken-themed Fort Knox.

### Reclaimed Wood: The Chicken's Choice

Next up, we went all eco-friendly and used reclaimed 2x6's for the platform. Each piece of wood was burnt for protection using Yakisugi, an ancient Japanese technique involving charring the surface to make it resistant to rot, pests, fire, and weather.

### Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Working as a team was .... challenging. We combined our skills and ideas, and since no one had ever built a shed or chicken coop before there were a lot of ideas, and a bit of a lack of experianced skill. In the end, we refered to good old google guru, and came up with a plan.

A lot of thought was put into the planning of the interior, and we took a lot of ideas thinking of the logistics of owning chickens. Therefore we built up the roosting bars with a built in shit-shelf with a small hatch for ease of cleaning. Under the shelf we built a isolation pen, so if we needed to keep anyone seperate we had a safe place to do so.

We installed vinyl floring, and wallpaper for 'ease of cleaning', and to ensure our chickens had a bougie place of rest.

In the end we created a solid, long-lasting structure that our chickens can call home.

Buuut there is a reason we purchased our Farm Stand in leiu of building it ourselves.....