COOP PLACEMENT - Very important

When thinking about where to put your coop - think about the following:

1. Does it get mucky when it rains? (that's a no no)
2. Is there a lot of hot afternoon sun in the summer? (that's a no no)
3. Is it close to your house so that you aren't trekking a distance to feed/collect eggs, etc.? You'll want it close to your most used door.
4. Can you see the coop from the house so you can make quick inspections without trudging outside?
5. Is it an eye-sore for your neighbors (do not underestimate an angry neighbor and the city council)?
6. Speaking of city council - did you get approved? (I did not, but all my neighbors approved and I chose to just not tell the city because we are rural - on three acres, live near farms and it makes absolutely no sense to me that I can have dogs that could bite, rabbits, cats that stray but not chickens and I'm too lazy to fight it at city hall.
7. Is the coop in the path of northern winter winds?
8. Will it shed rain water towards your garage? (see picture - oops)
9. Will your mother-in-law have to look at it every time she stops by and be reminded that her grandchildren may die of salmonella poisoning or is it nicely set aside so as not to be too conspicuous?
10. Is it in an area where your teenage boys like to throw their baseballs, footballs and hockey pucks and sometimes miss and hit the coop, scaring the chickens half to death and denting the very expensive chicken hardware cloth that took you hours to install correctly?
11. Is it near standing water where mosquitoes thrive, making the cleaning and checking an annoyingly loathsome chore?  You won't want to be spraying pesticides around your chickens if you plan on eating those eggs - or perhaps that's just my opinion.
12. Add your own here..... or in the comments below and I'll add them in.

What about the coop?

It seems to me that I mentioned I would tell you all about the coop and that it may have been several months ago.  Sorry about that.  It turns out that I thought I was busy when my kids were toddlers, but now that they are teens without a drivers license, I seem to be as busy as ever, just not wiping butts.

I did a lot of research on coops and scoured the internet until I found just what I was looking for.

Here is what I wanted:

Big - my hens will not have a lot of opportunity to be out of their coop so I wanted a hen house and run that would be spacious enough for the four of them to run around comfortably.

Winter Ready - it gets cold . . . I mean C.O.L.D. here in Minnesota.  The coop needs to be warm.

Safe - we have a nice supply of raccoon, fox, coyote, ground hogs, owls, mink, etc. that would love an opportunity to get their hands on the hens, so the coop had to be completely secure.

Sturdy - strong summer storms and deep winter snow means the coop had to be built to last

Economical - we didn't have a lot of cash to throw around

Easy to Access/Easy to Clean - this one is self explanatory

Pretty - I wanted it to look nice.

We finally settled on The Garden Coop.  The plans were about $30 and were written so well that even without building experience, the two of us were able to built the coop in about 4 weekends.  When I say "we", I mean mostly "he".  I painted and as you can see from the current picture, I have not yet finished my job.

We will add insulation this fall and probably put in a heat lamp for the month of January when the temp dips below 0 F.   I'm still not sure what to do about water - keeping it from freezing.  I'm guessing we will put the food and water in the hen house during the coldest times of the year.  I will also wrap the sides with shower curtains from the dollar store to keep the snow out, but the light in.  The ugly tarp you see is there because after all my careful planning, that side of the coop gets far too much afternoon sun and the little girls were baking.  I planted giant sunflowers but most were washed away in our torrential rain storms and the rest were eaten by bunnies.  I'll have to plant something there to shade them.

There is no door to open and shut.  They come and go as they please.  This winter, we will have to adjust that but I'm not yet sure how.  I suppose we will keep the door open unless it gets below 10 F and then move food and water inside.  I'm just not sure yet. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

So here is the finished coop in all her glory and just today, the boys added these solar camper lights we found in our basement.  We will continue to landscape around the coop as I am able to divide plants from the garden (and hopefully get some from my neighbors as well).

Tomorrow afternoon, we are letting the hens out of their coop for the very first time.  Stella will be inside the house and Blue is away at hunting camp, so the birds will have a chance to explore without the dogs harassing them.

Nighty night my little ones.