Bryan has spent the better part of his days off for the last two weeks working on what we now call "The Mansion."  That's right, The Ladies have a new home.

I convinced him in May we needed a new coop as our pre-fab coop was falling apart.  After all it was three years old and we all know pre-fab anything just doesn't last.  We used this shed coop design as our starting out point.  Bryan build all the walls and the floor when he had time over the summer.  But then as fall was getting colder we felt the urgency to get it together.

We modified the plans considerably.  Instead of a flat roof we built a pitched roof and we didn't build a nesting box that extended from the coop.  We put nesting boxes inside the coop.  We also built a food storage bin that also has the pine shavings bag in it.  That way everything is one place.

The front door is from Habitat For Humanity.  The windows, while not installed yet, I found in the trash.  They are old, but with shims will fit perfectly between the 2x4's.  I debating whether I need to get a heater/heat lamp for those days when it is below zero.  We will have an extension cord for the water dish so it would be easy enough to do heat.

The pre-fab coop didn't really have a roost so The Ladies never roosted.  Janis and Grace II roosted for a while in the big bush in the chicken run but the others never roosted even though there were places outside the coop to do so.  The first night I checked on them they were crammed two by two into the nesting boxes!  And then the lone chicken was cuddled next to two in a box.

We purchased a lot of the outside material but for everything on the inside of the coop we used recycled materials.  We saved all of our scrap pieces of wood and I even dug through the scrap pile at the construction site up the street.

I do plan on hanging some plants on the front of the coop like the one in the original design.  I'm thinking herbs in one and pretty flowers in another.  I'm not sure if we'll put shutters on it or not.  The next nice warm day we'll get the windows in.  I also think we need to insulate the roof  so that the heat that is in there doesn't escape completely.

And of course we'll get more chickens next spring.  Which is exactly what Bryan was afraid of!