Taking Down the Chicken Coop

The gals were off to a new home

T-11 days and counting until the big move. Today I sold our chickens to a nearby neighbor for $50. She and her teenage daughter showed up at 07:30 this morning with three dog crates. It took us all of 20 minutes to catch all 12.

Once the girls were gone I began disassembling the coop. The coop had grown over the past 12 months into three editions. The original coop was a wooden coop like you buy at the local farm store. I added an eight foot dog kennel around it to give the girls more room to roam. Then I expanded it with T-posts and fencing wire for more leg room. At the end, I expanded once more to allow room for two garden hoop houses and I let the girls clear out all the weeds for me.

Lucky FINALLY gets to enter the chicken coop...

So today I began taking it all down. My intent is to save as much as possible and take it to Idaho with us and start over. I've learned a great deal about fortifying the coop at the ground level as well as when you need to cover the top to prevent flighty birds (Bantams!).

Lucky spent a great deal of time scouting out the coop now that he FINALLY had access. He must have sniffed every single inch of that place today. He even ate some of the remaining layer feed.

I used extra pieces of wood to serve as a rolling pin for the start of the fencing. I nailed the fencing to the board with poultry staples and rolled up the fence as tight as it would allow. This allowed me to minimize the amount of storage space the fencing would take up in the bed of Old Blue ('81 Chevy truck). Worked out pretty well.

Took me about four hours to take down the Bantys' coop and the hoop garden area. It is all neatly rolled up and stored in the back of the truck now. I've listed all my pallets and spare wood in the FREE section on CraigsList so I'm sure it will be gone by tomorrow. Then all that will be left is the smaller coop surrounding the dog kennel.

Tuesday, three days from now, is when the moving pod gets dropped off in the front yard. Then the REAL moving begins...

~OJD