Tricky Tuesday #4

The chicken coop has been completely finished!  It looks amazing!!!

The underneath part, which is a goat shed, is also mostly complete.  It still needs a holder for hay and a couple holes covered up.  But the goats use it regularly, which is lovely to see!!!

The chickens, on the other hand... I hope we'll shut them up in it very soon (the Wyendottes, only) so that they learn to stay there and lay their eggs there for me!!

Jessie did a fabulous job executing my vision for the coop above the "shed"!  We don't have the sheckles (money) to buy hinges currently, but that didn't stop Jess from numerously hinging this beauty!!  Seriously!  It's awesome!!!

You want pictures?  Well, they'll come next week.  I've been rather busy and quite tired.  So, everything takes more time when those two combine!

I'll tell you a little, at least, for now:

So, the entry way for the goat shef faces the yard... so that we can see them enter/exit from the house if we look out.

The entrance for the chicken coop faces the opposite direction.

On both sides of the coop there are four nesting boxes that slightly jut out, thus not taking up valuable floor space.  On each side there are two levels of nesting boxes, each level has two boxes in it.  Thus we have 8 nesting boxes.  Since we have 8 hens currently, it seems to work out perfectly.  Of course, it's unlikely that they will lay in different boxes, but we're giving them plenty of room for it AND setting!  I sure hope the Wyendotte return to the broody behavior they exibited before moving here!

Each of the 4 levels of nesting boxes is hinged.  We had no money for hinges, so Jessie made hinges out of a pair of old leather shoes!!!  It looks amazing and works VERY well!!!

On the back of the coop there is a large hinged access door.  This door is so that we can add food and water and clean the floor.  To keep this door closed, Jessie installed a piece of wood with screws for stops on each side.  They flip up when I want to open the door and flip down to hold it closed.  Very nice.  Very resourceful!  Perfect for Tricky Tuesday!!

Oh, and ALL of the wood for this structure was free!  It can be tricky to save money... but it IS possible to make things happen even when resources are limited.