Yep! You read the title correctly. Give those lovely little ladies a palace to live in! Actually, this is a shed and coop combo. In NY our homestead was started in the early 1800’s and the house was built in 1850, but all of the barns and outbuilding were gone, so we doubled up function on this project.
Because snow in winter can get up to 2 feet or deeper, I knew I’d have to put this building close to the house, not far away on our acerage. It would be too difficult to care for the poultry if they were far away. This realization meant we needed the building to enhance the curb appeal and esthetic value of the property. My partner and I built this ourselves stick and shingle by stick and shingle. Of course, with this building we were able to get our vehicles into the garage. There’s nothing more frustrating than before driving somewhere you’ve got to dig the car out of the snow.
We did a little landscaping by moving plants around from the property and built an arbor gate to enter the poultry run. The girrrls loved it.
As I said only part of the building was a coop and here’s an inside shot. The walls have inside plywood wall board for added insulated value and painted to keep the wood cleaner and reflect light in the dark winters. We installed cheap linoleum on the floors and up the lower walls to make clean out easier and to sanitize. Poop is coastic. While there are four nest boxes, all the chickens used only one most of the time.
We also had some ducks. I read that you can keep chickens and ducks together. Technically that’s true, but I find ducks to be too messy and wet to keep with chickens who like things dry. The ducks did like their own little house. This worked well, but next time I’ll put the duck hut on short legs so the poultry have more room to move around in the hard run.
Lastly, celebrate achievements and socialize with the girrrls. We loved to sit out in the yard in the afternnoon/evening with our drinks and talk to the chicks and ducks. We called it the redneck cocktail hour.
By the way, this is the last bit of a cosmopolitan. Nothing says good work, good-day, and good-night like hard booze, even if it’s the fruity kind! 🤣
Love, love, love! You already know how chicken crazy we are. Also, we second the statement about the ducks. For us they are fun to have but they create too much of a nuisance to be sustainable on our property. The coops are beautiful! I’ll take a pic of the coop I’ve been painting…I surprised myself with how good it turned out! Thanks for sharing! — CM