Three weeks ago, before the stay at home order, we attended Country Christian’s yearly auction. Peyton attends school there, and it is their main fundraiser of the year. During the live auction, we purchased a five-foot by five-foot chicken coop that was built by the main sponsor, Jensen Construction. It included everything someone would need for a backyard chicken coop: the sides for an 8×5 foot chicken run, food, feeder, watering container, and a gift card to buy live birds.
The coop is built incredibly well, so it took a crew of people to get it moved from the school onto the flatbed trailer and then into its final location. We set the coop on posts that are elevated out of the ground approximately two feet so that the chickens can run around under the coop and have some shade.
Well, like any project on the G & E Ranch, this is not going to be your typical backyard chicken coop like it was intended. The coop was placed in our one-acre poultry pasture on the opposite end of our current chicken and duck coops. This was done to encourage birds to travel and graze over the entire acre. The coop will be modified to have an automatic feeding tube installed inside, an automatic watering system (if you are interested in making your own, check out this past blog), a platform to allow the kids to collect eggs, a front porch with custom made storage box for feed and shavings, an automatic door that is controlled by the sun to keep vermin out of the coop at night while the chicken’s roost, along with a larger chicken run that has an opening out into the pasture. That is just a quick list of the modifications being made to make this awesome coop compliment the Ranch.
This coop is being called “Peyton’s Palace” because these birds are eventually going to be her responsibility. In about a month when the fifty True Green Whiting laying chicks are ready to get moved outside, they will be placed in this coop. They will live enclosed in the coop and run for about a month before the chicken run door is opened and they are introduced to the pasture and other birds. Young birds are given special feed for about 4 months before they are introduced to layer feed with calcium.
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