The Chicken Coop

   Our first chicken coop was built along the woods edge away from the house. This was alright in the summer time, but turn out to be a pain walking through the snow just to get some eggs to make breakfast. We also had problems with predators getting into the coop being so far away from the house.
   My wife came up with the idea of making a new coop off the side of the garage, I don't know why I didn't think of that. The coop is roughly about 8' by 16' big.I made the coop out pallets for the base and then put some plywood over the pallets. I then built some walls and a roof. I was able to salvage the pine board siding off the side of the garage and reuse them. I also had some old pine boards to finish up the rest of the walls. I still haven't got around to putting shingles on the roof, one of these days I will.

   I put the nesting boxes on the wall that is against the garage, so all we have to do is go out to the garage and lift the cover to the boxes and get our eggs.I then put the gravity feeder I made out of plywood on the the same wall so I can fill it up from the garage, it'll hold 150 lbs of grain. I also put the reservoir to the automatic water dish inside the garage and use a tube from the reservoir to the bowl to fill it up. This helps cut down on it freezing, but not enough. I had to break down and get a little pipe heater to keep it from freezing. I also put the light that goes into the coop on an automatic timer to keep them laying through the winter. I keep the light on for about 14 hours and that makes them think it's still summer, so they lay eggs right through the winter.