Beau Jackson

So, our new baby William is two-weeks old now, and believe it or not, I’ve found the time to start and complete a little project here on the ranch.

Our chickens have been living in their “summer residence”.  The coop they’ve been in consists of a rectangular frame that is 12′ x 8′, and has some 16′ cattle panels arched up and held in place by the frame.  It has a tarp over it to keep the rain out.  Looks like a miniature Quonset hut with a blue tarp on it.  Very light and airy for warm summer nights, but not so good when it starts to dip into the thirties and lower.

Today, I finished the “winter lodge”.  It’s not a work of art by any stretch, but it’ll keep the rain and snow off, and block the wind, and should be nice and toasty for chickens and ducks.  The new coop is approximately 9′ x 4′ and 6′6″ tall, and is all wood, except for some tin on the roof.  It’s got lots of roosting space, and six nesting boxes built in.

The new coop was built on the cheap.  I think I spent a grand total of $55.00.  We had a lot of material on hand, but it wasn’t the best stuff in the world to work with. 

After we bought this place, we discovered a junk/dump pile out on one edge of it.  I think every piece of property that has more than five acres has a dump on it somewhere.  It turns out that ours had some useful stuff in it.  There were three large pieces of plywood covering up a nice stack of 2×4s and 2×6s.  They were of varying lengths and some were rotted in spots, and I filled a coffee can with the nails I pulled out of them, but there was enough to fill the bed of my pickup completely.  I used all of the plywood, but I still have a stack of 2×4s and 2×6s left.

Consequently, the new coop is built like a tank.  It’s framed with 2×6s.  Overkill?  You bet…but it was free overkill ;).  I used the plywood for the roof, and some 2×4s for the sloped part of the roof.  I had two pieces of waffle board that were 4′x9′ and several other odd-ball sized pieces that were useable.  They came with the last house we owned, and we brought them along with us.  That’s why the coop is nine feet long…’cause I had the waffle board and I could use the whole thing to build the long walls with.  Quite a few of the 2×6s in the dump pile were 12′ long so it worked out pretty well.

It was a nice learning project, and I’m pleased with it over all.  I need to get some of that spray-foam stuff to seal up some of the gaps (a lot of the lumber in the dump pile was warped, so there’s gaps at the corners of the building).  I’m going to paint it before too long.  I think we’re going to paint it so it looks like a little house on the outside…windows with flower boxes and little people looking out and such…may as well have some fun with it.

My four-year-old “helped” me on this project.  It took four days of work (about 16-20 hours over four days), and she was there every day with me.  And it turns out she really was a big help.  She would bring me nails and screws, and the hammer and tape measure, and whatever I needed.  She was also very helpful with the chalk-line when I needed somebody to hold one end of it down.

In hindsight, I wish I had taken some pictures of the project as I was working on it.  Next time I guess.  I’ll definitely get before and after pictures when we paint it though :)