Episode I: The Bantam Menace

This is what you get when you Google 'Star Wars chickens'.
You have been warned.

So a while ago, my wife received two chickens as a Christmas present. As a woman who could easily have populated Noah’s Ark with the pets we had pre-plus-one, the gift of two relatively low-maintenance birds who would provide us with fresh eggs seemed like a good idea. The only problem was that we were living with the wife’s parents at the time, and had plenty of work to do on our own house before we started working on one for the bok-boks. Luckily, the in-laws happen to reside on a large working farm (which also happened already to be the home of a dozen or so hens) so Freckles and Frosty* had a ready-made home, even if we did not.

Rhododendrons? We don't need no stinkin' rhododendrons.

Time passed and the refurbishment of our home eventually got to a point where we could move in. Then we started working on the lawn. The first thing we had to do was to remove several (as in 15 or so) humungous rhododendron bushes. I say ‘bushes’ because I think, technically, they remain bushes even though they were (in our case) the size of trees. One was covering about half of our lower back yard, while another 2 or three were taking up all of the space in the upper half. Upon clearing those out, we were left with two ginormous areas of land that hadn’t seen light for a few decades. One we decided to re-seed, the other we decided would be a perfect home for our orphaned egg layers. That was two years ago.

Finally, this spring, when we had enough time and money to do the job, we decided that it was time to bring the two omelette machines home to Rheidol View. I did what every modern weekend carpenter does: I scoured the internet for ideas on how to build a good coop! After a few hours surfing and probably several times that playing on Google Sketch Up (have I mentioned that I'm a total geek?), here is what we decided to build:

That sketch turned into me buying a shitload of wood, nails, chicken wire and a saw. The absence of any new power tools was a severe but necessary disapointment. On the island where all the forests were cut down a few hundred years ago, wood isn't the cheapest material going, and I needed a lot of it (see 'shitload', above) :

I don't know what the metric equivalent of 'shitload' is.

That wood got turned into a frame. This took a lot longer than I'd have liked, and there were far too many swear words and bloody knuckles than I'd anticipated. Turns out I'm a much better Google Sketchupper than I am a carpenter. Who'd have thunk it, right...?

If it's not a right angle, it's a wrong angle.

Surprisingly: much heavier when screwed together.

Adding nesting boxes and sides.

Nesting boxes for the Laying of the Eggs.

And after a lot of measuring, digging, stretching and a LA-LA-LOT more swearing, that frame (eventually) turned into this coop. And the rest of the wood and wiring got pushed, pulled, cut and banged together to make the fencing and door.

Using wood scraps and bad joinery adds to the charm, dontcha think?

Door from wood found in the garage. More charm!

Charm, charm charm. Bucket-loads** of the stuff.

You might be able to see in the corner of that last shot that we've even managed to get the chickens into the run. Now, the REAL adventure begins. Will they be happy? When will they start laying eggs? How will they react when the next two arrive in a month's time...? Stay tuned!

* I voted for 'Sweet and Sour', but was overruled. Unfairly, I think.
** Officially, 'bucket-loads' is only just a little less than 'shitloads'. Honestly. Google it. See if I care.