Subscriber Coops
Thanks to Julia Kelly, in
the snowy north Idaho town of Rathdrum, for these photos of the
coop she built last summer by modifying the A-frame plans we sell,
and also details of how she keeps chickens in the winter.
"They are doing just swell
in all the snow. They used to live in the barn, which you can
see in the background, but when I increased the flock size to
eight hens I just couldn't stand the quantity of chicken poop
in the barn any more (and the utter annoyance of laying my hand
in a poop too often). They were not happy about being relocated
to the new chicken yard last summer, and five of them lost all
their back feathers in rebellion, but they all feathered out again
beautifully just in time for the cold weather.
As you can see, their yard
is fenced in 4-ft electroplastic poultry netting from Premier
Fence. I don't have it electrified because I don't need to keep
out predators, and because they cannot see a solid bar at the
top they don't know where it ends - I guess they think it goes
up endlessly into the sky because they have never flown over it
(and in the barn they routinely flew up to roost on top of 8-ft-tall
cabinets).
The coop has an 8'x8' footprint,
so the eight hens have 8 sq ft each of floor space, which is plenty
even in the snow when they don't go outside.
