Thanks to Duncan Parker for sending in photos of his 'little barn' chicken coop.

"My Daughter gave me a pair of chicks that she couldn't keep and this started a series of events that resulted in my building the barn. I had no idea what was required to keep chickens so I started looking on the Internet and ran across your site which I found very informative.. As the chic's were small, I kept them in a box for some time while I decided what I could build to house them permanently. This little barn was what I came up with.

It is two story with a roost and two nests up stairs with water and food containers on a screened floor on the bottom. The roof comes off for cleaning. Eggs are collected through the loft door. Access to the ground floor is through the large barn door.

The chickens, Hen-rieta and Chic-ita, have become great pets, have started to lay eggs, and earn their keep scouring the yard for bugs. I close them in each night and allow them to roam free in our two acre yard during the daylight hours. Their value as bug catchers in the yard and garden more then pays for the extra clean up I have to do on the patio.

They spend most of the hot part of the day roosting in the shade on the back porch steps watching our inside cat who doesn't quite know what to make of that big red bird looking in at him."