Empty House, Full Nugget Barn

Well, the Liberty House is officially down half a dozen feathered chattering roomates. The girls have reached that all important transition in a chicken’s live when it’s time to move out of the nest, uh, spare bedroom, and head into the big wide world on their own.

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Or, in this case, go out to the luxury super-coop built specifically to cater to their every whim and chicken fancy.

Like pretty much everything else on this property, the Nugget Barn isn’t “finished” yet, but it’s habitable, which is what counts.

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I’ve still got to finish a little siding on the back, put in the nesting box dividers, replace the roof cap with something more sturdy, and put stick tiles down on the floor to make for easy cleaning. Plus building the whole detachable run and adding the wheels and handles to make it moveable… but that’s a project for another weekend (or two.)

Still, if you consider where I started less than a month ago. And the bare bones of a frame…

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It’s come a long way.

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Now if only I could stop getting up every two hours and checking on them out there on their own, we may finally have a little peace in this house.

(Complete tutorial on how I built this thing from scratch coming up next week.)

14 Responses

  1. When I was a young teen, we had a farm with chickens, but they were white. I love your black chickens. As I was growing up I thought white chickens lay white eggs and brown chickens lay brown eggs, I am glad I did not see those black chickens… because who knows how many stores I would ask if they had black eggs? (I always embarrassed my mom with questions I came up with as a kid!)

  2. Very, very cool. Just curious, as I know absolutely nothing about chickens, but when they free-range outside of a run, do they go far? Is a run totally necessary, or is it primarily to keep predators at bay during the day?

    1. The girls mostly stay under the pine trees, but the more comfortable they’ve gotten outside the farther they range. I let them out when I’m home, but between the coyotes, foxes, and hawks, they definitely need a protected run so they can be outside when I’m not.

  3. Love the coop! But have a question for you, are you worried about predators? I ask as last summer we helped our friends move there chickens from inside there garage to a new outside coop. Unfortunately by the next day a fox had got 3 of them….

    1. Uh, yes. I’ve got double locks on all of the doors and metal plates holding the mesh on. I will let them out in the run during the day when I’m not there, but I’m not letting them free-range unless I’m there. The plans for the larger more permanent coop include an electric fence as well.

  4. This looks pretty bitchin to me. Um, Aaron built a make shift coop for me, and it is pretty shitty. But it gets the job done… for now. I hate it though. I think yours looks the part. If I wasn’t so afraid of you coming at me with a hammer, I’d come steal it.

  5. I’m so glad you are posting a how to on this! I have 4 large rabbits in hutches that work but are SUPER ugly…this could be easily adapted for them not to mention the huge improvement to aesthetics!

  6. Congrats! On moving your children out of the spare bedroom and into the world. We are thinking of getting some chickens in a few years when we move to acreage. I live in TN where a coyotes are an everyday sighting. I was wondering how do you get the chickens into their enclosure in the evening, I have friends that have some free range pigs and they call them in at night, when they have piglets, with a wooden spoon banged on a bucket of compost. Is it kind of the same thing?

  7. Outstanding chicken home! You are much further along than I am. Mine is still in the “gathering wood” stage.

    Those girls should start laying eggs soon, no? When they are old enough, put a fake egg in each nest box. It gives them the idea and encourages laying. At least that’s what my grandmother told me. 😉

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