Under a Blue Moon

 

The chicken palace is done!  Well almost….We are thinking we'll put a small window in that front wall on the left.  For extra ventilation and so the girls can look out. 

My intention is to have a separate chicken palace page with all the details of the construction and some tips and lessons learned.  I'm working on that and when it's done I'll post a link.

In the meantime here are a few pictures.

My favorite part – the screen door.  The brackets came from Anthropologie and the door knob was knocking around in Rick's spare hardware drawer. 

The backside of the palace.  The nesting boxes are on top and there is storage below.  This design inspiration came from Heather Bullard's coop except hers is on the end of her coop.  Actually I have to say a LOT of the inspiration came from Heather's coop and a set of coop plans that we purchased.  We kept referrning to both during the construction.  We just made adjustments to suit our particular needs. 

The end of the coop.  Those are the clean out doors.  Sorry the picture is a little bit crooked.  I had to climb up on a weedy hill, alive with ticks, to take that picture.  I wanted to just snap and get out of there.

The inside of the coop.  Arched openings to the nesting boxes are another design idea borrowed from Heather's coop.  We ended up putting a lower, portable perch in here until the chickens are big enough to get up to the higher perches.

One of the girls checking out her new digs.  They didn't like the ramp at first.  We had to pick them up and put them in their coop.  We ended up buying some non-slip material for it and now they march up and down the livelong day (you can kind of see it in the picture below – it's a medium grey color).

I've named all the chickens only I can't tell them apart yet.  Well I can tell one of the Buff Cochins because her tail is shorter than the others, but that is it.  I'm waiting for their little personalities to develop so I can properly assign their names. 

I have Rick to thank for this beautiful palace.  He was very patient with me and my design demands.  He made it sturdy and safe and didn't roll his eyes when I walked in with Anthropologie bags and insisted on returning the ugly plastic waterer for a more esthetically pleasing metal one.  He asked me where the chandelier was going to go (and he'd hang one for me if I asked).

The girls and I truly appreciate his efforts.