Nothing lights a fire under one’s rear faster then signing up to have a steady steam of traffic parade through your backyard. Yes, once again Le Tour de Coop is on and we are on the map. For a full year we’ve been lavishly throwing out comments like, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a much larger chicken run?’, ‘won’t it be nice when the chickens have a big enough run that we won’t have to let them out so often. (and risk being a foxes lunch)’ Well with a deadline of June 2nd looming we had to get to work. Since my job as ‘second in command’ on digging and building projects has been suspended due to a curious toddler, we had to call in backup. We called in Dave. Dave’s the kind of guy you call when you need a house full of heavy furniture moved, or when you need a 12-ish foot WWII-era antenna removed from your roof, or as it turns out, when you need a chicken run built.
So in the eery light of last Sunday’s eclipsed sun, the men built the run. A few more hours of trench digging, to bury an extra six inches of wire, and door building and our ladies and gent have a new place to ‘run’. Our little mobile PVC run worked quite well for our old garden because we felt quite free letting them be free range, but here we are in fox and coyote territory. Knowing that they could stay inside for days on end with a big outdoor run, is a reassuring thing.
Also, we’ve had our hens for some time now. Three of them for almost five years and three for two years. Our older hens are for the most part retired, and our newer hens aren’t very productive layers. Our egg production is at a slow crawl. We get maybe one every other day, if we’re lucky. So we’d like to increase the flock and now we have the space.
If you are in the Sonoma area next weekend, please do join Le Tour de Coop! It was such great fun to talk with all our visitors last year and the proceeds benefit one of our favorite places, the Sonoma Garden Park. I know four other coops and coop-caretakers on the tour and all are more than worthy of the visit. So stop by and say hello!
I’m having serious chicken envy. I love them and our little town doesn’t allow them. Yet. That’s my next big project. Bees and chickens. I imagine you must be rural?
We too live in serious coyote country. We have a similar setup for our ladies. They have a 12×16 “house” with boxes and roosting bars and then an attached 12×20 enclosed yard. They seem very happy. I’m sure yours will be too. Better to be a little less free range and safe than lunch!
Hi, I live in Louisiana and have raised rabbits,chickens, geese and ducks, but I’m partial to chickens, however I also live where there are predators. I just recently lost 32 chickens. I only have chickens, no roosters because I raise them for eggs. I had to end up installing an electric wire around my coop cause nothing I did to reinforce my coop worked. An electric wire works, because I fried an egg eating snake , so now I’m confident about how I’m set up. I have 6 grandchildren so I had to warn them, but not to worry, only one of them will go to the coop and feed and pick eggs. I now have 11 chickens and I’m picking 6 to 8 eggs a day. It is so hot here even the hens don’t want to lay. Good luck with your chickens and I love your new coop.
Wish we could visit!
So great to meet you on Le Tour de Coop. And to find that you may have rescued The Phantom Chicken of Sonoma. I’ve posted about your lovely rooster here: http://leftcoastcowboys.com/2012/06/02/a-dickensian-chicken-adventure/
Don’t make too close a comparison. We really really need to believe that your rooster is the one that evaded coyotes and Mountain Lions for so many months out in the brush across from our place outside Sonoma.