I’ve had chickens in the backyard as a goal for some time now and we finally took the plunge. My father-in-law worked hard to build this beauty! An outdoor run for them to be kept safe during the day with a cosy coop for them to roost in at night.

We included three nest boxes for the girls. I had some ideas of planting chicken friendly plants around the run so he cleared some space for me then I hit the books!

No surprise there then, I like to write and read and read and read! So several weeks and many books, articles and youtube videos later I was ready.

The way ‘we ‘constructed the coop; I say ‘we’ but the hubby and father-in-law took care of that, I kept them going with tea & lunch breaks; and just provided enough direction from the many books I’d read to not get too annoying and get in the way! So, back to the construction. We have foxes in our area, and snakes so I wanted to give my girls a safe home. ‘We’ dug down a foot and a half and put the fencing wire laid flat across the bottom of the coop, the same as we used all around the sides. A complete loop that no fox was ever going to be able to dig through. Then we attached the chicken mesh to the outside of the run to keep the snakes and rodents out. We were lucky in that the previous owners had kept chickens under the plum tree in the corner and a couple of the posts were reusable so we re-tasked those as part of the project. Also, the neighbours are so resourceful with coming up with those extra bits like the recycled corrugated tin roofing. That run is bombproof! Then my super talented father-in-law made the chicken coop based on a rough design I asked for. And voila! It exists and it’s ready for the chickens.

As I’m into organic and chemical-free everything, we’ll need another coop eventually as we didn't bother to paint it, just left the wood as it was so we weren’t introducing any chemicals to the egg factory.

Then, you guessed it! I hit the books again. Which chook was the most economical to feed, produced the most eggs for the longest number of years and several other lines of research. More on that later.

Amanda xx