Chickens!!!

Julie and the kids decided during the summer while having dinner at Julie’s cousin Laura and her husband Jon’s house that we needed to get chickens. Laura and Jon have 3 chickens and the kids, Jonah especially, loved playing with them. So anyway, we decided we wanted chickens too. Unfortunately, because of our planned trip to the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in late October early November this was going to be difficult. The first 8 weeks or so of the chickens life they actually need a fair amount of care, and we didn’t want to be gone during this time. So we did some research and found a place on line where we could order chicks into November. We basically would get home during the last week or two where they risk shipping live chicks in the mail. Any later and you run a significant risk of the cold killing them. We ordered 2 Easter Eggers (lay colored eggs), 1 Buff Orpington, (lay brown eggs), 1 Barred Plymouth Rock (lay brown eggs) 1 Rhode Island Red (lay brown eggs), and 1 White Leghorn (lay white eggs). The chicks would hatch on November 8th and ship to us that day.


In September when Julie and Paige went off for 3 days at Disneyland, the boys and I went about building the chicken coop. Prior to this, I spent countless hours researching different designs, drawing plans and layouts, reading more and changing them, plus I talked to Jon a lot and got advice from someone who just recently built one. Anyway, we started in the backyard where we had previously picked out a location for the coop close to the back of our property near our sheds. I first had to dig a 1 foot deep trench around the entire perimeter where we would put in our posts/supports and later bury corrugated metal around the entire thing to help keep out predators.

After this was done we moved the operation to the garage and set out to build the walls. As I built I continued to make changes to the final design; sometimes even after all the preparation, it just doesn’t look as good in real life as it did on paper, so we rebuilt those walls.  The boys helped by hammering nails into wood!

When all the walls were finished we moved them down to our site and started assembling. By the end of the long weekend we had a good framework of what the final was going to look like.

Over the next several weekends when I found time we continued to work on the coop and it slowly came together. Fall though really was a busy time, we also did some camping, Julie and Paige has some Girl Scout things to do one weekend, a couple other fun things I can’t remember now, and then our vacation.

So when we got back from our trip the coop still wasn’t done. Luckily, the chicks would need to be inside for the first several weeks away because they need more heat and can’t be exposed to the cold until there feathers grow in. But time was ticking, the chicks were on their way.

On Wednesday November 10th the chicks arrived at our post office. Julie and the kids went to pick them up and could hear the chirping before they were even handed the box.

When they got hope and opened the box all the chicks were alive!!! Yay!!! We were warned, a lot, that this might not be the case and to be prepared for a dead one or two. We were so happy they all made it, now we just had to keep them alive for the first couple of weeks until they started to get stronger.

I had made a double wide box for them to live in, and put it on the hearth right in the living room. We put a heat lamp over it to keep them at the recommended temperature too.

Julie and the kids had named them all by the time I got home. They are Bunny and Peanut Butter (Easter Eggers), Goldilocks (Buff Orpington), Pepper Jack (Barred Plymouth Rock), Brownie (Rhode Island Red), and Little Bo Peep (White Leghorn). Jonah did not leave their side for the entire first day, and hardly at all for the whole first week.

After 3 weeks they were getting too big for the first box, so we moved them downstairs into our spare bedroom and into a larger (4’ x 4’) box. This was great as they were no longer in our living room and they got a little more space, but they became very difficult to catch/hold as they could easily run to the other side of the box now. After about 2 weeks in this location we transplanted them again to the garage; same box. They lived there for their final two weeks inside.

All along I had been working on the coop trying to get it ready. Chicken coops by principle are supposed to be cheap, put together with whatever you can find, an old shed maybe, some recycled wood, etc. I tried to do this, but the engineer in me didn’t let it happen that way. By the time I finished I had a place I would practically like to live in.  Oh well our pets will be happy and lucky, just like the rest of us. . I now hope they start to lay golden eggs, otherwise I will never recoup the money I spent on the coop.

On Christmas eve morning I put the finishing touches on the coop and Julie and I transferred the chicken to their new home!

Merry Christmas Chickens!!! Enjoy your coop.