Building the New Coop, Part 3

We got a lot done yesterday and today on the coop. Yesterday I painted the nest boxes and roosts and also some of the floor wood. The rest we'll leave as is, since it's for chickens and they really don't care. They ended up with a soothing lavender color though since that is what I had on hand. My husband said that he hopes it will relax them to lay more eggs. Not that we need them to lay more eggs, we have way too many now. 

 We added the 2 braces to the lower roosts too.

 and the window is all set with hardware wire on the outside and an hinged door on the inside.

 It will be so nice to just shut the window and pop door with the doors and not have to use plastic anymore! So excited about that point especially!!!!

 My husband got the base of the run complete and leveled.

 He used Handi Blocks for the construction. It is supposed to be an easy way to build decks and other things. Not sure if anyone had used them for a chicken run. The run will end up higher on the end then the top, but it will be level with the shed.

 Here is the back view of the window installed. It will be just above the run.

 We also cut two vents on opposite sides of the coop and installed vent covers.

 The cutting was not perfect, but it looks good on the outside and that's what counts.

Since we are clearing out all the land where the coop and the garden is I let the chickens lose on my kale, Swiss chard, carrots and spinach. They made fast work at it and destroyed it. I was kind of sad to see all my hard work gone so fast. They will repay us in eggs though and the eggs should be full of nutrients from all that good healthy green food.

I opened up the garden bed that had my garlic in it too. They worked on it for a while too.

 I actually was growing garlic, but since we have to move everything, I won't be able to finish growing it this year. I am going to plant more for next year though. I really want to be successful at growing garlic and produce some for us. Oh well, it is a good thing that we'll be building up our property, so I need to relax and go with the flow this year. I am hoping to get a few relocated vegetable beds in this year somewhere with tomatoes, cucumbers and squash still.

So all that was yesterday, today we got a lot more done. My son and daughter helped out and we ended up dismantling the run completely and we've already moved over half the chickens. The rest are the wild ones who do not like to be touched, so we planning on moving them tonight when they are asleep. I hope that goes well. Here are a few pictures from today's adventures.

Here is the old coop and run before we touched it.

 Here is the run partially dismantled. It was not an easy process. We built it very strong which meant there was a ton of screws and nails all over, plus even buried hardware cloth for digging predators. We did an awesome job reinforcing it from anything breaking in which worked against us since we were now taking it apart.

 My son and husband tearing down the run bit by bit.

 Here is my daughter, son and husband working on attaching the moved run to it's new location. Of course, our dog Maxie was supervisor, as always.

Here is most of the run up.We still need to put the end piece and the door. It will sit higher off the ground so the door has to be moved. I also need to block a lot of the area under the coop from the chickens going too far under and predators having access to them.

So we have about 13 of the chickens moved in already. The Easter Egger really likes the new coop and window. I think they all are wondering when they'll go back to their old coop and roosts.

So there is a lot more to do still, but the big majority of the work is done and it was great to have some help today too. There is no way we would have gotten the run moved without our kids to help!