A new seasonal home for the hens

by mimibeaven

Now that the younger hens have joined the old girls and Teddy and are all in one flock they need a new home for the spring, summer and fall seasons. This will allow them to range further afield and make the most of fresh grass, bugs, insects and anything else they find that might provide a tasty morsel, that is, of course, once the grass starts growing in earnest. After much stopping and starting spring is finally here…it took a while but we are off and running on another busy year, trees are bursting forth and if we get a little more rain the grass will be too hopefully. The mobile coop will also free up the hens’ winter quarters to become a chick and gosling brooding area and give the vegetation around that building time to recuperate.

Running gear ready for new purpose

Anna of Ticketyboo Farm (and shepherd at Kinderhook Farm) and I have had our running gears for months thanks to Dustin of Gibson Farms and we were planning our mobile coops over the winter. We checked out other peoples’ coops, discussed pros and cons of this design and that design. We want our coops to be perfect but at some point, just like a metaphor for life, you just have to go for it and do it. I am neither handyman nor woman so Eric is the man we turn to on all matters carpentry. He rebuilt our pig sty into a chicken coop when the tree smashed through the roof a couple of winters ago and did a fine job, he built Meg and Martha’s treehouse , meat bird cassitas and Daisy’s hutch so he was called once I had my design laid out on paper.

The coop has come a long way since that first drawing scribbled on a scrap of paper during the flight back from San Francisco after Do USA 2012. Things have been modified and materials changed but I am really thrilled with how it has turned out…so much better than I could have imagined. It is the result of on-going conversations during the building process and of finding materials at the farm that we can repurpose. I love that we can re-use materials so there is a history to our new coop, it is the best blend of old and new and it looks great. A collaboration between us and others, just how we intend to approach the whole farm rejuvenation.

Because we are Animal Welfare Approved there are many criteria to take into consideration when building a mobile coop. The hens have specific space requirements, roost positioning and nest box access to ensure the strict humane standards required for certification. It really is going to be the Four Seasons Hotel for hens!

The coop is now finished and the next big task is getting the hens to consider it home. It will be a process, parking it next to where they currently are, letting them investigate it during the days, getting them used to it and then finally moving them out of their winter coop and fully into the mobile so we can move it to greener pastures. This year they will remain here at home with us but next year they will move further and go to the farm where we will hopefully move into our new home too…just got to build it!