Well, I am glad that a number of folks wanted to see this project but I can’t decide if I am going to please you with our little creation or not, you see it was built out of scrape wood left overs from other projects, and so pretty was not the goal..
I have seen those amazing wonderful little chicken coops, the ones that look like little houses or baby barns or gingerbread houses, and I sure admire the work that goes into them but this litle box was put together in under two hours from start to finish, even the next box is a old reused five gallon bucket that had cracked in the bottom and could no longer hold water, and this morning it held my first green egg.
I am unhappy with the water and feed being on the ground, so as soon as I have two new smaller plastic bottles used in the house, I will wash them out, cut feed holes in them, and attach them off the heavy 2 by 4 so they don’t take ground space on the girls.. I might rethink their nest box as well and see if there is a way to hang a just big enough, but I wanted to get the girls in and working, figuring out what works best will come quickly enough. I can see moving the nest bucket each day from corner to corner will be needed so that the girls can have a go under it. The floor space is 12 square feet, I have started with four hens so 3 square feet each, compared to their normal pens, this seems like not a lot of floor space to me but given that I will be giving them fresh ground, I figure they won’t mind to much once they get used to it, I didn’t put a boy in the group because I don’t need the girls breed at this time of the year. They went in yesterday, and as you can see from the above photo, some of the greens just outside the box are at least a foot high, and already in a day the inside greens have been worked down, I will give them another day and then add some active half done compost in one corner and sprickle of scratch on the ground to keep them going at it.
Just another Day on the Farm 
“Pretty” usually means expensive. I think your chicken ark looks perfectly serviceable. 🙂
Are they liking it in there?
Now that they have settled in, yes they seem quite content, but look forward to the move to new ground when the old is done..
Exactly. Serviceable is plenty good enough. Mine was a converted rabbit hutch that somebody was throwing away. I extended the legs to give room underneath, fitted a perch and added nest boxes and foodhopper to the outside made from odd bits of wood I had. Pretty hard to move on my own though. I’m not sure if this works, but maybe you can see a picture or two at the link below.
Rich
https://picasaweb.google.com/102043833138505999416/ChickenArk?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Great reuse of a the rabbit hutch, and thanks for the photo link, I can see what you mean about being hard to move as a single person but I really like that the rest is off the ground and not taking up ground space..
Holy! Who needs a lawnmower with these “guys” around? Looks like they’ve eaten almost everything but the grass already – COOL!
About the nesting bucket… Would it be possible to strap it up near the “roof” of the pen? I’m sure the girls wouldn’t mind being off of the ground a bit and that way you wouldn’t need to keep moving it out of the way either. Just a thought: )
Oh, I’d like to share a link from you here to Toni in BC, if that’s okay with you, of course.
Sure, share the link, no issues.. It might be possable to lift the nesting box, and I can see your point about the lawn mower but it would take alot more birds then I have to work on that one, but in the garden it does appear to be quite helpful.