I have been wanting chickens for years and years, but I am a city girl and chickens didn't seem like something I could have. But I was wrong! In November 2018 our city council passed a chicken ordinance and suddenly my chicken dreams seemed like they could come true!
I spent last winter reading everything I could find about chickens and researching everything having to do having chickens in the city, and what types of coops would be best. Our local pet store orders chicks from a local hatchery, and I decided to get chicks from the May shipment. I read about each of the types of chicks in that shipment and decided to get an assortment. After confirming with the neighbors that they wouldn't object to chickens, I ordered five chicks (the maximum amount allowed by our city accordance). I decided to order two Dominiques, one Colombian Wyandotte, one Calico Princess and one Midnight Majesty Maran.
Step one of the chicken quest was underway, so I started to fill out the chicken application for the city. Let me tell you there were lots of hoops to jump through! I had to register my property with the state, and there are rules about where you can put your coop, how big it can be, what it can be build out of. But I followed everything to the letter and was approved, pending inspection of my coop by the city.
So we had to build a coop, which was not a cheap process, and in order to do it we needed to wait until the snow melted! But we had our materials and our plans and were ready to get started just a few weeks before my chicks were set to arrive! My husband is an excellent builder, and he was so helpful to me in the process, but I did get in and do some of the work myself! He took what I liked most about several different coops and melded them together.
We added roosting bars and next boxes in the coop as well. I blocked the boxes off for the first few months, so the chickens didn't have access to them until they were closer to laying age. I didn't want them to use it as a place to sleep and/or poop on a regular basis.
After two full weekends of building, my coop was ready for inspection! Here is the finished coop! Halfway through our first winter it's working really well. I think I'll change some of latches for next winter, but my chickens seem content.
Next blog post, adventures in raising chicks!
I spent last winter reading everything I could find about chickens and researching everything having to do having chickens in the city, and what types of coops would be best. Our local pet store orders chicks from a local hatchery, and I decided to get chicks from the May shipment. I read about each of the types of chicks in that shipment and decided to get an assortment. After confirming with the neighbors that they wouldn't object to chickens, I ordered five chicks (the maximum amount allowed by our city accordance). I decided to order two Dominiques, one Colombian Wyandotte, one Calico Princess and one Midnight Majesty Maran.
Step one of the chicken quest was underway, so I started to fill out the chicken application for the city. Let me tell you there were lots of hoops to jump through! I had to register my property with the state, and there are rules about where you can put your coop, how big it can be, what it can be build out of. But I followed everything to the letter and was approved, pending inspection of my coop by the city.
So we had to build a coop, which was not a cheap process, and in order to do it we needed to wait until the snow melted! But we had our materials and our plans and were ready to get started just a few weeks before my chicks were set to arrive! My husband is an excellent builder, and he was so helpful to me in the process, but I did get in and do some of the work myself! He took what I liked most about several different coops and melded them together.
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| Because we live in Wisconsin we needed to insulate the inside of the coop, and needed to make sure there was enough ventilation for the chickens as well. I wanted to main part of the coop to be higher, to make for easy cleaning, and then the chickens would have build in shade for summer and an area I could block off from wind in the winter in their run. We used hardware cloth to make sure that nothing would get into the coop. |
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| The door is inside the run, protected from rain and snow, and most importantly I have learned that drafts are what bother chickens more than anything. So this should help kept drafts out of the main coop. |
We added roosting bars and next boxes in the coop as well. I blocked the boxes off for the first few months, so the chickens didn't have access to them until they were closer to laying age. I didn't want them to use it as a place to sleep and/or poop on a regular basis.
After two full weekends of building, my coop was ready for inspection! Here is the finished coop! Halfway through our first winter it's working really well. I think I'll change some of latches for next winter, but my chickens seem content.
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| All ready for the chicks to move in! |
Next blog post, adventures in raising chicks!
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