Fun Fancy Chicken Coops and Houses

One of my favorite past blog posts was on Killer Chicken houses.
I had more fun looking at ways people made their chicken coops fanciful, decorative or just plain humorous.

That post was six months ago so I decided a second round was in order. 

This stately chicken house would fit in any smancy neighborhood back yard.

The gentleman that built this one calls it the Taj-Mahal of chicken coops or maybe more aptly named “My Mid-Life Crisis” coop. Click on the photo to go see how he built it, he has conveniently photo journaled it for us

 

This next one is a ‘chicken tractor’ you can roll to different spots of your yard.  They have named it Cluckinham Palace.  They did not chintz on materials, that is real cedar siding!




How about one that reminds me of the 7 dwarves cottage in Snow White.
 
Fancy Cottage Chicken Coop



This little cottage coop is complete with a short picket fence and hand made shutters.  

 

This sleek design has many unique and clever features I want to remember.
 


Completely artistic and check out that succulent garden on top.  chicken pen as garden art



These fabulous chicken abodes make my simple lean to type rather paltry looking.  I think I would like this one in the future or one close to it. 





Now the trick is how to turn this into that above




I used a safety rail from a bunk bed to make the trellis for the Cecile Brunner rose to climb across above the door and window. Though I love the rose climbing up I still am not pleased with the overall look of my chicken house.

This is going to take some major redoing.  Come to think of it the turret effect would not work here, the snow would build up and cause problems.  Rats.  I really liked that. I will have to keep looking and thinking.   

I am working on that post for Learning to Paint daisies.

  Promise.

Back to Paintin’

Here I am sitting back in my recliner, now in my bedroom instead of by the wood stove (as it was in the winter) listening to the hum of the fan drawing in the refreshing cool evening air.  I have wood glue in my hair and my fingers are dotted with paint that refuses to come off without extensive scrubbing. 

It has been a good day!  Lovely upper 80 degree temps for the highs and nearly 60 degrees for the lows.  I spent most of the day painting.  Remember my chairs I did my comparison of Rustoleum and Chalk paint on??  (click on the photo to go to that post)



Well, after painting on some special order signs I was able to finally get back to them.  Looking at the chairs closely I noticed the Chalk paint chair had started to crackle.  I love the crackle finish so I decided to go ahead and finish them in the Chalk paint.  I have gotten the same effect with Old Fashioned Milk paint,  it reacts with the old finish and crackles so nicely!



As I was painting I noticed some loose joints so I glued those (leaning over to clamp them I drug my hair thru the glue and tried to clean it all out but missed some as I found out when I tried to brush my hair later) and continued painting.  I worked on the seats as well.  I was inspired by this post by Christy Repasy, Drool worthy Painted Chair.

I have been a fan of hers for years and can only dream about painting roses as beautifully as she. (I would dearly love to take one of her classes).  Anyways, I have put off working on these chairs since I was stumped as to which direction I wanted to go with them and now I know.  So we shall see how it works out. 

In all our moving I have come across a saw I painted 10 years ago.   A snowy little country cabin.  Not a very good picture maybe I shall take another in the early morning when the lighting is better. 



I have some more garden shots to share with you but I will save that for another day.  My garden is in the height of  it’s glory and I spend every spare moment I can out there. 

Just the walk to the chicken pen is a treat.



remember what it looked like in March?    Shudder!



And the greenhouse…then



Now…



I much prefer the now. For those of you who know me that comes as no surprise. 

My website



The Chicken Coop is the New Doghouse

That caption on a newsletter caught my attention.  It is so true that backyard chickens are making a renaissance and the resident canine is having to move over to make room for the ladies.  It seems the movement for backyard flocks has gone from folksy to chic. Many start keeping chickens for the eggs but more than that they make terrific pets.
I know I enjoy my chickens.  I relish having fresh eggs to eat (they taste ten times better than store bought) and I have the advantage of the lovely compost I can make with what I clean out of their house and yard.  They are great at clearing out weeds, just set up a temporary pen around the weedy area, turn your chickens loose in it. Voila!  Before you know it,  bare ground , and the area is fertilized to boot.  Of course if there is any plants in that area you don’t want eradicated then that plan will not work, they don’t discriminate.
Meet some of my ladies

As you can see I keep plenty of straw, pine shavings and dried leaves on hand to toss into their pen and the hen house to absorb the treasures they leave behind, that keeps the odors down and makes it easier to rake out on a regular basis. Regular cleaning also keeps odors at bay.
Chickens are easy.  Keep them fed, clean water and a safe place to roam and roost. There are all sorts of shops offering all the amenities as well as your local feed store should have what you need. Here are two very good links for resources.
Backyard Chickens 
My Pet Chicken
Predators (raccoons, skunks, weasels) do like to make an easy meal of sleeping chickens (chickens are easy picken’s when sleeping, they are really comatose) so a secure hen house is a must.  My husband built me this sturdy hen house and pen.  There is a complete roof on the pen now so it really is secure.

Not as fancy as some of the fun chicken pens and houses I have seen online and in magazines lately.  I am collecting some photos of some really nice hen houses for a blog post dedicated to them.
We just added to our flock.  This year I wanted to get some Black Copper Marans and between my mom and I hunting around as locally as we could we tracked down some chicks.  We took a trip the beginning of this week to pick them up.  Here are our new babies!


We acquired 10, they are straight run so we don’t know yet how many hens or roosters we ended up with.  We won’t know until they mature.  We have high hopes of getting mostly hens but if not we know we can find good homes for the roosters.  I, personally, would like to keep a rooster but we shall see if I can this time.  They will grow fast and I will post updates of their progress. 
So if you are looking for a new pet maybe you should think about backyard chickens.  We started out with 5 hens and an inexpensive (we built it ourselves) chicken coop.  It does not take a lot of money or fancy to enjoy your own chickens.  And actually they pay for themselves in the eggs they produce. 
Glad you could stop by and visit.
Pamela