Welcome to 204 C!

This coop is a little gem – cute, cozy, stylish – a dream home for any city chicken.

Built with 95% recycled and donated materials, the total cost was about $50.  With such a low investment, there’s plenty of room to build sweat equity and increase the value.

This property boasts an enclosed, bio-secure 10′ x 4′ run.  Guaranteed to keep out pesky cats, racoons, or falcons.

With plenty of outdoor space, there’s no need to crowd.  At the back of the run, you’ll find plenty of shade and loose dirt.  Great for taking dust baths.  Grit and crushed oyster shell can go in one corner . . . . . . and water in the other corner!

The feeder is elegantly hung from the exposed beams.  This keeps the food at eye level and detracts from unwanted visitors stealing away with your food in the night (although Greta caught a mouse one time trying to steal her food – it was not pretty.  I had to wrestle her for it – by the time she was done with it, it didn’t have a face anymore – ugh).

With a growing family, there is space to expand.  As you can see, an additional food and water station has been added already, and the current owners plan to renovate this summer to expand the bio-secure run all around the fir tree.

There’s a plywood ramp with handmade foot holds leading into the coop.  Some prefer to use the ramp; others may just want to jump and squawk and flap their wings until they somehow end up inside the coop.  The choice is yours.

To the north side, there is a nesting box for easy egg retrieval.  That is, if you decide to use it for eggs.

If you are young and small enough, it might serve as a panic room  an extra bedroom.

Along the south side, notice the mature landscaping, providing shade and much-needed privacy.

Here we come to the backdoor, as it were.  An exterior window, screened in and removable for ease of access and cleaning.

Peering inside, notice the entire coop is fully insulated and built to use the deep-litter method – both important features when winter temperatures can dip below -40 Celsius.

The roost is a 2 x 4 laid flat.  In these parts, because of extreme winter temperatures, the girls need to be able to cover their feet with their feathers.  You don’t want frost-bitten toes!

When you step back and take it all in, you notice the strategic placement of the coop underneath a ginormous fir tree.  The tree provides shelter from snow, wind, and rain, and gives the girls shade in the summer.  Thank goodness the female owner was able to convince her husband not to chop the tree down when they first bought the property (although she is bit tired of constantly sweeping and vacuuming up pine needles in the house).

With a few upgrades and enhancements, this could be the ultimate dream coop.  The current occupants are very happy, and will be even happier after the addition to the run is completed in Summer 2012 – check back for more pictures then!