This look-back is meant to thoroughly introduce you to why we have chickens. Updates of our chickens' progress can be found on our Facebook and in additional blog posts. - The American Haggard Housewife
With the chicks growing quickly (if you missed it, see Cluck, Cluck: Part 2), it was on to the coop for us! Over the course of the previous year we'd been scouring homesteading blogs, quizzing friends and family that had chickens, and generally reading up on the fluffy, feathery, noisy mess to get our arsenal of information before we actually created a coop. I think from the get-go we knew we were going to build our own coop, something that fit our needs and budget (actually looking back, throw budget out the window) that both my husband and I could love and call our own creation. So we set to work considering what not to build, and came up with something that looked like this...
Okay, so the scribbles on the back of a receipt, in a notebook, on a napkin, etc. ending up becoming something a little more realistic (and 3-dimensional) in the end. I think it should be called a "Pastured Poultry Palace" although both my husband and father-in-law disagree with me wholeheartedly and keep reminding me... it's "just a chicken coop."
So our "Pastured Poultry Palace"... (did you really think I would give up that easy?)... started to take shape last June, even though brush and tree removal from the area started long before our chicks arrived mid-May. We begun the process in the shed as we didn't have a generator (or hundreds and hundreds of feet of extension cord) to run our power tools and the ground wasn't completely ready for the coop just yet. So we figured, in our "free time" with the chicks eagerly listening and commenting about our construction methods, we'd build the base and walls in the shed, walk them up the hill, and then drop them down before too long.
May 26th - Completion of the 4x8' base to sit two foot off the ground and coated with back splash on the bottom for easy cleaning (something my father-in-law suggested and thank goodness he did!).
May 27th - The Mr. proudly showing off the first completed wall of the coop. (Note: The wall is not attached, hence why he's holding it there.) This taller wall will be the front wall of the coop, and you can see it has openings for doors and windows and well, plenty of other openings. Yes, the whole thing has studs of 2x3s (which may be a little beefier than needed), and the rest of the openings that are not going to become doors and windows will be insulated (a bit overkill?). But, "Go big or go home." 
May 28th - The Mr. showing off the back wall to the coop with even more openings! Some of these openings will be for laying boxes and windows as well. The rest is home to more of that insulation.
Not bad for three days work in the evenings, right? Well, that's when our project lulled, greatly. It's not that we didn't want to work on it, it's that we didn't have time with jam packed work weeks and evenings, a garden that needed planted and weeded, and chicks who were growing ever larger, and beginning to crow up a storm. The Mr.'s best friend came up on the 11th of June and together, he and my husband hauled the coop up the hill (as there was no way my back would've held out for that). My in-laws came two days later to give the project a much needed boost.
June 13th - Up went the studs (and they did not color coordinate their shirts on purpose, but my mother-in-law and I got a kick out of the idea that the old saying holds true "like father, like son.")
June 13th - And then on went the roof.
June 13th - The insulation got jammed in between all that over-kill bracing.
June 13th - Followed by the walls.
By the next morning, things were looking pretty darn good. The coop was more-or-less enclosed and the inside was beginning to look like, well, a chicken coop. They had the holes drilled out for the water pipes, the ceiling insulated along with the front wall, and they were beginning to work on the other walls and add laying boxes. By the end of two days, the coop looked something like this: 
And then, we waited a few days (with rain storms in between and plastic garbage bags stapled to all the openings) to continue the work. Meanwhile our chicks were growing all the bigger and now eagerly testing their wings out in the brooder. (First piece of advice I have in this entire process is start your coop as soon as you order your chicks, if not long before.) By sunset on the 24th we had doors, front windows, and window screens installed along with the vent they had already added ten days before. The laying boxes were roofed, and the rain pipe added to the gutter.
By the following week, my cousin from North Carolina had come up to spend some time with us and she was drafted to help finish off the interior of the coop, adding "chicken jails," roosting bars and a hanging feeder, as well as screening off any large holes that still remained that were not going to be put to use quite yet. By the 2nd of July (37 days after we started the project) the coop was ready and secure for the chicks to move in, although not completed.
We coated the bottom of the coop with shredded copy paper, added a container for "greens" (or "actual food" as I like to call it) and grit, as well as a gallon waterer as their water system was not installed yet. (Yes, the coop may look a little small in this picture as the center dividing wall is up creating two separate 4x4' coops.) Boy were the chicks happy to spread their wings in the new coop!
For the moment, the picture of Mr. Rooster checking out his new digs will have to tied you over. Watch for Part 5 in the coming months to continue the chicken tale and figure out if everything goes to plan with chickens in this new "Pastured Poultry Palace." (I'm still not giving up on that name.)
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