(left to right: Summer, Starry, Sunset and Stormy)

In my quest to be serve healthy whole, organic foods I decided to get a few chickens! They are adorable, wonderful to cuddle, they love to follow me around the garden  and yes, they POOP!  It’s great for my lawn and they eat the garden’s slugs, snails and bad bugs but I will reiterate that they poop!  In spite of that, the fact that I can have organic, free range eggs every day is wonderful!  I have a casual eggs-for-trade program going on with a few of my friends that also happen to be neighbors! For instance with Lindy and Greg it’s Swiss Chard for eggs!

We originally bought a chicken shelter for our first two hens.  It started falling apart and I decided that I wanted six chickens.  I knew I would have to custom make something.  Then I remembered that we had a wonderful storage shed made of concrete block covered in stucco,  custom iron doors, with privacy screening so you could see out but not in – that was basically storing junk!

The junk was 86-ed in about 5 seconds!!!!!  I came up with a design using only the right side of the storage unit, where my girls could comfortably walk up a ramp, pop up to the “sidewalk” that ran the width of the interior and decide which “condo” they were going to roost in each night!

I took note of  the size and number of pieces I would need and had everything pre-cut for me at the local “Do It Center”.  I had to re-cut everything an inch or two when I got home but at least the hard part was already done.  Since I did not want to mess around with anchoring into concrete I built a frame that supported itself!  It only took a couple of hours to put together!  My chicks find the way back to their hen house every night at dusk and all we have to do is close the door and lock them up safely for the night!  They often have sleep-overs in one another’s condo!