Making Room for the New Recruits

So, with the new chicks now a month old, we needed to make sure there was room on the coop for 10 chickens.  The plastic cabin coop was low on space, since the nest boxes were internal to the cabin.  In addition, since the nest boxes were open topped, they tended to get dirty quickly.  So, we decided to build an external nest box.  We had some spare dog eared fence pickets and 2x4s, so we'd only need to buy some hinges and a lock.  First, a look at why you need a door to your chicken run (which the chickens use when we aren't home and can't let them free range). How did he get in there?  Through the cabin window, just like the chickens.  The window is maybe 18" off the floor, and while you see coops with fancy ladders to help the chickens in and out, ours have no problems just leaping up to the window and hopping in/out.

 And now for the magic trick of getting back out:

Now for the nestbox build pictures.  We based or design off another blog that said when they limited the headroom in the nest boxes, the chicks spent less time in them, and thus, less droppings in the nest boxes:

We attached the 2x4s to the plastic cabin with some "all thread" and nuts and washers, then cut off the extra "all thread":

The frame was then built on site and attached to the 2x4s that were attached to the cabin:

We used cut down fence pickets (1x6) for flooring:

The chickens were hanging out with Maggie, our Lab/Australian Shepherd mix. She doesn't bother them a bit:

Then we added a second level and test the fit of the nest boxes:

Attach the roof and sides:

Built a door:

And voila!  Done: