We have a friend who teaches elementary school, and each year she hatches chicks for her students. Last year we took three and raised them in the house until they were old enough to join the rest of the birds in the coop. We still have them, and 2 are reliable layers (the third turned out to be a rooster, alas). By and large this worked out great, except they made an unholy stink and mess in our basement. The stink faded quickly once we got the out, but the mess, a fine film of disgusto chicken dust* on everything, took a lot of work to clean up. This lead to an “over my dead body will we ever have chickens in the house again” proclamation from Susan. This year I wanted free chickens again, so I created this, for about $20:

That’s 3 sheets of $7 foundation insulation foam and about a roll of duct tape. It closes up with insulation across the top as well. The wooden coop sitting inside it:

I already had. It has 1 100 watt light which is on 24×7. There’s another 100 watt fixture out of sight under their roosting area which I flip on if its going to be under 40 degrees at night, which it has been a few times so far. So far the chickens seem to be doing fine and the wife is happy, so I’ll tentatively call this successful. Now to get the new, bigger coop built quick – I have a dozen guinea hens on the way in about a month.

(I should note that we compromised and kept the baby chicks in the house for their first two weeks, because it was especially cold this spring and we worried they wouldn’t survive. They’re almost 4 weeks old now and have been out for over a week, including 2 nights that got under 30 degrees.)

* disgusto chicken dust is made of about 2/3 wood chip dust pulverized by tiny chicken feet and 1/3 powdered chicken poop. It really is vile.

Around dinnertime yesterday Soolin became very concerned with something going on outside. I opened the back door and discovered the chickens were having a major fracas. That’s not uncommon so I ignored it, but a while later when I went to put dinner on the grill they were still having a major fracas, so I went off to investigate. I discovered one of our two roosters had contrived to get his leg completely tangled in the cord used to raise and lower the ramp that leads into the nesting area of the coop, and he was suspended upside down under the coop, engaged in a battle to the death with the other rooster. He had definitely gotten the worst of it, but both of them were covered in blood. I could not tell if he was going to die, and am still unsure. Our coop is an aframe with a ~2′ tunnel under the apex of the roof. I had to go get a weapon to fend off the other rooster, then crawl into the nasty goop under the coop, grab the suspended rooster so he didn’t claw me, then saw the cord off his leg without injuring him. Much.

I’m still not sure if he will live. He was still alive when I left for work this morning. I took him out of the main coop and stuck him into the little brooder coop I have for when we get chicks. Tonight when I get home from work I need to go out and build something more substantial for him – the thing is too small for him, and I need it for the 4 new chicks we currently have inside.

Meantime I’m sick with the cold the family is fighting. When I came in last night from getting him setup in the brooder coop, I checked on the baby chickens, and one of them hopped out of the box we have them in. I had to chase it around our basement and grab it before Soolin chomped it, which she was definitely interested in doing. I went upstairs and told Susan I’m sending all the chickens off to the nackers

One last detail, a friend who lives down the road from us who also has chickens captured this video last night of a bear going after his birdfeeders. There was something in the air!