If you homestead and are self reliant, chickens are a must have.

Here is our Coop and Run now finished and the occupants are “In Da House”. This was put together using lots and lots of web surfing and looking at comments on what others have done. Our birds are now 11 weeks and we found a surprise, yep a rooster.

We got all our birds as chicks from McMurray Hatchery. When you order 15 birds, they throw in a free mystery bird. Well it turns out our mystery bird was a Buttercup and now it’s crowing, gotta love it!

Our decision was to use nipple feeders for water, that has working out well and you can save some $$ doing that. The inside is a standard 2 gallon bucket with 4 nipples, the run area has a 5 gallon with 6 nipples. This ensures that they always have water inside or out. Since we don’t have water at the location, a hose or taking them down and filling them works fine. I also like that doing this, gets you paying attention to the birds, the condition of things and helps reduce problems overall.

I have not run power to the coop yet, I have run it from the house when I installed water on the property. Right now I am using my large storage battery, solar panels with controller and a 200 watt inverter to run the AutoDoor. It also runs a light inside should we need it. I could do solar all summer but if I need more demand in the winter, the solar will not be enough for heating. So power is coming.

I also believe in the “Fudge Factor”. Making things a percentage larger only makes sense. I can do 25 birds, maybe a few more if time get tough and I need to increase my egg or meat bird production. So think about just big enough vs expansion, that is priceless.

So enjoy and comment on the project and get some BIRDS!!!