This was the dog kennel (under the deck):
In this picture, you can see the dog kennel on the left and the wooden storage shed right next to it. John added a metal storage shed on the right, so we'd have room to store our garden tools after converting the shed to a coop:
This is the inside of the shed. The hole goes out to the kennel. There was a box/dog house inside the shed, so a dog could spend time out in the kennel or come into his cozy house in the shed to sleep. We did not use it much. Our dog is rather spoiled and indoors most of the time. But the set up is perfect for allowing chickens to move from their coop to their fenced yard.
Step 1: Put a better roof on the shed so water doesn't drip down from the deck. Then insulate the walls:
We added a wall to divide the shed into two parts - the chickens have about 2/3 as their coop (on the other side of this screen), and humans have the remainder as walking space and a place to store feed and bedding.
This door can be accessed from the human side of the coop:
When you open the door, you can access the nest boxes and easily collect eggs:
View from the chickens' side of the coop: (You can see the back of the nest boxes on the upper left)
Roost and droppings board:
Trapdoor ramp leading to the fenced yard:
One of our first two chicks, eating in her yard. We found out the hard way that the yard was not cat-proof.
So, since those first two chicks lasted less than 48 hours, we took a break for a while and took some time to better cat-proof the enclosed yard. Then we mail-ordered some chicks from a hatchery. So much fun to pick up a peeping package from the post office! In case you've never mail-ordered chicks (which I hadn't before now), this is what they ship the birds in - a cardboard box with holes:
Inside the box:
We got two black Australorps and two Ameraucanas.
We'll keep them in this crate inside until we think they're old enough for the coop. They already have distinct personalities. Smaug is the independent one (off by herself in the shot below). Chico (the yellow one) is the mother hen. Kiddy (the other black one) is the runt and likes to burrow under the wing of anyone who will let her. Fluff (the brown one with the ground-squirrel-like stripes) is either blind or sick or not so bright. Hard to tell at this point.
