The Blue House Coop

I wanted to make the chickens' habitat fun and engaging, so I added a few "toys" for them (some of them I built, because I love building and need every excuse I can find!) The space came with its own built-in feature - a forsythia bush, which the chickens love! They spent their first few weeks in the run chilling under the overhanging branches and eating all the leaves they could reach. Here they are, while the bush still had chicken-level leaves:



They've destroyed those now, but the bush is big enough that it still provides them with plenty of cool shade and branches to climb through:


I gave them a few stumps to climb on as well. They double as visitor stools, for us to sit on when we go in to hang out with the chickens:



In the above picture you can also see the faux ivy wall at the back of the run. I really wanted the space to have a woodsy, natural look to it (inspired by the trees and shrubs it's nestled between and under). Hence why the dark wood stain and black-painted mesh and hardware, too. I wanted it to look good. So I found natural-looking planters to use as containers as well - a fake log as their outdoor drinker (I covered the inside with silicone to make it safe to drink from, in case the material it's made of leaches anything into the water), and a smaller fake log planter to serve as their grit container. That one fits a 4" flower pot, so I put a pot inside to keep them from pecking the fake log material (hard foam) as they're trying to get the grit. It's been several weeks and neither container itself has been pecked yet, so I'm feeling hopeful about them not trying to eat the containers themselves.




Now, for the things I built. I found a guy in my neighborhood who was trying to get rid of a fallen tree he'd cut up. So I took about three trunkfuls.


And I built the chicks a log jungle gym:


I used my new favorite galvanized pipe hanger tape to hold the logs together. With a lot of screws drilled through a lot of holes, I was able to get really tight joints, and the whole structure feels very secure. I also put large 6" L brackets on the bottom of the two vertical logs, on the front, to keep it from ever tipping forward, but the long diagonal log should stop it from doing that anyway. In the above photos, you can still see the metal pieces and it really bothers me... I have since painted them brown to hide them... But these are my nicer photos of the setup with chickens on it, so they'll have to do for now. I do also have these couple of pictures, where you can see how much better the metal strips look now:





The chickens love climbing on it and resting on it. My little kids love arranging the chickens on the branches, and the chickens actually oblige and stay where they've been placed. In the second photo of the setup, the chickens are in the configuration my 4-year-old gave them

I also use the jungle gym to tie fresh cut branches to for the chickens to eat some greens. I have a lot of overgrown shrubbery, so every couple of days I give them a fresh bunch of greens to eat, and they like climbing up to reach from different angles.


One of them even figured out how to use the tallest branch to get to the too-high-to-reach leaves on the forsythia:


Here's another photo just for fun I love how green everything looks (real and fake )


Another thing I built for them is a dust bath. I'd been inspired by one of my kids' favorite local playgrounds and its sand box, which has logs going all the way around it for the kids to climb on:


So I built a miniature version for my chickens. The logs are held together with a loop of (yes, again!) my favorite galvanized hanger tape, drilled into the logs along the inner circle on the sand side. The chickens love climbing on it and scratching through the sand, but, alas... I have never seen them dust bathe in it They are like little kids. You get them a nice toy, and they want to play with the wrapping paper instead. So my chickens dust bathe in the dirt, and only poop in the sand box...




I'm also going to hang a chicken swing at some point, but I haven't gotten to that yet.

And one last extra - I gave the run an outdoor camera so I could spy on the chickens wherever they go! It's hard to see in the picture, but I cut a piece of leftover roofing material and bent it in that space between the roof and the top plate, so that the camera and its cords are protected from any horizontal rain/snow blowing under there in a storm. We've had some heavy rainstorms this week, and the camera is still working!


It doesn't pan, but it covers enough that I can see almost the whole run - all but a couple inches along the far edges. I can zoom from its phone app. Here's my view during the day:


And at night:


And that is the interior of my run! The chickens seem very happy, and my family has been very happy spending time with them in there.
I've pulled my best shots of the whole setup, coop and run, together in the next section - the glamor shots!