Chicken Coop Expansion - The Hen Palace Grounds

This past week has seen an expansion of Claire's Chicken Chateau, with an add-on to the side of the coop, complemented by a protected outdoor exploration yard. 

As you may recall, the Chicken Chateau was based upon the dog house that was originally with the property when we purchased it.  Re-using the dog house roof was a way to use what we had on site, and save some cost, as well as recycle materials.  This made a good, but narrow chicken coop.  Here's how it looked when it was in the initial construction phase, nearly completed.

Over time we acquired a few more chickens (now 22 adults and 6 nuggets), and watched their behaviour, especially on rainy days when they didn't really want to be outside, I decided it was time for a bit of an expansion.

My helpful local builder came and built out the side of the coop to the existing perimeter fence, using the fence as part of the new wall.

He installed a new roof portion as well.  This part of the renovation opened up some space for more indoor comfort, and space for another roosting bar. 

This picture shows the renovation partly completed, but you can see how it opened up a whole new area.  We used a lot of old barn boards and pallet wood that we already had handy.

On the weekend, he came to complete the renovation and add an outdoor exploration area.  Having lost two birds to hawks in our initial chicken days here, we knew that keeping them protected when foraging was critical.  The new chicken yard uses some recycled material from a metal barn structure, which holds up a plastic mesh cover material.  There's also a gate for me to go in and out.  The sides are wood and hardware cloth, which is more sturdy than chicken wire.

It allows for sunlight and air (and those yummy bugs) to pass through, but prevents hawk or owl activity.  The base of the outdoor area also has wood around the base to prevent raccoons or other predators. There is a hatch door with a ramp on both the inside and outside for the birds to use to access the yard.

The outdoor foraging area will only be accessible in the daytime.  At night, they are inside the coop with the door firmly closed.

There is also a brand new Mummy-and-baby suite for Whisp and her little ones, which can be used when needed for birds who need time to rest, recuperate, be mothers, or otherwise be separated but "with" the flock.

On their first afternoon in the foraging area, after some initial discovery of leafy plants and grubs in the dirt, they all selected an ideal dust bath location and dug out a shallow bowl-shaped area.  Everybody seems to get into the dust bath at once.  I am hoping it won't get too muddy and nasty when it rains, but for now, they are all loving it!

Here's Willoughby supervising the dust bathing area.

Buttercream goes bug hunting.

Jellybelly has a rest in the leaf litter and looks like a queen as always.

Shadow shows her fluffy pantaloons while foraging in the wild blueberry bushes.

I'm so glad that they have more space to roam and enjoy their environment while remaining safe from birds of prey.

Athena has a Dust Bath

If you haven't watched a chicken take a dust bath, you're missing out!  They are really quite amusing. I decided to let Athena go out in the fenced area today.  She isn't likely to try to escape the fencing by flying over it.  She's not that kind of chicken.  Some breeds are good flyers, but Athena's a bit too heavy for that and she's not the right build.  It has been quite a long time since Athena has had the opportunity to be out in an open area, rather than her large dog crates.  She did some scratching in the dirt in the outdoor dog crate, but that isn't the same because the metal mesh of the crate prevents full dust bathing.

So finally, today, she went out into the fenced area and the very first thing she did was walk about 5 feet forward to an area with soft earth to start a major dust bath.  It was lovely to see her just being a chicken again.  The woodsy area has a lot of leaf litter and pine needle debris on the ground, making for lots of soft, ideal dust bathing areas.  I took a lot of pictures of her, many of which are blurry, but that's what it looks like when a chicken is dust-bathing - just a blur!

Here you can see she's settled in to a spot for her bath.

She begins turning around and around, scratching in the earth to create a shallow depression in the soil - sort of like a "bowl" shape.

Once she has the area established, she begins kicking dirt onto herself.  Here you can see that her head is relatively still, but her back end is a blur because she is kicking up dirt and dust onto her feathers.

She continues to do this many, many times, kicking around the dirt with her legs and shaking it through her feathers.

It's quite amusing to watch her shake and shimmy around.  The dust and dirt help to clean oils off her feathers and also help to prevent skin parasites like lice and mites.  I check her regularly to ensure she doesn't have any parasites, but this is their natural way of keeping clean.

Once she really gets into the groove, she starts completely rolling over in the dirt.  You can see here that her head is upside down and the back of her neck is in the dust bath.

Shake those tail feathers, Athena!

Here she is totally upside-down with her foot up in the air.

Wheeee!  Chickens often make contented little noises while dust bathing - soft clucks and burbling noises.

Sometimes they stop part way through their dust bath to take a rest, like in the picture below.  This can cause new chicken owners to think that their bird is dead.  Nope - she's just resting!

About a half an hour later, I went to check on her again.  Still at it!  Happy chicken!