The Hen House, aka, "Cluckingham Palace"

This is it, the very long post that I've been working on, literally, for several months. The Hen House reveal! Warning... this is a long one. You read below that I started work on the Hen House back in April. Well, the short version is that we now have three happy hens in a bright and Happy Hen House and on most days we get two eggs between them!

Ha! I can do this! I said. I built a workbench, how hard can a chicken coop be? Ya, right! It was a mighty challenge, especially with little building skills. But hey, I have watched so much HGTV that I felt that DIY skills had infused my system. There were a few tears, but mostly there was triumph, one little step at a time. 

My drawings...

The initial plan - modified a few times during the build

The Hen House would be 5' wide, 4' high (excluding the roof) and 3' deep. The whole thing stands over 6' from the ground to the top of the roof. The wood and wire panels would be 3'x5' each and would be assembled together piece by piece also allowing relatively easy extensions as time goes on.

I don't have fancy tools but I'm grateful for my various saws! I need a second cordless drill/driver, - the electric one is very heavy after a while.

I am VERY worried about how my little Hens will survive the bitter winters here (Southern Manitoba!!) Winter temperatures regularly plummet below -30C sometimes with a windchill of -40C. Most of the time we're hovering between -12C and -25C (normal winter temps). I insulated the Hen House and roof with thick blocks of styrofoam. I'm still worried.

I was very excited to get to the painting stage. I chose a lovely egg-yolky yellow outside and white inside. 

I was very pleased with how the run panels turned out! I took inspiration for them from here. Oh, I have to say that I collected lots of ideas and made several boards on Pinterest. Lots of clever people out there - thank you! I used concrete deck blocks to hold the legs of the Hen House. Levelling those little babies was not the easiest thing I've ever done... The other very hard thing in this whole project was getting the roof right. Blimey! My calculations were out and I made a few mistakes, but thankfully I was able to work with them. 

Yay! Then came Chicken-day! Peggy and I went to the Poultry Auction in Beausejour (MB) on 2nd May. It was a hairy affair for me and I was anxious for all the poor creatures in their cages. But I was determined to be a big girl and come home with some hens. I waved my bidding card around and after paying much more money than I should have we came home with Isobel (Plymouth Barred Rock), Dolly (Columbian Rock) and Henrietta (Ameraucana). No I didn't know their ages, their past or their story...but I was so damn keen and I was determined to make it work. I did really want four hens, (still do) but I was happy to come home with three that day! We made a temporary home for the hens in our Growing Room. We separated them from each other but soon enough they were all in one compartment and did not seem to want to kill each other...all was well. 

We had some roof shingles left over from when they built our house. Really glad to get them used! Let me say, insulating and finishing the inside of the roof was probably the most awkward and difficult job (there were some tears). 

After doing alot of research I decided to put sand in the House. It's so easy to clean. I mix some diatomaceous earth with the sand to keep the coop bug free and the sand nice and dry. The heat was really on for me to get the Hen House complete... they were stuck in our Growing Room and our plants were all over the place. 

Moving day was a delight! The little hens seemed to know exactly what to do! They went up and down their ladder and soon found the nest boxes to lay their eggs. I put a roost in the house and one in the run. 

Since the initial build I have made two major alterations to the run... The first run was "L-shaped". I have no idea why. It was awkward. I reconfigured the shape to a square and it was immediately altogether better. Each panel is screwed to the other and attached to the house. I stapled hardware cloth to the top to prevent predators from coming in and I also placed heavy-duty plastic on the "roof" of the run to keep it dry. I put wire panels under the house as well to give the hens a bit more outside space. It turns out that they love to have little naps under the house. 

The nest box works really well. It has a little lock on it so cannot be accidentally opened by little racoon fingers. I put paving blocks around the Hen House to help contain some of the mud when it is wet. We have black sticky mud here! When the inside of the run is damp I put some fresh straw down to make it easier for the Hens. 

The second alteration of the run included an extension. I built more panels and attached them. The run space is now 6'x9' plus the space under the house, 3'x5'. I will make it bigger as time progresses. We also had another project...putting up a three-bin compost area. We used fence-posts and boards to create a large contained composting site. We also did significant landscaping in the area, - laying down crushed rock over an underlay to keep down the mud and neaten up the whole area. The Hen House gets some lovely sun, and when needed the shade from the many Oak trees provides well-needed relief. 

After re-laying the paving stones around the Hen House along with edging the whole place looks much neater. I placed some pots of flowers and herbs around the house along with some night lights. I am delighted with the result and ever so proud that I managed to build this all by myself. I got some (expensive) transparent corrugated roofing to place over the run to keep it nice and dry. I am also happy to say that the roof of the house is leak-free. It works for us! The house is well ventilated and insulated. I'm still worried for winter but our little Hens will be brought back into our nice Growing Room as soon as the temperatures get too bad. We do all we can to keep our little Hens happy!

A Construction Special

Stage one: The workshop workbench. (WW)

"It will never work," I remarked gloomily in the Thrift Store. (I use Eeyore and Marvin as role models far too often)  "The legs are too short, the top is all bowed and it looks old and horrible and it won't fit on the truck, AND it will probably fall off the back of the truck and kill somebody." Suzanna said: "But I need it and it's only $30" So that was that. We found a ratchet strap and tied the old desk on the truck and set off for the lumber yard. It was 4:45pm and they shut at 5pm but we managed to get various bits of wood all apparently vital for the projects Suzanna had in mind. Within 24hours the old thing (the desk) had been transformed into a very usable movable workbench with new legs, a fresh coat of gray paint and castors with brakes.





Stage Two: The growing room workbench. (GRW)

This could not be constructed until Stage one had been completed as we didn't have a WW (see gray thing behind S)
 available to us and S needed one to help with the huge sheets of MDF  she had to cut and the general construction of everything. Yea!!!!!!!!  After years of promises the GRW could become a reality now that;
a) there was a growing room (created last year)  to put it in;
b) S now has a table saw as well as a chop saw, a circular saw, a hack saw and a cunning little cordless drill/screwdriver;
c) We now have a WW
d) S had downloaded a set of plans for the GRW from the internet.


All was going very very well. S had cut all the pieces of wood as indicated in the plans except we were going to have a six foot long bench instead of an 8 foot long bench. All was well until P comes along to check (criticise)  progress and remarks that the legs look a bit short. We check the plans and the legs are indeed correctly cut to the right length according to the plans but when we double check how high the bench will be when everything is fitted on...it's 30 inches high. Now that's ok if one is sitting down, or if one is  young, or if one is, unfortunately, in a wheelchair or physically challenged heightwise but its not ok for me or S to stand at, work at, lean on or  have a general chat with the plants so they don't feel intimidated. The legs were set aside for another project and new ones cut......those extra 6 inches make all the difference!

    



The GRW was wheeled ceremoniously  into place after removing the makeshift bench made out of sawhorses and plywood) . Yes, the GRW has castors with brakes too. (My Daddy always recommended putting casters on any heavy furniture that might have to be moved). IT IS BRILLIANT!


Important messages from the Editor:
The pictures with the saws were posed. No saw or Suzanna was hurt, damaged or abused during the taking of the pictures. Yes Suzanna did wear protective goggles, and no she did not wear the scarf, while sawing so there was no risk of an Isodora Duncan type incident. (You have to be cultured to understand some of the references.......haha!)

Meanwhile I have been trying to catch up on seed sowing, especially those needing to be started eight -10 weeks before the last frosts hit at the end of May. You see some of the packets spread before you......I had marigolds last year and have no idea why I didn't collect seed from them. I'll be planting them on into the veg patch as companion plants to be sacrificed for the good of my veggies. Mind you we seem to be lucky and don't see too many naughty flying things up there and I have never seen a snail or slug in our veggies.....but we do have burrowing creatures..ground squirrels who eat  tuberous plants underground including carrots, and of course the gorgeous Manitoba salamander family living in the compost.( In Surrey England I couldn't use the compost in the bin as it was full of slow-worms and here in Manitoba the compost is home to the salamanders. If you want to see the salamanders, (as I have mislaid the photo I had of one and it wasn't very good anyway,) just use the link, Blue spotted Salamander ) Other visitors to the patch include bunnies, various birdies, deer, racoon's and quite possibly a Sasquatch on holiday from the neighbouring province but enough of these ramblings.

We sow the seeds in potting compost in trays or pots on heat pads to start them off and then when they germinate they get put under the lights. This year we are trying to prevent leggy seedlings by getting the them really up close and personal  to the strip lighting we are using and it seems to be working but I must go off this morning and buy some more light fittings as more and more germination takes place.
I was worried about my special comfrey seeds from the UK. Nothing happening yet and they have had a whole week in the soil and lots of TLC....but I checked with online "experts" and it can take at least 10 days and up to 30 for germination so I have put off despairing for later. Suzanna has planted lots of flowers and we are even trying to grow snapdrago
ns, pansies, geraniums and mallow bushes from seeds and they are all doing their very best but they get a bit scared when they look out of the window and see all the snow.





So, finally, to the weather.

LastMonday we saw the WIGs startled by a sprinkle of
snow but it didn't come to much and the mild weather continued for most of the week, or at least temperatures were just above zero. I began to rake up acorns and leaves I had missed at the end of the year and then Sunday evening the weather turned and this is what we are looking at today. There is a violent something coming this afternoon and tonight with loads of rain and wet snow an winds according to the weather reports but we are hoping it misses us.


And here is a sunrise picture from two days ago. Old tales tell us that red in the morning is very bad news for shepherds, and, presumably, sheep. It's often very red in the morning.....perhaps that is the reason there are so few shepherds and sheep round about here.