Chicken coop city around here!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, last weekend the chicks made their big move from the house (inside) to the outside. That meant we had to take the four walls we had been using as an indoor coop, add to them a floor and roof, and, oh yeah, take it outside.



This is the house itself at the end of our first day of work. Cute I think. You can see the big door -- the people door -- that's for us to get in and out to clean the house and refill food and water. At the bottom left is where the pop door for the chickens is. In the picture above you can just see where the hole is; we actually have a flat door that slides in from the left to right to cover the door hole and close up the house.



After a second full day of work, we also had a run!



The idea here is that during the day the girls will have the "run" of both the house and the run and at night we'll be able to securely shut them up into the house to sleep.



You can see in this last picture that they are just as happy as can be in the run, scratching at the dirt. Dirt baths have become a BIG favorite around here too.



It was quite hard for me to actually move them outside. I really gained some appreciation for the concept of an empty nest. The first couple of nights I slept in the back room with the windows open so I could hear if they called out in distress. I'm happy to report though that they have taken to the outside like pros. They seem very happy with the extra room and like traveling back and forth between the house and run.

So our urban homestead seems to be in full swing now. Here we are, garden and chickens all residing next to our patio and deck. Gotta love it!