Get chickens. Part Two, part two: Think outside the coop.

I amazed even myself by how much I could possibly find to say about preparing a chicken coop, so welcome to part two of Part Two.  I rewrote a classic children's song while on my break to get you jazzed about another chicken post.

Farmer Abe built a home

where our pullets can roam

where our rabbits used to dig and play

Where seldom is heard

Anything but a bird

And they're sheltered

From all of the rain.*

(See the rabbit ghost?  Originally Abe put this together as a home for the rabbits we raised. You'd be haunting your hutch, too, if you were fattened up, killed for food, and stuffed in someone's freezer.)

Even a tiny urban farm is an overwhelming amount of work, so we do things the lazy way whenever we can.  To make this enclosure for our Very Important Pullets, we stapled chicken fencing to door frames that were discarded by a local homeowners association. We covered the whole area with netting to keep out the hawks and owls, and covered part of the run with a tarp to keep out the rain. (This is why we couldn't ever live in a neighborhood with an HOA. HOA's: collecting fees to ensure your neighbors aren't as ghetto as we are.)

There's another run bordering the pullet's - so back fence here also serves as a front fence for our grown hens. (I told you: the lazy way).  Letting the two flocks see and smell each other helps all the birds get to know one another, which can help reduce aggression and bullying later.


* Ten points to the reader who can identify the song I ripped off here.  Points are not transferable. Minimum of fifty points required for prizes.  Prizes redeemable only in the year they are earned.