A girl's castle is her coop

You'd think that finding a chicken coop on a budget for a dozen birds would be an easy thing, right? Yeah, that's what I thought...until I started looking. I think I've missed a calling as  a builder of custom chicken coops.We're talkin' $400 for a small coop that'd fit half a dozen hens, and that's for a no-frills, bargain basement, economy model coop at the local feed store. The kind that we need (a 4X8 sized coop) runs anywhere from $1200 to $2000! And man oh man, these coops are pretty sweet.  They look like something that'd be sitting on Martha Stewart's lawn, with chicken sweater wearing diapered hens gracing the nest boxes and runs - basically nothing that has any business anywhere outside of a HOA neighborhood near actual livestock. Call me crazy, but I just have a problem spending a small fortune on something that will quickly be covered in feathers, bedding and poop in a few days. It just seems like a waste. So, since we have some pullets that seriously need to get out of my laundry room and eating some bugs, my hubby and I found a suitable, quick and easy to clean alternative at the local warehouse store - a vented garden shed - that we'll be retrofitting for the girls this week. Since neither of us has skill with a hammer, nor a fearlessness around power tools (yet), any latent carpentry gene will remain untapped for now. We don't have a whole lot of free time to learn how to build something at this point,  so something pre-made and just needing a lil' bit of retrofitting is our best bet!

 The requirements for our girls at this point is pretty simple - a place for food that's easy for them to get to, but out of reach for potential pests (i.e. rodents, skunks, or bigger critters attracted to the feed, but later more interested in THEM as dinner), a water source that's fresh and easily accessible, a roof over their heads and secure from predators day & night, a roost to sleep on and a sheltered run for them to peck around during the daytime. Once they're bigger we'll be letting them free-range, but since they're prime McMeals at this point for foxes, coyotes and hawks, they're better off in a run!

Meet the girls!

Here at Saudafell we have a few new residents...12 to be exact. Meet the girls! This is the look chickens give when thinking: 'What in the &*%!$ is THAT?!'. Yeah, they weren't too enthused about having a big silver camera stuck in their cage.

We have 2 Austra Whites, 2 Buff Brahmas, 1 Light Brahma, 1 Black Langshan, 2 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Rhode Island Red, 1 Delaware and 2 Black Sex Link (aka Black Star) chicks.

The Brahmas, Langshan, Orpingtons and Delaware are heirloom breeds that have 'threatened' and 'watch' status according to the ALBC - American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. With fewer people raising these wonderful birds on family farms, and with the introduction of production breeds in commercial chicken operations, many of these old-timey chicken breeds are in danger of extinction. Yes, extinction. Crazy, huh? If the work of countless numbers of old farmers in developing these breeds is lost, we're facing a bigger problem as human beings on this planet. The genetics these birds bring with them were developed through methodical selection for various factors over long periods of time (sometimes hundreds of years) including hardiness in heat/cold, laying ability, activity in foraging, calmness and even ability to resist frost bite. Just like the threat of monocultures in modern agriculture, the threat of bottlenecking genetics in animal species is also clear and present. We are happy to do our part in keeping these breeds around and thriving on our little piece of the world, and look forward to lots of eggs this summer! And quiche...and custard...and omelets..and..well,you get the idea. As you can tell, I'm pretty excited about the food part of their contributions!