Fort Knox

Coop construction began shortly before the ladies arrival at our lil urban farm. We’re building a 3-by-4-foot henhouse that sits inside a roughly 4-by-8-foot enclosed run (the henhouse is over part of the run). Since raccoons are a big problem for chickens, and we’ve seen raccoons in broad daylight in our neighborhood, we decided the coop needed to be as secure as, yes, Fort Knox.

Since raccoons can reach through regular chicken wire and do nasty, horrible things (like eat your chickens piece by piece), we heeded advice to use ½-inch hardware cloth mesh instead. Doors will be locked, mesh is buried a foot underground, and the ladies will be shut in their henhouse at night.

Seattle tends to get a bit of rain (I know, shocking!), so we decided to cover the run so that the ladies can use it in all but the coldest weather (which is not as cold as chickens in some parts of the country have to deal with). We went with metal roofing from the hardware store.

I’ve seen and heard 50 different opinions on when young chickens can be moved from the brooder to the coop, but we’re confident that we’ll have the coop move-in ready before that date arrives.