I've been meaning to write about the new chicken coop for a while - particularly for Hive account@nateonsteemit and Hive account@goldenoakfarm - but I've been too busy with the garden and chickens and many other things to do it! I had written a few weeks back about scoring a second hand coop from a guy in the next town for $100 - a real bargain (around 70 USD) as he threw in two big rolls of 1.8 metre high fencewire which are worth at least twice that, all the tin, wood, screws, a door, a gate and even a ladder! There's no way you can buy the materials for that. We even saved and re-used all the nails and screws, so we didn't go to the hardware once to build this, which really made us super happy! Love a treasure find - Hive account@steematt, I think you might even be impressed with this!

We even knew the chooks would be impressed. Well, this chook was - at least I don't have to smash my head on the ceiling every time I bend over to get in to collect eggs. The old coop was a rotten mess and ten years old, and it was about time for an upgrade. My new Australorps, left by the housesitters, were going to nest in style.

We had to cut down an elder to find a spot for it, which is just beyond our vegetable patch - the chickens can still be directed in to work over a patch for me.

We started by building the back wall, as we knew it was something we could get nice and straight. We decided against concrete, as we thought it would be self supporting, and we didn't want more environmental impact than necessary or have to buy a ton of postcrete! We only hit one tree root digging post holes, which was lucky really - and we managed to miss all the gravel from the septic through some strategic mapping before hand. Being winter, the ground was soft enough to dig no problem. Well, no problem for me - harder for Jamie, who was doing the digging.

Next was the side beams. It was hard and slow going, because we found the original shed wasn't square. Not a suprise - hardly anyone seems to know how to make things square! We've found it time and time again with these kind of builds. Jamie did some clever stuff with string and triangles and we managed to make it perfectly square. It took much longer, but we got there in the end.

Then, we put up the side struts. By this time it was getting complicated - lucky I'd taken lots of photos of the shed erected, and we managed to piece it together. As it wasn't square, but was now, we did have to do a bit of fiddling and cutting to get it in place. The roof struts were a bit short but it didn't seem to matter too much. At this stage, it was getting late, and we were getting hungry - and the wind had come up. You don't want to put corrugated iron up when it's windy! We decided to wait for the next day.

I made Jamie get up pretty early for putting on the tin - exciting stuff! It was all on by lunchtime, though it was super complicated to work out which piece went where. The guy HAD pencilled a code on them we struggled to decipher. Did RB mean right side bottom, or right back? Seriously, code it yourself if you're doing a similiar job.

Finally, I got my old chickens back from my neighbour. I actually left him three (a crazy leghorn and two bedraggled marans that looked like ISA browns - nice birds, but I had to draw the line at 8 birds or I'd have to many) but collected the plymouths (who are great mothers) and the copper maran, a really pretty and friendly bird that was Jamie's favourite.

They settled down quite quickly, being the chilled out birds they are. I did have to check they were all on the roost after dark, and sure enough, the australorps were in the corner, having not managed to make it up to the roost. I had to lift them up one by one. Sure enough, the next night they'd worked it out. I sat down and watched them. They start off in non colour order, and squabble and carry on until they shuffled into their colour groups.

The australorps like to lay eggs super high, so since I took these photos I had to built a nesting box a bit higher for them, right up by the ceiling! It's quite funny watching them find their way up there - but they are good jumpers! The plymouths can't seem to be bothered and don't mind the nesting boxes lower down, though they aren't quite laying at the moment. The australorps are meant to be eggscellent layers - in fact, it's an Australorp that holds the record for laying 364 eggs in a year! I'm finding them delightful birds, really friendly and curious.

Their dust baths are hilarious. They don't seem to do it on their own, but in one big cuddle puddle of feathers, beaks and wings.

Jamie has now sworn he will never build me another chicken coop again - he's done with them now, and reckon this one might do. I think it's pretty perfect for my needs, so I don't think I'll have to bribe him. We just have the fencing to go, but that's for another day.

Do you know about the #featheredfriday tag? You can post bird photos and be noticed by a community who loves birds. It's run by Hive account@melinda010100 - she also has a cool caption contest that's worth joining in on too! You can also find the community here. Probably less chickens and more noble birds, but hey, chooks have feathers too.