About

First of all, Maria is the carpenter in the family. She grew up with a father who loved working with wood. His entire garage was a woodworking shop with saws, sanders, a lathe, planer and a wonderful assortment of hand tools.

He created furniture for the home, practical items like bookshelves and decorative things for gifts. But his talents weren’t limited to small things. He also built an add-on to their home, giving the family of seven a larger family room and backyard deck.

Maria found interest in woodworking early on and often spent time with him as he built things in the garage. She also jumped right in to the middle of the family room addition, helping with everything from tearing out the old walls and deck to building the new ones. She even added her own artistic mark with a faux window hear the roofline.

The backyard chicken coop design phase

When it came time to start putting a chicken coop together, she started drafting some design ideas on paper. It didn’t take long before she completed the drawing and was ready to decide on materials.

Soon, a full list of materials was complete. Everything for the framing, floors, walls, roof, doors, windows, nesting boxes and exterior run were all written out and ready to take to the store.

Before deciding to build a coop from scratch, we did consider buying a kit. We visited a local store, Wilco, and found some small coop kits in the $300-$400 range. They looked nice, but the wood was very lightweight and seemed to have drafty joints.

We found some larger coops kits online in the $1000+ range, which seemed much sturdier. Maria felt that she could build a better one for less cost. Another consideration was the design. If you are going to be the one who maintains, cleans and repairs the coop, you want to make sure the doors are where you want them and that they’re large enough.

Although out total costs exceeded $1,000, it is very well built and able to withstand hard weather and any unwanted visitors like raccoons.

If you’re looking for a great design plan, consider EasyChickenCoops.com (affiliate link). The one we built is most similar to their “17’x6′ Walk In Chicken Coop.”

Hubby’s role

As for me, her loving and supportive husband, I acted as the assistant. Carrying heavy things, cutting lumber where she marked it and other jobs as requested. I’m also handy with crawling into tight spaces or on top of things to secure roofing, chicken wire, etc.

I also brought a little technology to the project. Installing wifi-connected video cameras and an automatic door opener were early enhancements. That was followed by adding a power strip inside the coop that can be programmed and controlled by a mobile phone app.

So, now we’re here to share the tips, tricks and lessons we learn along the way. There are many benefits of having backyard chickens, even in a suburban neighborhood like ours.

Just for the record, our chickens have names, which means even after they stop producing eggs, they will remain as pets, not dinner. We enjoy eating chicken, just not our backyard chickens.

Our backyard chicken farm

We live in a suburban neighborhood outside of the Tacoma-Seattle area. Local ordinances place limits on the type and quantity of “farm” animals you can keep. For chickens, the limit is six hens, no roosters. The coop must be at least 15 feet from the property line. Front yards are off limits, only the backyard may be used.

Now, this works out just fine for us. We don’t want or need more than six hens and we certainly wouldn’t want their coop and run adorning our front lawn. Our flock size is currently four. We almost ended up with five. When we purchased our first four chicks, one of them appeared to be ill or dying after a few days. We went back to the farm store to get another one. A day or two later, the sick one bounced back to perfect health.

With five hens, we had more than we planned on, but when they were a few months old, we noticed one of the hens was growing much faster than the others. One morning, she let out a strange noise that sounded like a rooster’s cock-a-doodle-doo.

Sexing isn’t an exact science

It was then that we started to research this a bit more. We read that some hens will take an alpha role and may even mimic a rooster’s sounds. About a week later, as the early morning sounds became more distinct and loud, we knew we had a rooster.

Fortunately, we have friends who live a few hours away on a farm. They already had many hens, but no rooster. We called them up and told them the good news about a gift we had for them. That rooster is enjoying a happy life with plenty of hens to keep him busy.

It turns out that the sex determination in baby chicks is about 90% accurate. We just happened to pick one of the 10% and were glad we had a backup plan on how to deal with it. A rooster crowing in your backyard is a quick way to lose any friendly neighbors you once had.

Coming up on year #2

As our hens approach their second birthdays, there are signs of molting and a reduction in egg production. This is a normal life-cycle change and is to be expected.

We’ll be making decisions on whether to add to our flock, but for now, we hope you’ll enjoy our stories, articles, photos and resources. Backyard chickens can be a great addition to your home.