It is a great time of year when we can put winter in our rear-view mirror and look forward to all the excitement spring has to offer. One project on our list is to expand our egg-laying chicken flock. Our current flock is getting old and will be on the retirement list some time this year (you all can guess what retirement means).
The first step we need to take is to construct a new coop to accommodate the larger flock and we want to locate this coop in our new pasture area. Due to the steep slopes of the area in which we plan to locate the new coop, we had to design a building that could be cantilevered out over an embankment. Taking advantage of a warm day last week, I poured concrete for three support piers. These will hold the coop up over the edge of the bank.
I wanted to take the time to use concrete simply because the life span of the wooden beams would be much longer if they were not place directly into the ground. Even with treated lumber (which I will not use due to it coming in contact with the chickens) the posts would eventually succumb to rot.
There are quite a few benefits we are hoping to gain from this design, one of which is the ability of the chickens to seek refuge from aerial predators under the building. The building will be south facing on our north ridge so it should allow a great deal of natural light to be captured.
As we get the plans nailed down, we will share them in detail.
[…] weeks ago, we poured concrete piers to start our layer coop project (previous post). Now that the weather is actually becoming more agreeable, we could continue on with our project. […]