First you need a plan...

OK, The Princess and I have a plan. The chickens will be getting a better and home in the up coming weeks. We spent most of the afternoon shopping for materials and supplies to enclose the lower level of the playscape for a chicken coop.

The new space will work out nicely for the birds, and I think it will be more secure than Chicken Tractor V1.0. Also, the chicks will have more room for those days that they are coop-ed up all day.

For the record, the Chicken tractor is working our very nicely for the times that I can't, or don't want to, sit outside keeping hawks away.

I found a basic idea, over at Mother Earth News that should work out well. (I found some better pictures of the converted houses, but I can't seem to locate them now.) We will be converting a large doghouse (or two), like this one, into a a coop with a couple of nesting boxes and some inside roost space. Once we get the side walls and a couple of gates (one for people, one for chickens) installed on the lower level of the playscape, it should be a nifty chicken coop.

So far we are still at that great spot, where we haven't actually spent any $ on our plan. But in the next couple of weeks we will be getting the chicken coop and houses ready to go. It will not be much longer and the birds will be ready to snooze under the starts.

Also for the record, I am sure the chickens could handle being outside right now. But most of what I read says they should have all their feathers in first. And they all have a few patches that haven't grown in.