Last night (4/24/2012) my 8 week old baby chickens had to move out of the house because there was a sick duck that needed to be in their sleeping quarters. Thankfully, I had already planned their coop so the family started building. Now for a backstory of the chickies lives before this dramatic event.
The chicks were purchased in a little group of 9 from Tractor Supply Company at 1 day old and brought home in a box. Unfortunately one was sick and died bringing down the count down to 8, leaving me with 3 white silkies, 3 buff silkies, and 2 black silkies. Later they moved into a stock tank (which make great brooders) and stayed there until eight weeks old.
Back to last night. So the parents went off to buy lumber while the kids stayed home and worked on building the base. First four pallets had to have edges taken off of them, and then be nailed together. Instead of nailing the pallets together by the house they would be nailed up at the goat pen, where the structure was to be placed. It didn’t take long to level the pallets but putting them together was a mess. My drill wasn’t powerful enough, so I went back to the house to find my dad’s drill, only to find it wasn’t there! A few text messages later, I discovered it was in the truck, which my parents drove to Home Depot to buy the wood. However, all hope was not lost, I just had to drag the 30 pound air compressor all the way up to the goat pen so I could use the nail gun. With the nail gun, the boards that needed to be nailed together only took 5 minutes and we were done.
Finally the parents came home with the two boards of OSB, and lots of 2x4x7′s. First we cut up some the 2x4s. we needed 2 4 footers with a slanton top, 2 3footers with a slant on top, and 4 3′ 9″ boards for around the base. once those were cut we cut the OSB into three 4 foot sections and one 3foot by 4foot section. Then we brought all the materials up to the top and assembled them. After a nice meal of hot dogs and veggie straws, it was time to put the babies in their new home.