Chicken "porch"

I have learned that to save money on chicken crumbles, keep it dry! It needs to be easily accessible for the chickens to eat and me (or others) to fill it, and with the feeder I have, the crumbles will shake down into the lower tray only if it is hung up and swings a bit when the chickens peck in it. Also, keeping it higher than ground level means less debris is scattered into it when they scratch around, and also keeps it out of most of the flooding that invariably begins a few minutes after the start of a Tennessee signature torrential downpour. I call it a porch because on those really super rainy days, the chickens are lined up just inside, glumly staring out into the rain. Or maybe eagerly awaiting the worms that will follow, I don't really know! I should call it a veranda instead because I've always liked that word, but childhood conditioning is incredibly hard to break! Anyway, their old porch was crumbling into pieces and was only a temporary measure that ended up lasting for years. When I first got the chickens, I had no idea what I would ACTUALLY need and how things would go. But you go with flow, pay attention, and use a little ingenuity to repurpose things, and end up feasting on awesome eggs!

So to save myself some money, worry, and headache in preparation for the upcoming monsoon season (just a little Tennessee humor there! Of course it's not a real monsoon! But if feels like it) I have built an all new chicken porch in one day! I bought the 2 x 4s for the framing, and hit up my scrap wood bin for the sides, and scavenged the rest from the old porch. If I wasn't so whipped I might have painted it but yeah, that didn't happen. Perhaps this summer when I'm bored HAHAHAHAHAHA....

I'm still getting the hang of this blogging formatting hmmm....so big white here is Captain Crunch. she's the only full size chicken I have at present. I'm intending to get a few chicks this month, so she won't be so alone! She's also the youngest of this flock.

Below is Ivy, Bossa Nova, and Thorn, starting at noon going clockwise. Bossa Nova is the oldest, she's around 5 years old.