Palace de Poulet

Can I just gloat for a minute? This is a KICK ASS CHICKEN COOP! Ok, I'm good now. I just needed a minute to express my absolute joy with how this turned out. Mom was kind enough to buy the materials for it and her and Joe conceptualized while I was in Beloit. After a few days of hard work, this is what had materialized:
Here is the coop mostly finished. Joe used leftover fence boards to line the outside as an additional deterrent to critters, plus, it looks cool!

I helped Joe put up the chicken wire, as it can be a pretty cantankerous material to work with.

We even wrapped the wire over rafter gaps and pinned an extra five inches into the dirt floor. Hopefully, this will stop wild birds stopping in to steal food and deter burrowing.

We also put up metal flashing to cover the cut chicken wire ends. This is more for my peace of mind than for the chickens. I had visions of me trying to untangle myself from ragged wire edging at six in the morning and decided that an extra ten bucks to cover the edges was totally worth it...

Here's the finished inside, complete with feeders and coop (a gift from Jan and Neil). Don't Red and Blondie look happy? I think they do...

Here it is, all finished and beautiful. I am just tickled pink at how this turned out and couldn't have imagined how my original idea would morph into this palace! Thanks Joe and Mom for creating such a enviable coop!

Oh, and here is Miss Red "Houdini" Hen trying to escape while I was taking pictures. My iphone inadvertently took this shot while I was chasing her down...