Hey friends the day has come where we are going to finally get the chicken coop assembled it has been
a long time coming and you have been patient my girls have been patient but we are finally getting
uh The Coop assembled if you will remember we got some sweet baby chicks I believe it was like March
the 20th is when they arrived one day old chicks we have raised them up and we ordered this great
chicken coop from Carolina coops a fellow North Carolina company and um it has been here it is a
great kit that we are going to assemble together you'll see Andrew in the background he is starting
to bring up the different pieces so Andrew Jerry and I are going to assemble this today and get
this process Rolling In the meantime the girls have been hanging out in the old Coop they are
growing like weeds very happy but they are ready to spread their wings and get into their permanent
home life has just happened and it's crazy spring is a extremely busy time for Growers and in retail
garden centers and life just happened and we just got away from us but here we are today it
is going to go up I am so excited to get uh some walls up and to see what this thing looks like
so let me give you a little bit of an overview and show you the prep work that has been thus
done thus far on this space so if you remember this whole area basically from these are Nellie
Stevens Hollies so from about right here all the way over was just a natural wooded area honestly
it had a bunch of what I just call kind of junk trees because they were a ton of pine trees but
you can see like one of these um that's actually not on our property it's our neighbors but a lot
of the trees had severe lean and bends to them we had a terrible terrible ice storm probably
22 23 years ago and these trees were bent down for for several several days loaded with ice
once the ice went away they started growing they still had that lean to them
it's the Perils of pine trees young pine trees and ice so they were not viable and they were posing a
threat to this area so we cleared the entire area for the chicken coop it is a lovely higher area
that um to give you a little perspective of the elevation of this so there is the house and
when you stand up here you're almost essentially ground level with our second story of the house
so up here we're going to have a nice view of the chicken coop and what Andrew has done for us this
week is he went ahead and laid down these are six by sixes and got them nice and level so this is
the footprint for the chicken coop and got them in there everybody is bolted together and then
he came back through with some rebar and just kind of drilled in the beams so that they are nice and
secure in to the ground now technically we do not have to do this but we did it for uh mainly two
reasons one was it made our life easier in the long run trying to get the chicken coop leveled
obviously we want this chicken coop level and so now we can just take these panels and just lay
them up here on the boards and the whole Coop will be nice and level so we have a nice firm
foundation on that secondly it will help preserve the chicken coop even though Carolina coops the
boards that are going to be on the bottom right that are touching the ground they did use treated
lumber so you can see probably there is a little bit of a color difference between
these boards here and then this is the board that's going to be on the ground this is the
treated lumber right here and unfortunately treated lumber is uh not as not as well treated
as it used to be and so we have just found and it's it's just I don't know why but treated lumber
doesn't last like it used to and so in a couple of years it could very easily happen that those
boards could rot or begin to disintegrate so by putting it on this Firm Foundation of six by sixes
we are preserving the longevity of our chicken coop and um yeah it just preserves it and makes
it last a whole lot longer and it gives it a firm foundation so what we're going to do is this is a
6 by 24 foot Coupe so it is six feet wide you can see here we have got the three panels that is what
we're going to start with Jerry and I came uh the other day and assembled these two panels and the
Carolina Coupes they give you nice instructions on it on how to assemble everything comes with
the wire everything is pre-cut it is numbered all we have to do is just kind of follow the picture
instructions and then assemble so it is the house part will be here so six feet wide and then the
Run actually goes underneath the house and then the entire 24 feet long all of this is the run it
will be covered in a galvanized metal roofing so everybody is enclosed of course you have all the
nice wire panels excuse me so they will be nice and safe from all predators we don't have to worry
about that we have a lot of red tail hawks around here uh Jerry and I stand lately is getting some
of our songbirds so of course we want to keep these sweet girls nice and protected so it'll
be nice and protected that way from the sides and the roof and then once we're done and the the coop
is assembled then we're going to come back and install like a predator guard underneath which
is basically chicken wire that we will attach to these six by sixes so we'll attach it and then
the chicken wire will come out that way because we have foxes we have raccoons we have possums
that prevents any kind of Critter trying to dig into the coop to go underneath it that will
prevent them from doing that so that is great also if you've ever had chickens you know that snakes
also enjoy to eat their eggs well the great thing is I was so happy to see this if you will notice
the the size of the holes on this wire it is quite small and I hope you can see that because I know
it's black on black but really small no snake is going to fit through there so we don't have to
worry about snakes getting into the chicken coop at all trying to rob up Rob us of our eggs so what
we're going to do is we're going to set the camera up and we're going to get going it's going to be
Jerry Andrew and I with the ever lovely furry assistant of Brenna start getting this up and
then as we make progress I'll check back in with you and keep you updated on this but very exciting
we are making really good progress on the chicken coop so I thought I'd just jump on
here real quick give you a little update and tell you what has been done so far and what our next
steps are it is a very warm June day here in North Carolina and of course this is a full sun spot I
told Jerry and Andrew I was like man we wish you could like skip ahead to four o'clock because
that's when it starts getting shaded up here but that is all right we were drinking tons of water
and getting the job done so basically you can see uh Andrew and Jackson standing there they
are starting to get those side panels on um that is where the actual Run part of the coop will be
and then the little housing area right is we're here where the chickens will be their chicken
else shall we say now when you see this nice big open door right here that area that is where the
egg Hutch is going to be and an egg Hutch will house their nesting boxes I believe there's three
nesting boxes see there's two or three nesting boxes so that whole nesting box area will protrude
out of the chicken coop that way we can when we come to collect our eggs we can come right here
there will be a door that's right here we can lift up the door and just collect the eggs from the
um outside and we don't have to actually go into the chicken coop which is different than our old
chicken coop this is the side of course that has all will have all the doors and everything
wherever you see the screening up in the coop part those will have Windows that you can raise and
lower people have asked us about um you know how cold tolerant our chickens are like the different
breeds for us in North Carolina we need to be more concerned to make sure that our chickens
are more heat tolerant than cold tolerant because our Winters are not that cold right
um but our summers definitely get warm and chickens don't sweat so you've got
to make sure that they stay nice and cool well hydrated and can handle the warmer temperatures
ventilation is also a really key component in a nice healthy Coop so we'll have lots of
ventilation that will happen because we can keep all of these windows open these panels
will be open nice circulation and then there will be more up here on this side but this
is where we can go in there'll be doors that open out with Windows then this little section
right here will have another door that we can open up when it's time to clean out the coop
um obviously there is no floor right now to the house part of the coop but that the floor
will sit kind of right here along these rails and so this will be the floor so that kind of
gives you an idea of how deep it all will be and then below the floor is still more of the run so
the Run actually goes all 24 feet length of the entire building and then this is The Little Door
they have a little teeny tiny ladder that will connect here to the floor that they can go up the
ladder go through the door and then there's a taller ladder on the other side that will
um go down so they can climb up and down the ladder here and go down in to the run so we're
just going to keep putting these panels up I believe the panels go up and then we start with
more Rafters but yep it is all coming together quite nicely the beams have worked really well
the six by sixes just resting on there once we get everything nice and where we want it then
we can come back and screw everybody in so that's nice and secure but as we're as we're putting it
on we want to make sure that it's all square level with everything and then the final end then we can
come back and get it all screwed in and yeah so we're just going to keep on plugging here
and get this done hopefully this will be the part that will move pretty quickly so keep you posted
it appears we are finished for the day it is a Friday afternoon about 3 30 and we are
done for the day one because it's Friday at 3 30 and we're done for the day uh but also
because we are unfortunately missing some pieces for the coop so we are at a little
bit of a standstill let me show you the progress that we have made thus far keep
in mind remember this is six feet wide 24 feet long the pieces that we are missing
um a little kind of important we are missing the end wall and the end wall here basically
is going to be the same shape size as this right here except of course obviously it is going to go
on the end of the chicken coop and this is the side where we have chosen to put the door the
human door so we'll have a little human door we're probably going to put it on this side
so we'll have it'll be paneling here and then the human door access door will be here so we
are missing that wall and then we're missing a couple of these um spacer boards so the great
thing is you don't have to measure between the rafters you just put these boards right here
between each of the rafters and it appropriately spaces each of the rafters so we are missing
uh probably three on each side of those I would say three I'd have to measure that yeah no we're
missing three of each and so we can't put the rest of the rafters on we could measure and go ahead
and put the rafters on but uh it's just easier if you do it with the spacing boards because it
all works out just fine and dandy uh it kind of works out good that we're forced to quit because
like I said Friday afternoon and uh we still have a lovely day at the nursery to go tomorrow
it has been quite warm today we're almost up to 90 degrees and this has been in the full full
sun starting to get a little shade on it right now once the rafters are done and that Final End wall
are done and everybody's in there nice and secure then the instructions say I believe is to put the
roof on we may kind of wait on that because we'll go ahead and paint everything that we can go ahead
and paint and then we can put the roof on and then come and work on the inside because there's
a good bit of work that needs to be done for the inside of the coop and then of course to make the
nesting boxes and the Egg Hutch right there so we feel good about it it feels nice to have it up it
looks really nice down from the house looking back up it's a nice structure but it's not too large
and too you know glaring and like out of control like it really fits into the space really nicely
we'll see if Jerry can get the Drone up it's a it's definitely a hard angle for me to get
to show you kind of the whole thing of the whole perspective so that's where the drain will come
in quite handy so we will try to get the Drone up as the sun comes down a little bit later on
in this evening we'll keep you updated on it I told Andrew we were talking and we're like
yeah this is the kind of project that you work from like you know six to ten six to ten in the
morning and then six to ten at night because it is a toasty spot for sure so the girls are going to
have lots of great Sun of course there is gonna this whole thing is going to have a roof on it
so they will have shade and be well taken care of but anyway that is our project for today keep you
updated as we go through as always thanks so much regarding with Creekside we hope you found this
fun informative and inspirational you all have a great day we'll see in the next video bye friends