A Chicken Coop Makeover!

Did you know we have chickens? We got them as sweet little chicks back around Easter. We have one Barred Rock (the dark one), 2 Americana (the ones at the front) and 2 Yellow Sex-Links. We wanted a variety of egg colors, the Barred Rock will produce white eggs, the Americana's blue eggs (did you know chickens can lay blue eggs? I had no idea until we started researching what to get. Of course blue eggs are a must!), and the Yellow Sex-Links will lay brown eggs. 

It has been so fun watching them grow from teeny chicks to full grown hens. It's been fun, for the most part, for my girls. My 4 year old can play among them when they roam the backyard, but my 2 year old insists on being held the whole time we are in the backyard. My husband had built them what we thought was a decent size run, but was really quite small for 5 chickens, and then it was damaged in a big wind storm we had, so they have been freely roaming our backyard for a couple of months. 

Of course we have a lovely deck we put in this year that doesn't get used. And a swingset that doesn't get used. Actually - they do get used. The chickens hang out on the deck in the early part of the day because it is shady, and under the slide in the mid-afternoon. So we decided to re-do their run and give them a lot more space, but reclaim the backyard for our own use.

In the process, I gave their chicken coop a lovely makeover. I can't even tell you how happy my backyard looks now! 

Of course the view from our deck is the back, but I have special plans for that, so stay tuned!