The chicken plan progresses

After about a year of Denis researching and planning how he wanted to build our chicken coop, we got a phone call tip from my coworker who's an organic farmer and lover of chickens. She had seen a ready-made coop on the sales lot of a local company that makes backyard sheds. So we went to check it out one Sunday when we could snoop around without getting a lot of sales man pressure. The coop was very sturdily made, seemed to be pretty raccoon-proof, etc. Denis predicted it would be priced at $1200. The following day, I went to get the price. Surprisingly enough, they only wanted $800 for the finished, painted coop! Denis honestly didn't think he could do as good a job for as cheaply, so we decided to go ahead and purchase. It was delivered on Friday.

We had our custom made with just a couple of minor adjustments - our chicken door and ladder are on a different wall than the original and we had the latch changed so that it can be locked. After AM's horror encounter with a raccoon, we are particularly concerned that our coop be raccoon proof.

Here is the backside. All openings are lockable with a padlock except the ventilation window on the front. It has a sliding latch, but there is strong mesh covering the opening, so we don't think a raccoon would be able to pull it off. Still to do:

• paint the exterior to match our house. We have left-over yellow paint to match. We'll need to get more green made up.
• paint the interior for easier maintenance.
• install the roost where our gals will relax. The original had a mesh roost which is not the style recommended in our chicken books.
  
• Denis has to build a chicken run, fully enclosed so that they are protected from dogs and such during the day when we are not there.
• in the future, he will put a fence around a larger area so that they can be let out to forage - better eggs.

Here's the interior.
Denis also wants to lay VCT flooring which will make it easier to clean. Don't you think the hens will appreciate the stylish black and white flooring?