There are two chicken coops here. The left, taller structure was added a few months ago. We are building the flock up to 150 birds eventually. The eggs will be sold in bulk numbers such as 5 dozen or more, per client, per week.
It's a free range yard. The "ladies" have absolute freedom to roam. There is no need to close up the coops at night, our dogs do a excellent job keeping the night raiders away. Skunks will scale any height of a fence, grab a chicken, and then drag it over the fence! Possums will do the same. Of all these raiders...the stray dogs of the area are the most threat.
I have lined the interior of the coop yard with heavy logs we get from the tree service, to stop the diggers from getting thru. The chickens will attempt to dig out as well, from their coop yard. Don't kid yourself...chickens are very good at digging! We lost a handful of these escape artists, in the beginning of our chicken raising adventure.
The first coop built as seen here above, has an access door to open. Reach in and grab the eggs, from the boxed nests that I have attached to the interior wall. It's really cool to open up that door and see chickens sitting right in front of you...laying in their nests. The "nest" are double wide plastic milk crates, that my good buddy Rom gave me.....he owns the A & M Market in Sacramento. The use of plastic makes cleaning of the coop a easy task.
The young kids that visit the farm....loves this coop. It's the number one place to go to, for all returning kids. We let them collect the eggs, and take home their bounty.
