Need a simple design idea, that is mobile (meaning you can move it so your chickens can tear up a new patch of your grass in search of juicy worms and grubs and the like) and easy enough to build by sight? I'm not including the vendor because the chickens in this pic had no food (just sod to peck at and certainly no worms or grubs)! Shame, shame, shame. At least they had water before I shamed them (the vendor, not the chickens, of course).
Below is another idea. But, really, my chickens are quite lazy. They'd rather scratch up my hostas in search of slugs than walk up a ramp into the clouds to get to their roost at the end of a long day of evading neighborhood cats.
And finally, the rooster of all chicken coops. Bob Bowling, of Whidbey Island, had the most amazing coops, greenhouses and potting sheds (and according to his website, outhouses!) that I have seen in a long time in a massive and lovely smelling booth (no outhouses there) with the Chocolate Flower Farm. The roost inside was an old, worn, patina-showing shovel handle. The details of his rustic work are truly amazing.
So! The book "everyone" raved about today about urban chicken ranching was Minnie Rose Lovgreen's (I'm not kidding with the name - Minnie's story is a great one) 'Recipe for Raising Chickens' (sounds ominous for the chickens). It's really a booklet and I can only assure a charming and thoroughly enjoyable and educational read. Check it out.
