Long time chicken house

This chicken coop is a long time coming. Spent all day today (Saturday) working on it. Again.

If I made it smaller, or was more slapdash, it would go faster. But --

-I'm building it to last 5-10 years -- maybe longer. So I don't want to do things that will bother me for the next ten years, every time I see it: things like beams not properly vertical (or horizontal), or joints not quite lining up. My rule of thumb is that I can see an error from across the yard -- and it's right next to another building, so things off-vertical will be obvious -- then it's worth fixing.

-I want it sturdy enough that I don't have to fix things in just a few months. Also, it'll be sturdy enough that if we ever stop having chickens it can be a decent storage shed.

-A web search indicated that you need a certain square footage per chicken. Rather than build it for the bare minimum, I ended up making it a little large. From my recent experience, I've found that it's not the physical size of the parts (or the finished project) that takes up time -- it's the amount of handling. For example, building a two foot by two foot by two foot storage box takes the same amount of work as a four foot by four foot by four foot box. More cost for materials, sure -- but the same amount of time.


Anyhow: it might get done by the end of this weekend. Probably **not** -- but it'll be **nearly** done.

Maybe done enough to move the chix in, anyhow.


--GG