We have three chicken coops right now at Crooked Acres.

This is the main coop, where the majority of our chickens live (and where they all eventually end up). Built by Fred last year, it currently holds 90 - 100 chickens of varying ages. It could conceivably house about 250 - 300 chickens if it had to, but we will hopefully never get that out of control!

The chickens who live in this coop (and are guarded by George and Gracie) have about two acres, fenced, in which to roam. They tend to stick pretty close to home, though every once in a while we’ll look out to see them spread across the field.

The Maternity Coop. This was our main chicken coop for about a year, until we decided we needed a larger coop and the chickens needed more space to roam. Now when a hen goes broody, we move her to the Maternity Coop and stick a few eggs under her. (At first, Fred was putting six eggs under each hen. But after we realized it was the intention of ALL the hens to go broody, we lowered that number to three eggs under each hen.) Once the eggs are hatched, the babies stay with the hens until the hens start roosting again (and laying eggs), and then we move the hens back out to the main coop. The babies go out to the main coop when they’ve gotten a little bigger.

We had so many broody hens that we ran out of nest boxes and had to improvise.

Charlie lives in the Maternity coop. She has twisted-up toes and tends to get more lovin’ from the roosters than she can handle. After she hurt her wing a few months ago, we put her in the Maternity coop with the broody hens, and she’s pretty happy there. The mother hens seem to regard her as no threat at all, and she’s even been known to sleep in the nest boxes with the mother hens and their babies. Good ol’ Charlie.

Momma hen, checking to be sure you aren’t trying to touch her babies.

This is the very first coop Fred built, two years ago when we had 12 chickens. For a while we used it for the little chickens we hatched ourselves in the incubator before they were big enough to add to the Maternity coop. It’s currently empty and unused. We’ve talked about moving it to the back yard and putting our two Silkies and our Crested Polish chickens in it and having a backyard flock, but haven’t decided yet what to do.

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