Coops.

I knew I had to choose one but there were so many to choose from.  I hate choosing, I take so long at it.


To help narrow down the choice a little, I wandered up the garden armed with a tape measure and surveyed the area I wanted to put the coop in.  The identified spot was currently occupied by a broken compost bin, a very broken wheel barrow and some old plant pots.  Looking past those little obstacles, the site was good.  It was protected from the sun and rain by trees and up against a wall; stopping the wind and acting as extra protection from any up-to-no-good animals!


This helped narrow my list down, it had to be a certain width and length to fit.  I knew I wanted a combined house & run, so I could keep them locked somewhere safe when I was at work, so that narrowed it down a bit more.


So I looked at chicken tractors...

...chicken arks...

...chicken houses without runs...

...and chicken houses with runs.

I also looked at Eglus, made by a company called Omlet.  These houses seem to be very popular and would certainly brighten up a back yard.  My husband was quite interested in these (as interested as someone who was having chickens thrust upon them could be) but it wouldn't fit in my carefully measured out space with its run attached, so it was out.

The internet is full of beautiful hand-made coops and there are coops I found in America that are amazing.  Unfortunately, I didn't have room for 'amazing' but here are some that I came across: 

Gothic chickens.

New England chickens.

Country cottage chickens.

It seems you can make a chicken house out of just about anything!

Morris Traveller enthusiast chickens.

Eventually, (and I can't stress enough how long 'eventually' took) I decided on one of the first coops I looked at - of course!


According to its measurements, it would fit into the allocated space.  The house was off the floor and it had a run attached.  There was a pull out floor to the sleeping area for easy cleaning, (which has turned out to be a a brilliant bit of design), ventilation was catered for and it had a nest box.  All boxes ticked. 

I ordered and paid for it before I changed my mind, again!  Now I just had to wait for it to arrive, which as it turned out was the next working day as promised.  It's nice when that happens, especially as I was going to need it sooner than I thought.