A Chicken Coop for the Fairfield

As I was finishing the kitchen garden for my Fairfield, I started thinking about those chickens.  Where did they sleep?  Where did they go when it rained?  Where did they lay their eggs?  Effie would surely like to be able to collect them for her baking.  So, of course, I had to build the chickens a hen house.  😊

I little aside here.  Below is a picture of one of my better half's favorite real-life houses to pass on our walks.  We call it "the chicken house."  Fantastic mural, and there are always usually one or two chickens outside to say "hello."  (Of course, there weren't any in evidence the day I went to take the picture.  In fact, to our sorrow, it appears that they may now be gone altogether.)

The spousal unit really liked the idea of a hen house and was permitted to offer input (like specifying that the siding go horizontal rather than vertical and requesting that I get a rooster to sit on the roof).

After looking at dozens of pictures and plans, I decided to use this one as my starting point:

http://thetanglednest.com/2010/02/our-urban-chicken-coop-plan/

I liked its size and footprint, and I especially liked the small pen underneath the house, where the chickens could safely get some fresh air if it was raining or there were predators about.  When playing around with the specifications and paper mock-ups, I ended up moving the chicken door from the end to the side, because I felt it worked better with the Fairfield and garden layout.

The vertical pieces were cut from some left-over board and batten.  The roof, floor, ramps and doors were cut from plain basswood.  All exterior wood, except for the ramps, was 1/16" thick.  The wood for the ramps and interior pieces was 1/32" thick.  I used model railroad lumber (mostly HO 6x2's) for the trim.

Once the pieces were cut, I gave them an initial coat of paint and weighted them down so they could dry flat.  I wanted a red hen house with white trim, but I also wanted it to go with the house, so I used the same paint I had used on the Fairfield's windows and doors.  The red does not cover well and ended up taking about four coats total.

The nesting boxes were made from 1/32 x 5/8 basswood strips, with another strip of model railroad lumber as a lip to hold in the straw.  Chickens don’t sleep in their nests (or aren't supposed to), so they can share nesting boxes. Who knew? 

Recently, I got to meet a couple of other half-scale miniaturists at Peg's Dollhouse's annual parking lot sale.  Debora (dalesq over on Greenleaf) brought me the sweetest little miniature nest she had made. 

I contacted her about whether she had anything sized for a chicken, and she very kindly explained that chickens don't really build nests like other birds.  Their "nests" are really just a heap of straw with an indentation.  For the straw, I took inspiration from a picture Debora had posted on Greenleaf forums.  She used sisal twine to make a very realistic-looking half scale straw broom.  Regular straw is much too big for half scale, but I liked the look of the sisal "straw."  I untwisted a length of twine and snipped off the ends in 1/4 - 3/8" pieces. 

I then mixed it with a little matte ModPodge, shaped it a bit with my fingers, stuck it into the boxes, then pressed down in the center with the rounded end of a paint brush to try to create a little indentation.

I scattered some straw on the floor as well and stuck it down with a small amount of matte ModPodge for Paper.  Even though I'm obviously not dealing with paper, I find that this sticks small items together quite well without creating a sheen.  I also added some drops of white paint on the floor for, well, you know.

I added a few eggs made from polymer clay.  All the eggs were initially white.  I used a brown wash to color the brown eggs.

Normally, the top of the nesting boxes would cover the entire box structure; I made mine a little narrower so that you can see the eggs when looking down from the top.

I had to finish the front separately from the rest of the house, in part because I needed to be able to get in do things (like attach the interior ramp) and in part because I knew I would need to do some drilling for the hinges, and that's so much easier to do when the piece is lying flat.  I used some left-over hinges from my Merrimack trap door for the hen house door, and a small metallic bead and sequin pin for the knob.  Would love to have done a hook and eye, but I couldn't quite make a set small enough. 

The remaining doors (the chicken door and the door to the screened in area) don't actually work.  However, mid-way through the build, Sherrill posted her miniature club's fabulous chicken coop project, and I experienced some serious envy when I saw her pulley system for the chicken door.  It was too late for me to modify mine, but I rigged up a faux pulley system with a little bitty watch part, a brad, and some size 80 ecru crochet thread.

The "chicken wire" is tulle netting.  As mentioned earlier, there's  a little (non-working) gate at the back of the pen.

There are also (non-working) windows for cross-ventilation.

I added some places to roost, as well as adding more straw to the floor.  The roosting to nesting ratio should probably have gone the other way, but I'm still learning about chickens!

 I filled a little half-scale pie tin with honey granules mixed with a little matte ModPodge for "feed."  The water dispenser was also inspired by Sherrill's build—it's two larger clear beads and a smaller clear bead, glued together with superglue to form a "bottle," then inverted into a watch part.  I used tar gel to create the "water."

The roof is removable; it's design was based on the bathroom roof for the Merrimack.  Two cross-wise strips of lumber hold it in place.  (That extra diagonal stripe is just a blemish in the wood.)

I shingled it with some left-over shingles from the Fairfield.  I never used them, because I used the scalloped shingling strips instead.  I was going to paint them gray, but I'm kind of liking the natural color.  What do you think?

Finally, because the plans say that the house can accommodate 3-5 laying hens, I brought in two more chickens—a black and a white.  So cute!  Now there are a lot of good egg layers (and, no, they are not going in the stew pot!).  

I'll probably need to add some landscaping underneath, but this is where it's going.  You can see why I wanted to move the chicken door.

And here is Effie, gathering some eggs.  Wonder what she's going to bake?

Oh, and that rooster?  He's on his way.  😊

Have a great week, everyone!  Thanks for stopping by.