Coop

Well we have started our coop design. After consulting with our neighbors and checking with bylaw enforcement. The neighbors are fine with and actually seemed pretty excited. Not sure if it's that we are getting chickens or that they know the extra eggs have to go somewhere. The bylaw guy was pretty good. Even thou technically we are not supposed to have chickens, he said that if the neighbors are fine with it and he gets no complaints there shouldn't be any problems.

We are still figuring out a design for the coop. I am planning on using a flower bed in our backyard. The bed is raised 4" up, about 4" wide and 20" long. The coop will be built beside the bed which will be converted into a giant run. I'm hoping I can figure out a way to section it. Then I can seed it with grass and alternate the sides the chickens use so it won't get really muddy.

We ran into a little problem that thankfully my wife was able to solve. My buddy and I were in full design mode trying to figure out the dimensions. I had tape measures out on the floor so I could roughly see the shape. I had read that we would need about 2 square feet per bird. We want 4 birds so we need 8 square feet. I'm blaming it on excitement but I can't speak for my buddy as he works in construction. I came to the conclusion that to get our 8 square feet we needed an 8'x8' foot coop. If you lay out your tape measures 8'x8' that is a huge coop!

Mr. Construction pipes up and says it looks way to big...let's just make it 6'x6' so it's a little smaller and more manageable (still a huge coop). Thankfully my wife walked in and asked what the tape measures were for. I told her, and she looked at both of us and calmly said to make an 8 square foot coop we only need a 4'x2'. The light finally came one and we realized our mistake. Embarrassed, we redesigned the coop and decided to build it 4'x6'. That's still a good-sized coop and it will fit in our old raised flower bed that our dogs have destroyed. Where would I be with out my ever so patient wife?

My buddy did redeem himself today when he called. His job site had a bunch of scrap wood to get rid of. I now have a truck full of factory cut and kiln dried lumber. Mostly 6x1s and 2 giant sheets of pressure treated plywood, enough to fill the bed of my F150. We now have all the material we needed except for 1/4 inch mesh and I haven't spent a dime yet. You can't argue with free.

Backyard Chickens

I've decided to raise chickens. The wife isn't quite sure of the idea but she is willing to go along and I'm sure she is hoping she won't regret it.

This all started when we went to the local hardware store to get a few things for the house. The store has a feed section where they carry horse tack, feed, and farm accessories. I couldn't help overhearing a constant peeping coming from the corner, so the wife and I went to investigate. There was a giant watering tub full of young chicks (pullets, which I learned about later). They were adorable! We both looked at each other and said we need to get some. We didn't buy any that moment but it started the ball rolling.

We live about an hour east of Vancouver. Vancouver has recently passed a bylaw allowing "Urban Chickens". I figure if they can, why can't I? We talked it over, discussed the pros and cons, even mentioned it to some friends. My buddy was really inclined to help. So I began to search the bylaws of my city. Think I could find anything about chickens? Nope. I ended up reading 300 pages of zoning bylaws. Well I didn't read them all...I read a large section of it and by scanning it I found out the following: To be allowed "chickens" you have to be zoned as Rural, Rural residential, or Sub Urban. I soon discovered that I was zoned for Urban Residential. No chickens. Apparently we are only allowed to have a green house in the backyard. Given the dimensions of the green house it listed, it would be tons of room for 4 chickens. Looking into it more a report was done in 2009 to find the pros and cons of allowing chickens in the Urban Residential Zone. Nothing was changed as council was going wait until the city of Vancouver decided on their bylaws first. Since nothing has been done after Vancouver's vote, I have decided to do it anyways.