At one month old, our chicks still fit into their brooder, but quarters are starting to get cramped.  So we're beginning to get more serious about putting the finishing touches on the starplate coop to ready it for move-in day.

While Mark worked on gutters and popholes Tuesday, I took over the door step in front of the coop.  The deep bedding system is a great way to manage manure, but it does make doors difficult to close since bedding tends to push through the opening.  For this coop, we opted to raise the doors up above the eventual height of the bedding, then to add a door step to hold the bedding in place (and to keep chicks from running under the door while the bedding is low).  Sinking cinderblocks partway into the soil behind the door seemed to do the trick, but only time will tell how they'll hold up to daily traffic.

I figure we'll be 100% finished with the coop the first time a chick starts scratching where it shouldn't.  Nothing like a living deadline to finish up a complicated project.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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